Strength Skills
Hand to Hand Armed (Blunt; Edged, Long; Edged, Short; Energy Blade; Hafted; Martial Arts; Special; Vibro Blade)
This skill is used to make hand-to-hand combat attacks with any number of close-combat weapons. These specialties are broken up into different weapon groups based on the tactics normally employed by weapons of a particular size or style. Energy blades covers laserswords and lightswords. Vibro blade covers short or long bladed weapons that have been modified with vibro or force units. If one has skill in the appropriate bladed weapon, they can use a vibro weapon as an associated skill (-2 to the attack roll), however, the vibro specialty is intended to make the best use of these weapons with “power steering,” and the vibro skill itself does not allow one proficiency with any weapon. Instead, a character’s rating with vibro weapons will be the max level he can apply his long/short edged weapons skills when using vibro weapons.
Hand to Hand Unarmed (Brawling, Advanced Martial Arts)
Sometimes you’ll get in a scrape when you simply don’t have any weapons handy, or you might just want to rough somebody up without killing them. You don’t always want to whip out your laser pistol to deal with a drunk at the bar. Brawling is rough and dirty fighting. There is no real organization to it other than taking advantage of openings when you find them and using whatever is handy to your advantage. As such, brawling may take advantage of improvised weapons (beer bottles, brass knuckles, chairs, pool cues, etc.). There are numerous types of advanced martial arts (see page XX for rules on crafting your own and page XX for sample styles). Martial arts have various maneuver groups, and attacks with martial arts may have attack/defense bonuses or deal extra damage. Brawlers have none of this, but they are tough; every level of brawling will allow the character to reduce CT damage from unarmed or melee attacks by 1 (to a minimum of 1). You can’t really learn brawling in the dojo; if your character has skill in brawling, you can figure he probably learned it the hard way by getting in plenty of fights over the years.
Swim
The swim skill determines how fast a character can move in water; does he know the breast stroke, or is he limited to the dog paddle? Other feats like diving or rescuing someone who is drowning may call for a swim check.
