Unarmed Combat

Version 0.33: This article is up to date for the latest stable release of Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup.

The Unarmed Combat (UC) skill determines the effectiveness of all attacks made with your character's fists, claws, tentacles, and other forelimbs. It increases the damage, accuracy, and speed of your unarmed attacks. It does not boost auxiliary attacks, except for the off-hand punch done without a shield.

Your fists do not normally benefit from weapon brands and definitely don't have artefact properties. However, training Unarmed Combat gives a special bonus to base damage, and can benefit from talisman forms.

Aptitudes

At	Ba	Co	DE	Dg	Ds	Dj	Dr	Fe	Fo	Gr	Gn	Hu	Ko	Mf	Mi	MD	Mu	Na	Op	On	Po	Re	Sp	Te	Tr	VS
-1	1	-1	-2	-1	-1	0	0	0	0	0	8	0	0	1	1	0	-2	0	0	-1	-3	1	-2	1	0	0

Useful Info

Base stats

By default, Unarmed Combat has a base damage of 3, accuracy of +6, base delay of 1.0 decaAut, and a mindelay of 0.5 decaAut (reached at 27 skill). UC itself functions like any other melee weapon, though your fists cannot be enchanted or branded normally.

While using Unarmed Combat, Manifold Assault only strikes half as many targets, and the damage formula for Detonation Catalyst is changed.

Skill bonuses

Each level of Unarmed Combat gives different benefits than other weapon skills:

• Damage: Each level of UC adds +1 to base damage, which is then multiplied by strength and Fighting, instead of the usual +2% per level boost.
• Attack speed: Unarmed starts at 1.0 delay, and reaches its mindelay of 0.5 at 27 skill. This means that every 5.4 levels of UC reduces attack delay by 0.1 decaAut, and each level of UC reduces delay by ~0.0185 decaAut) - this is worse than regular weapons. Like other weapons, this is rounded to the tenths place in the weighted fashion.
• Increases offhand punch damage and its chance to activate.
• The to-hit boost is the same as other weapon skills (+0.5 to-hit per level).

Offhand punch

Offhand punches are an auxiliary attack. Most species are unable to use the offhand punch unless their offhand is empty, which means not wearing a shield or wielding a two-handed weapon. In addition, you can't make these punches in Flux Form or Serpent Form. Octopodes get tentacle slaps instead of offhand punches, and may slap even when their offhand is occupied.

If offhand punches/slaps are available, then increasing Unarmed skill increases the chance of an attack. At 0 skill, you have a 5% chance per attack to throw a punch, at 27 skill, you have a 50% chance. It scales linearly, meaning you are 1.67% more likely to proc a punch per skill level.

Offhand punch damage equals:

5 + (UC / 2)
+ 1d3 × Claws rank
+ 6 under Blade Form

Damage Modifiers

Unarmed Combat's base damage is modified by most transformations, as well as the Claws mutation. In addition, many transformations have other special effects.

General Modifiers

Condition	Damage	Special
Base damage	3	N/A
Claws	+2 × level	Wearing gloves negates this Revenant: Claws 1, Troll: Claws 3
Felid	5	Works well for stabbing

Talisman Forms:

Form	Dmg	Skill Range	Special
Base (No Form)	3
Maw Form	5		Bite auxiliary attack
Yak Form	7		Attacking near walls deals cold damage
Blade Form	15-23	12-20	Buffs off-hand punch
Fortress Crab Form	8-13	12-20
Serpent Form	10		Constriction
Dragon Form	17-27	17-25	Listed damage includes Claws; +5 STR; aux attacks
Statue Form	8		+50% all melee damage, 50% slower; +7 STR
Storm Form	24-30	23-27	Elec, Cleaving
Death Form	9		All melee can inflict status conditions

For forms that scale with skill, the listed damage range assumes you are at min and max skill, respectively. Going under min skill will reduce damage accordingly.

Other Forms

Form	Damage	Special
Bat Form	1	N/A
Fungus Form	12	Confusion
Pig Form	1	For damage, skill has 1/5 impact
Tree Form	12	N/A
Wisp Form	5	Uses (XL/2) for dmg instead of UC skill

Strategy

Unarmed Combat has three main advantages. You don't need to find a weapon, meaning dungeon RNG can't screw you over. Unarmed Combat scales better with skill, so skill 27 unarmed is one of the strongest things in the game. And unarmed can be boosted further with various talisman forms. The downsides are, as mentioned, the inability to enchant or brand fists, and the poor stats at low skill.

The skill scaling of Unarmed Combat should be put into perspective. At 16 skill:

• Unarmed Combat deals 19 base damage, and attacks a bit slower than 0.7 delay.
• A morningstar deals 17 damage (after M&F skill), and attacks at 0.7 delay. In addition, a morningstar can be enchanted and branded. A +0 morningstar with just about any brand will surpass UC at this skill level.

At high enough skill, Unarmed Combat is around the level of the strongest two-handed weapons (before considering forms). But there is a huge chunk of the game where you are weaker, equal to, or just slightly better than a weapon wielder.

Many forms have high base damage, so you don't need to train that much Unarmed Combat skill to effectively use them. For example, Dragon Form starts at 17 base damage at its minimum skill; not a lot of actual UC skill is required to pulverize your enemies. Of course, you should still train at least some skill, to boost accuracy and speed of your attacks.

History

• Prior to 0.31, Unarmed Combat only had a base accuracy of +2. However, having Claws or being in most transformations provided a hidden extra bonus to accuracy.
• Prior to 0.20, certain forms (Blade Hands, Statue Form, Dragon Form) scaled their unarmed damage with strength.
• Prior to 0.17, unarmed combat attack delay was penalized by body armour. Also, trolls' claws could inflict the now-removed bleeding status.
• Prior to 0.11, Unarmed Combat gave a chance to perform kick and headbutt auxiliary attacks, if you didn't already have Hooves / Horns to do so. The off-hand punch was slightly weaker (5 + UC/3).
• Prior to 0.7, Unarmed Combat improved the performance of your non-punch auxiliary attacks, giving all melee fighters a reason to train it.