Link
J.E. Sawyer says the following:
"If the advantage of firearms is range and damage at the cost of ammo conservation, and the advantage of melee is in reliability and good potential damage from powered weapons at the cost of (usually) range and less overall damage than firearms, then (IMO), the advantage of unarmed should be in flexibility at the cost of range and damage.
The highly skilled unarmed character should always have at least two moves to perform for each AP level between 2 and 10. Because interface limitations can be overcome in a future Fallout title, the unarmed character should have access to half of these attacks with one click-hold-release. Each move should have its own benefits and drawbacks so that a healthy amount of the moves stay useful throughout the game.
The moves could be split into these groups: hand attacks, hand combos, foot attacks, foot combos and hand-foot combos. For example, the character could have Jab, Cross, Uppercut, Elbow Smash, Backhand, Sucker Punch, Spearhand, and Ridgehand as standard hand attacks, each with their own AP cost, bonus or penalty to hit, DT modifier, and damage. However, the character could also gain "two-in-one" combos.
For instance, Jab-Elbow. The combo would do both moves, each at a different hex. The Jab would go into the targeted hex, and the Elbow Smash would go into the hex back and to the right. The combo would cost less AP than both moves individually, but it would be at a lower chance to hit with each attack, and would incur a fatigue cost. Another combo might be Cross-Backhand-Ridgehand, hitting the first hex targeted, the hex to the right, and the hex two more to the right.
Kicks could have the same general layout (with different moves, of course). The kicks don't even have to be crazy wire-fu'ed out. They can just be regular ol' kicks. Snap Kick, Axe Kick, Roundhouse, Back Kick, Side Kick, Hook Kick, etc. You could have the same sorts of combos. Roundhouse-Hook, Side-Back, Snap-Side-Axe.
The most complex combos would only be available when the character was fighting with no equipment in either hand, allowing hand-foot combos that could hit four, five, or even six hexes. Axe-Backhand-Round-Spear, Cross-Round-Back-Jab-Uppercut, Uppercut-Elbow-Side-Axe-Ridge-Spear. The high-skill complex combo unarmed character is like a mobile low-powered grenade, able to hit the hexes he or she wants when he or she wants from round to round. He or she never runs out of ammo, but has to accept that at high efficiency, he or she is accumulating fatigue and doing less damage than a comparable melee or firearms character. But with more than thirty moves to perform at high levels, never needing to equip or reload weapons, the unarmed character has ultimate flexibility for dealing with any close-range encounter with small to very large numbers of opponents.
In addition, it would be nice if the unarmed characters had the opportunity to learn fighting stances that filled the same role as ammo types for firearms characters (hollow point vs. armor piercing, etc.). Say you encounter and become pals with a group of NCR Rangers. One of the benefits of befriending them is that their combat trainer will teach you the NCR Ranger Stance. This stance emphasizes attacking vulnerable locations (automatically lowers defensive DT on hit) at a cost of speed (+1 AP for all moves). The character isn't always animating in that stance -- it's something that's entered (turned on) and either maintained or turned off by going into a normal stance or another stance (Tribal Stance, Puglist Stance, etc.).
EDIT: Oh, and one special move for hands (Disarm) and one special move for feet (Sweep). Disarm has a chance of knocking the weapon out of the target's hands, Sweep has a chance of just knocking them down."
