Unarmed Attacks

An unarmed attack is any attack without a manufactured weapon. This includes a wide variety of things like punches, kicks, scorpion stingers, a tail slap, claws, teeth, and more. There are two sub-categories: natural attacks and strikes.

A natural attack is any sort of biological adaptation you could use for combat, essentially “affixed natural weapons”. These are mostly found on monsters but humanoids can get them sometimes. Any non-humanoid creature can try a “bash” natural attack. This is a general throwing of their weight into a target, though a creature is always Unskilled in its use.

A strike is any sort of unarmed attack by a humanoid, typically using their limbs. Any humanoid can attempt to “smack” (though it could be a punch, kick, slap, etc) their enemy in an unskilled fashion, though they can’t get better than Unskilled in punching. To progress above that you must learn some kind of martial arts style. These allow you to make strikes using the damage profile of that martial arts style.

• Not Manufactured Weapons: Unarmed attacks are not manufactured weapons. This is their primary distinction.
• Proficiency: Proficiency in one kind of unarmed attack does not provide proficiency in any other kind. Being good with boxing doesn’t make you good at wrestling and being skilled with your tail slap doesn’t make you good at biting someone.
• Capped at Unskilled: Remember; “bashing” and “smacking” can’t ever rise above Unskilled. These are, by their very nature, the last resort unskilled application of unarmed force.

The skilled application of unarmed combat is referred to as “martial arts”. You can decide to employ a style of martial arts as a free action once per turn, at the start of your turn. You can only ever benefit from one style of martial arts at a time (though you may learn multiple styles).

A martial arts attack may be made with no concern for handedness or what you are wielding so long as you are not entangled or bound and a part of your body is free enough to deliver lethal force.

A character can learn a martial arts style through class features or feats. Until you gain the capacity to use that style, you cannot utilize it. Each martial arts style has its own proficiency and proficiency with other natural attacks or strikes don’t impact one's proficiency with a martial arts style.