If I take the "Vicious Blow" maneuver with the Brawling martial art, I can then strike with my fists to do physical damage, can I not? My GM seems to believe my fists are not a weapon, and I can therefore not use Vicious Blow with my fists.

So... Can I strike for physical damage, unarmed, with the Vicious Blow maneuver?

No, you need Killing Hands. That's why the power exists, I imagine.

if you read too much into it, then the wording for vicious blow can be confusing--it does say "weapon". however, apply a little common sense--why the hell would it be in the unarmed combat section, if it wasn't intended to be used in unarmed combat?

By the book, no, but Vicious Blow carries enough penalties and hassle that it is entirely reasonable to allow it barehanded. I do.

yeah, well. ten bucks says it gets errata'd. besides, it'd be fairly easy to argue that the bare hands of a trained man are a weapon.

Id say yes. Otherwise, by canon, there would be no way to use the ability with arts that dont allow you to learn styles with weapon skills (such as brawling). The word "weapon" should perhaps be defined clearer, but in order for the allocation of manuvers to work there can be no alternative but to assume that that manuver counts fists as a weapon.

indeed. for instance, it's listed as a maneuver for karate; however, karate (appropriately enough, given the name) does not grant the ability to use maneuvers with weapons. given that, it's safe to say that vicious blow is, indeed, intended for use with unarmed combat.

I'd have to agree. Given the drawbacks, Killing Hands is still many times more valueable than this maneuver, so it doesn't seem at all unbalanced for it to be used in generic unarmed combat.

I could say something mean to MFB right here, but I won't. I hope my restraint is duly noted and appreciated.

I might be mistaken, I looked last night trying to find the rule, but no avail. I seem to remember if you make an unarmed attack and add 4 to the target number you can do physical damage with a regular attack, but you have to call it before the attack. So the vicious blow as a trained skill I see no problem with it.

I think the big distinction is that Killing Hands can harm astral stuff, when coupled with Astral Perception.

Killing hands can do its damage with a caress, can't it?

Vicious blow would require an obvious punch/kick/whatever.

suht up u guyz r mean!!!!!!1111!!!

actually, Italy had both those maneuvers before he got killing hands. vicious blowjob--er, blow--hasn't seen any use, but focus will saved his ass.

The name "viscious blow" was in a martial arts sytem proposal I sent to FASA when they were doing the CC. They eneded up writing the martial arts stuff in hose based on a mishmash of submisions, but my submission (along with writing the skillsoft options, which origianlly were aimed at Man and Machine) was enought to net a contributing author credit.

Anyhow, the whole point of my version of "viscious blow" was to allow an unarmed combatant to do physical dmage with thier fists. Well, not nescesaily with fists- if you are using brawling, I'd expect a "viscious blow" might involve eye gouging, biting, and crushing of nads with any availalbe limb. Its not subtle or delicate, hence the name! I think the printed version pretty well follows this same general idea...