By: Xeveniah and Haiken Karushiyu

The unarmed combat warrior has the unique capability of being able to call upon the widest variety of damage types when entering combat. Nekode, Katar, and Cestus are available for slashing, piercing, and bludgeoning, while elemental weapons of all four types are also available. As you gain experience and funds, try to obtain one of each so you can exploit each creature's particular weakness.

As far as skills training and development goes, DEFINITELY get Melee Defense as a specialized skill in addition to Unarmed Combat. You spend so much time right up in the face of critters that your rating goes up pretty rapidly, and this will enable you to take on multiple creatures at a time as you grow in your levels and skills. Other important trained skills are missile defense, magic defense, and arcane lore.

The formula for Missile Defense is based on the same attributes (Coordination and Quickness) as Melee Defense, but is divided by 5 instead of 3 so it starts out lower and rises more slowly as you raise your attributes. When you are engaging groups of creatures, such as drudges, monougas, mosswarts, skeletons, etc., keep an eye out for any of them that are using missile weapons (javelins, shouken, clubs, etc.) and either draw the other creatures out of missile range, or attack the missile-hurling creature first. Skeleton archers, for example, will do quite a bit of damage for their relatively low level, so strap on a blood-drinking cestus (bludgeoning) and go after them first. Tumerok archers are even more dangerous (duh!). You can also improve your missile defense by spending experience points to increase it (if it's a trained skill), and through Impenetrability spells (make friends with a mage!), clothes, armor or jewelry.

Magic Defense becomes important if you're going to stand up to casting creatures such as golems, shamans, fragments, and shadows (yikes!). Since you probably spent few attribute points on Focus and Self (in order to concentrate them on Strength, Endurance, Coordination and Quickness), you likely have a low Magic Defense. Again, if it's a trained skill, you can spend experience points to move the rating up (more cheaply than trying to increase Focus and Self), and you can also use Magic Resistance spells, clothes, armor or jewelry.

If you know a particular creature tends to use certain types of spells, you may be able to use specific defense against that element. For example, if you keep getting flame bolted by those annoying wasps, you can use Fire Protection and Flame Bane items to reduce the damage from that element. Likewise, you can counteract the type of melee damage it does with Blade Bane (slashing), Piercing Protection, Bludgeoning Protection, etc. So, let's say you're on the Mayoi beach and you notice there's a lot of Mud and Water Golems around today. You can put on your Bludgeoning Protection Self amulet, Magic Resistance Self bracelet, Cold Resistance Self bracelet, Acid Protection Self pants, Fire Protection Self shirt, and your Blood Drinker Nekode and you're all set to go!

Finally, on the subject of Arcane Lore, this rating will be low for the same reasons as Magic Defense. Use experience points to raise this. Why? Well, if you're going to use most Level II spell items, you will need at least 42 points here, and 56 seems to cover most such items. An even higher rating will be necessary for Level III items.