Well, I obviously couldn't consider myself a martial art master but I did study it for 8 years, and I realise that a martal artists defense against someone with a cutting weapon like a katana is rather flimsy, most of our blocks involve taking some of the force of the hit while simultaneously moving the hand/leg away from our body, with a blade you could lose an arm doing that. Any attack a martial artist would do would leave him insanely vulnerable, a simple side kick would leave your leg exposed for just a half second, not easily exploitable by a martial artist, but a swordsman could easily cut and cripple the person.

Arguments?

Martial arts.

There are other forms of hand to hand combat that do not require so much focus on absorbing contact and.or aggressively attacking your opponent. An experienced hand-to-hand fighter has surely spent a significant amount of time learning how to fight against someone with a weapon, right? So he would know better than either of us how to handle himself against even a master swordsman. I would imagine that the focus would be on dodging attacks rather than deflecting and absorbing them. You mention that even a brief attack leaves an opening . . . this applies to the swordfighter as well, doesn't it? I think ultimately both guys would know how to survive, but as soon as one guy gets an advantage he will probably be able to use that to win the fight. I'm not saying the swordfighter doesn't have an advantage, I just don't think his advantage is as big as you feel it is.

What you don't understand is Martal arts were not designed to go against someone with a weapon, they were designed to defend oneself in hand to hand combat with someone else using hand to hand. That's a fact, theres a reason martial artists learn to use weapons, to defend themselves against people with weapons.

Yes the swordfighter will have a brief (briefer than the martial artists in most cases) moment of vulnerability, but the martial artists has far FAR less tools to exploit this, if martial arts was as effective against armed as you think it is, it would have been utilized on the field, fact is hand to hand is never going to be anywhere near as effective as armed combat, you sacrafice Damage, defense and range to a huge degree, the only advantage you have is a small amount of speed that is FAR out weighed by the exponential amounts of damge and defense you lose, not to mention how crucial range is.

If you can get up close to a swordsman, then you are close enough to knock him down/tackle him. Also, a swordsman who's charging is vulnerable to all sorts of counter moves. The careful defensive swordsman would be hardest to do anything against with your hands.



I never played Assasin's Creed. I really don't care about hand to hand weapon types so much as compared to hand to hand moves. I was just saying that weapons are ok, but moves is king.

We're talking about an expert swordsman here. Any expert swordsman would understand how to keep an unarmed opponent at a distance with ease. Also an expert swordsman isn;t gonna rush forward sword in the air yelling a war cry.

Who cares its a game we should be able to fight how we want. So yes the hand to hand guy can and should be able to win.

Lol some of you people are delusional. There simply is no way in hell to justify the argument that "unarmed > armed", or even that an armed person wouldn't have much of an advantage. You need look no further than the entire history of the human race, where there's a reason people always went into battle armed if they could. That said I'm all for cool hand to hand fighting in Skyrim.

Well, In TES you'd be dealing with both cases: both the kamikaze swordsman and the defensive fencer. And often times, in a crowded battle, a warlord would want his troops swinging more. Especially when the purpose is to train cannon fodder grunt soldiers to take ground. Those people are trained to be offensive, not to fence. And not every sword wielder gets quality training.

Along with being able to enchant Gauntlets with not just passive but offensive enchantments as well

One thing I'd love to see would be something a la deadly reflex where you are going up against an enemy and then plow the pommel of your saber in the guy's face or deliver an upper cut. That would offer alot of diversity, but I don't think we'll see it just due to the complexity it would bring. As for other hand to hand moves, I'd love a neck snap...

My thoughts:

Hand to Hand should have gauntlets/gloves effecting damage and should be able to get enchanted, or maybe the option of having attachments that you can find in random loot. And a way to poison others would be nice too.

Also if it's not too hard to implement is a pokemon type thing where blade>h2h, h2h>blunt, blunt>blade. Justifications:
For a swordsman to not beat a h2h means that the swordsman must be an idiot and the unarmed person a pro, the h2h person would at best have there hands cut off. H2H>blunt because it is actually possible to fend off a heavy blunt weapon carrier and then attack while they are recoiling and they can't recover. Blunt>blade because thats whats left lol.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h__CdPeJoXo

The swordsman still has to come close enough to strike , and then the master at hand to hand will be able to disarm his sword quite easily.

I already responded earlier, but I just have something else to add. It would be a good thing if a hand to hand expert had very little chance against a master swordsman who is too smart to swing haymakers. But with the addition of magic, a hand to hand expert would only need to temporarily stun the swordsman with a short range spell just for a split second and he's in. Bang. Hand to hand is a viable skill even against the masters. Not every tactic works in every situation (e.g. running in for the tackle against an expert fencer). But there is always another tactic that can work (e.g. stun, then run for the tackle).

With a dagger sure you have to get close, with a Claymore that's 6 feet long it's a whole different story though.

Still though, a master at hand to hand combat could get around that and easily take him down, remember a claymore takes some amount of strength to swing, and your going to be open to all kinds of attacks after a swing.