Martial ArtsReport
English：Martial Arts · Game Mechanics
The skill a character fights with when their hands are empty. It has the highest single-hit damage in the game, paid for with very short reach and with recoil damage that hurts non-Skeletons who punch metal. It is also the only "weapon" that gains new attacks as the skill goes up.
Martial Arts is the combat skill a character uses with empty hands. The in-game description treats it as something close to lost knowledge: warriors of this age consider unarmed fighting a last resort, because at equal skill an unarmed man is at a huge disadvantage against an armed one. The same description leaves a door open, with stories of high-level masters who can match any swordsman bare-handed.
What it is good at, and what it costs
Martial Arts has the largest single-hit damage output in the game, offset by very short reach and slow animations. The underlying melee resolution is covered in Combat.
Three points that are commonly misread:
- Dexterity does not raise Martial Arts damage. It only affects attack speed. The damage comes from Martial Arts, Strength and Toughness.
- Fighting indoors gives Martial Arts +8, while Heavy Weapons and Polearms take a penalty there.
- The Harpoon damage type used by crossbows and turrets has nothing to do with this skill.
Recoil: hitting people hurts you too
This is the rule that kills the most new martial artists. A non-Skeleton takes recoil damage on every landed hit, scaled by the armour material on the body part they struck:
| Part that was hit | Cut recoil | Stun recoil |
|---|---|---|
| Bare, cloth or leather (or armour that fails to cover) | 0 | 1 − (Martial Arts + Toughness) × 0.005 |
| Chain | 1 − (Martial Arts + Toughness) × 0.005 | Same |
| Metal plates, or a Skeleton of any kind | 2 − (Martial Arts + Toughness) × 0.01 | Same |
Put numbers into those lines and the threshold falls out: at 200 combined Martial Arts and Toughness both formulas reach zero. Before that there are two shortcuts. One is robot limbs, which take no recoil. The other is gear with fist protection, and although the percentage is written on the arms it applies to every limb.
Skeletons take no recoil at all, which makes them martial artists at almost no investment. Going the other way, a non-Skeleton always deals a flat 0.6× damage to robots, whatever their level and whatever limbs they wear.
The attacks unlock as you level
Martial Arts is the only "weapon" in the game that gains new attacks as its skill rises. A beginner has one weak left hook (Bad Punch), Kicklow arrives at level 5 and can only reach an opponent's chest, stomach and legs, and Shotei, the straight palm strike, unlocks at 15. Higher up, the early attacks are discarded and never used again.
Encumbrance also gates the moves: above a technique's encumbrance limit, the character cannot perform it. A few techniques sit above 100, which means they are always available.
How to train it
Martial Arts follows Stronger Opponent Logic like the other combat skills, so experience comes from fighting somebody better than you. See Statistics and Skills.
That makes the fastest training method a counter-intuitive one: wear gear that lowers Martial Arts, then over-encumber yourself. Every fight becomes long and ugly, and the experience per fight goes up. Gear that raises the skill — Martial Artist Bindings, Gi, Gi Pants, Assassin's Rags, Ninja Rags, Sleeveless Dustcoat — makes fights easier and training slower.
The hard cap is around 100.77. The only characters who go past it are a handful of NPCs who spawn above 101 already, and none of them can be recruited.
Who fights this way
Tinfist, who leads the Anti-Slavers, is the best known martial artist in the game. He carries no weapon and names his own teacher as Gatwood the Soft, the founder of modern martial arts. A sizeable share of the Anti-Slavers fight unarmed as well.
In the wild, Fishmen and the Alpha Gurgler carry neither weapon nor armour and fight entirely with Martial Arts, and every member of the Gorrillo Bandits except their leader does the same.