unarmed skill questions

[alrond]

Hi there,

I have a few questions regarding unarmed skill:

I know certain monsters require magic weapons, what about unarmed weapon skill? Are unarmed attacks considered mundane or magic, or does it depend on gloves worn, skill level or something else?

According to the manual, unarmed attacks are comparable to blunt weapon attacks. if so, what blunt weapon can they compared with damage wise? played around with it a little and unarmed damage seems lower than any weapon damage.

[Getharn]

I'm not sure of the answer to your specific questions, because I haven't used the unarmed skill myself, but just to check you're aware that if you press 'S' it brings up your stats screen, which includes an indication of the maximum damage you'd do with your currently equipped weapon. You should be able to use this to directly compare actual damage unarmed and with a weapon, which might remove some of the uncertainty as compared with looking at actual damage caused.

[AK_Marty]

I have never used unarmed combat against enemies, just for bashing chests and doors. Any weapon will break after enough chest bashing, but with one point in unarmed you can bash away without penalty.

[alrond]

I had only put a single point into unarmed skill once to smash chests (just as one of the replies suggests) but noticed then that the damage displayed on the stats screen was well below that of untrained weapons I had found. Not sure if even the basic dagger did more damge but pretty sure it wasn't less. Was an early attempt that didn't last too long.

So was wondering if anyone had actually built a character with unarmed skill and could tell if damage stayed that far behind weapons or went up with more skill points invested.

And of course the question re monsters that require magic weapons remains.

I fancy trying an unarmed character but would be rather nice to get a definite answer to those questions before investing the time to level sufficiently just to find out the damage stays that low and unarmed can't touch magic only critters... Maybe Basilisk can shed some light on this?

[CSR]

To kill a magical creature, e.g. Poltergeists, you need, according to the text message, a "weapon or magickal enhancement capable of inflicting bonus damage".

I tried to kill a Poltergeist with one of my characters, Unarmed Weapon Skill 5, and I had to wear one of the following items to inflict damage at all:

- Iron Gauntlets of the Warlord (+2 Damage)
- Evil Amulet (+1 Damage)
- Ring of the Assassin (+2 Damage)

[alrond]

To kill a magical creature, e.g. Poltergeists, you need, according to the text message, a "weapon or magickal enhancement capable of inflicting bonus damage".

I tried to kill a Poltergeist with one of my characters, Unarmed Weapon Skill 5, and I had to wear one of the following items to inflict damage at all:

- Iron Gauntlets of the Warlord (+2 Damage)
- Evil Amulet (+1 Damage)
- Ring of the Assassin (+2 Damage)

Thanks, so the ability to hit magical creatures with a melee attack depends on ANY +dmg item, not just adds on the weapon. Had expected it to be magic gloves for unarmed dmg or a general skill cap for conversion into magic dmg attacks. Do you happen to know how unarmed dmg progresses if you raise skill, is it +1 every 5 skill levels? In terms of dmg it seems far behind any other weapon skill, even short blades.

[krisklef]

I haven't done any math on it, but I can vouch for the relative ineffectiveness of unarmed combat as you progress. My second character was unarmed and after I got the skill up to ~15, it seemed like I was consistently doing less damage than my cleaving character had been. My Strength and Speed were both similar between characters, so unless Concentration matters for unarmed, then my guess is it advances more slowly or something.