I just started an unarmed character and he was just pathetic. He was getting killed by a bunch of mantises. Are there any mods that make these 2 skills good?

how about we start a discussion of what you'd like to see? im in a VERY early stage of planning for something to level the field for unarmed/melee and would like to get ideas. also, if someone who actually knows how to do this right reads this, they might decide to do it instead

currently im looking at making unarmed more of a disabler/defensive style while melee focuses more on damage and knockdowns. unarmed would have a chance to disable depending on the body part hit. so head would knockout or blind (dont know yet how to simulate this), arms would disarm, legs knockdown, and of course, a chance to cripple any limb hit. see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsJ5s6CKmog for inspiration. melee is more straightforward, damage dealing and knocking down. the idea is that melee/unarmed fighters can dominate opponents when they come into their range.

a core concept in my idea is pitting stats/skills of opponents against each other. in vanilla, for example, the super slam perk gives a 15 or 30 % chance to knockdown. that means that a 1 STR, 10 melee fighter has the same chance as a 10 STR, 100 melee fighter of knocking down either a 1 END, 10 melee or 10 END, 100 melee opponent. i like something like the D&D system of "saving throws" and "Difficulty class" so that a 1 END guy hit by a sledgehammer is more likely to go down than a 10 END guy.

In any case, i recommend you keep an eye on Asimov's melee mod (thread somewhere on this page as of writing) that imposes penalties on ranged fighters fighting in melee range. also, Arwen's Realism Tweaks gives blunt weapons a chance to knockout enemies as well.

Get some knuckles. You'll do fine.

Ok.
How about riot shields that even up the fight against range

i should note, i remember people saying melee was actually op in vanilla but since im using damage increasing and no hp increase/lvl mods, melee/unarmed really needs the boost.

i remember seeing a discussion about shields. it wasnt optimistic.

In the CRPGs Bards Tale 1 - Tales of the Unknown, Bards Tale 2 - Destiny Knight and Bards Tale 3 - The Thief of Fate,
if you played a Monk, you'd get insane Armor Class for the less armor you wore, put on a suit of Armor and your AC dropped from +20 to +2

Norbingel, is there any type of "Dodge" skill that could get higher and higher as the person increased their Unarmed skill?

Sure, you'd probably have to do the old Morrowind Grind of "Punch rats in Balmora" in order to level up against non gun-toting
mobs, but I feel the Unarmed skill should deal with more than just having Two different punch options available.

SO maybe as the Unarmed skill is raised, maybe at 10, 20 , 30 , 40 etc DT goes up +1? or .5?
and/OR if there's some type of Dodge variable or something that increases the "Miss Factor" of Mobs against you...

Just tossing that out there

as ive mentioned, i wanted stats and skills to matter beyond just being perk reqs. so my idea of a "dodge" chance really does increase as unarmed increases.

however its not in the concept of a DT or resisting damage, but avoiding it entirely just like the AC of my monk character that made her really hard to hit at all. the only way to do that that i can think of right now is by a script healing the damage "dodged". also im thinking of tying dodge to agility by making the player lose AP equal to the damage "dodged" or skill of the opponent used.

again, im just in the early stages of planning and the actual execution might take more than my meager skills. though the GECK forum guys have been very helpful

I like your way of thinking, I think it should be like that too, the only mod I can think of that "sort of, kind of at least makes you feel like skills mean something"
is the mod "Skill based Perks" where certain perks are completely removed from the list of perks you can choose from,
and instead you get those perks when you reach a certain level in each skill.

For example, when you reach 70 in repair, you get the Jury Rig perk.

I know it's NOT what you're talking about, but right now, it's the only one I can think of that, (as I said) "sort of kind of" gives you that
feeling that Skills are tied to "skills" and actually mean something



But could that happen fast enough to avoid an unnecessary death?
I.E. you use a heal script to negate the damage, as if it was a "Dodge", your character has 24 hit points left and gets hit for 28 points of damage, now your heal script checks and kicks in,
is the game going to do the slow motion death, or is the script going to act fast enough to keep you alive?

That's why SPECIAL throws me off so much in these games, Agility in this game really only gives you more AP, and gives you bonuses to lockpicking,
in most other CRPGS it affects your Ranged Hit Chance, your Dodge Chance, and even Armor Class, nice stuff like that.
I don't even think that Agility affects your DT in the slightest in this game....I think it should.

As it stands, I could learn all those special moves and have 100 in unarmed, but getting from point A to Point B (where the Raider with the 100 Submachine gun is)
is pretty much impossible.

I think Agility and unarmed should affect DT in some way, unless there's some type of global thing that could be applied to enemies that
just make them miss more often or gives them the probability of missing more often the higher and higher your unarmed skill and agility become.
Maybe even make it a factor or combination of all three, Agility, Melee and Unarmed if at all possible.

all this talk about dodging has got me wondering if it would to possible to add "dodge moves" like in oblivion. Those moves saved my char's ass plenty of times vs. archers (i used a mod that greatly increased bow/arrow dmg). I imagine it would be even more useful in NV, since most enemies are ranged attackers.

Also, while the vanilla dodge moves bothered me, the mod Deadly Reflexes changed the animations (and i believe tweaked the mechanics) of the dodge moves so they weren't big leaps from side to side, but more of a spin/side-step. which would be perfect for NV, imo.


EDIT: after watching the movie Ninja Assassin today, another move that would be great for unarmed would be a "ninja vanish" type move- where you disappear and reappear behind the enemy. this would, of course, only be available with really high level skills/agility (and maybe the ninja perk).

only suggesting because i guess ninja/martial artist is where norbingel is going with his unarmed/melee mod.

again, im only in the very early stages of planning. but the dodge animation and ninja vanish things are beyond my very humble skills at the moment. most of the ideas i have so far can be achieved only by simple IF (attacker skill factor + attribs factor) > (defender skill factor + attribs factor) THEN give an effect. Also, a ninja-ish path is one of the things im considering because id rather the styles werent limited. the others so far are a drunker master type (tank-like when drunk), straight up Bruiser (damage path for unarmed), and a blade or blunt path for melee. there were others but i cant find the piece of paper i wrote them on since i literally wrote them down while in court

@Occam
yeah i think that's a known issue with healing damage taken. if its enough to kill, the heal wont save you. or at least it was an issue when i last used the Impervious Power Armor mod in FO3. Its goal was to achieve a DT effect by healing the damage that was taken. another issue it had was somehow restoring more HP (about 1 more in my experience) than the damage taken. i was going to look at IPA again to implement dodge here. I think that increasing DT just before taking damage could work to simulate dodge as well but i dont know how that could be done because i think that increasing DT OnHit wouldnt work for the hit that triggered it.