Brawling (DX/E): At DX+2, add +1 per die to damage (punch, kick, etc.). +1 to damage if using a "fist load" (sap, etc.). Parry two different attacks per turn (one per hand) but -3 vs. non-thrusting weapon attacks.
Judo (DX/H): Parry two different attacks per turn at full Parry (no -3 vs. weapons). Retreat gives +3 Parry. On the turn after a parry, you can throw your opponent if they're within 1 yard. You can sub your Judo skill for most combat DX rolls.
Karate (DX/H): At DX, add +1 per die to punch damage, +2 per die at DX+1. Parry two different attacks per turn at full Parry (no -3 vs. weapons). Retreat gives +3 Parry.
Sumo Wrestling (DX/A): Used for grapple, slam, shove, and takedown. At DX+1, add +1 to ST for grapple, takedown, and breaking free, and +1 per die to damage with slam/shove; +2 at DX+2. Parry -2 vs. kicks, only one parry per turn, -3 vs. weapons.
Wrestling (DX/A): Used for grapples and takedowns. At DX+1, add +1 to ST for choke, grapple, neck snap, takedown, pin, and breaking free; +2 ST at DX+2. Parry as Sumo Wrestling.
Note that "Judo" is a general skill for soft martial arts, "Karate" for
hard. So Karate covers kenpo, kung fu, thai boxing, etc., and Judo
covers aikido, etc.
Boxing, Judo and Karate give you +3 Parry when using Retreat with your
defense (moving away 1 yard as they strike, or up to 1/10 your Move, as a
step).
Check out the special unarmed techniques on Campaigns pages 403-404, and Martial Arts if you can.
Basically, a martial artist should have a grappling skill (Judo,
Wrestling) and a striking skill (Karate, Boxing, Brawling). Judo and
Karate are mostly superior.
If you want to be equal to weapon-using PCs, you pretty much need GURPS Martial Arts. It also just plain adds depth.
In short:
Trained by a Master: Cinematic fighter. Expensive but needed for ki, charambara, and utterly insane stunts.
Then there are three tiers of unarmed skills.
Expert tier: The two expert tier skills are meant to enable you
to have a chance to go head to head with weapon users. If you aren't
parrying with one of these you take -3 to parry vs weapons, which is a
pretty huge penalty as parry is based on half skill (for a skill of 16
it lowers a parry of 11 to a parry of 8 on 3d6; the wrong side of the
bell curve).
Judo: Throws and grapples. Dodge the enemy sword, throw them over your shoulder, put them in a joint lock to take away the sword.
Karate: Punches and kicks. And dodging swords.
Intermediate Tier: These skills are mostly for unarmed vs unarmed combat.
Amateur Tier:Boxing: A boxer is as good at punching and dodging punches as a karate expert of the same skill, and it takes them fewer points to reach a given skill level. But has problems against kicks and is almost useless against weapons. Basically a limited version of karate.
Wrestling: Wrestling is to judo as boxing is to karate. A limited version costing fewer points that doesn't come with the reactive throw and is only really useful in unarmed combat.
Sumo Wrestling: A wrestling variant focused on slams and shoves. But seriously, it's designed for sumo wrestlers.
Brawling: A brawler can hit people in a bar fight or wield a broken bottle or knuckle dusters. Strictly for amateurs - if you have a couple of points to dump but it isn't that important to your character take Brawling. (One point gains you the ability to parry with each hand, two points gain you +1 to hit and you can get +1 damage from an improvised weapon, four points gain a further +1 to hit and +1 damage).
A lot of unarmed combatants mix either Judo with Boxing or even Brawling (so they can still punch someone out if they need to) or Karate with Wrestling (so if grappled they are still effective) but only go for one of the two top tier skills as the main advantage they hold is that you can parry weapons without penalty using them.
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