Buffing the Martial Artist: Alternate Unarmed

Unarmed Martial Artists are an option in DF, but they're pretty terrible, for a number of reasons:

1. Thrust damage is terrible, and while they can stack up many +1/die bonuses, those are all from power-ups (Claws (Blunt) and Seven Secret Kicks from DF11, and Fists of Power and Unarmed Master from Pyramid #61, if you use that), and on top of that they still need to buy ST up to 19 (17, if you take the maximum two levels of Striking ST allowed in vanilla DF1) to really start to get much use out of the bonuses.
2. Weapons that parry unarmed attacks deal damage.  This is somewhat fixed if you rule that Trained by a Master allows Martial Artists to ignore this as a special feature (which I do).
3. The need to be at Reach C for punches and judo throws is a significant tactical hurdle.
4. Karate and Judo are Hard skills, and Martial Artists only get starting skill levels of 17 and 16.  Also worth noting is that they'll never get bonuses for Balanced weapons, Accurate enchantments (though this could be ruled to apply to gauntlets), or Weapon Bond.

My first solution was to allow ten levels of Striking ST (Unarmed Only -40%, Chi -10%) [2.5/level], but that still requires 8 levels (and all 20 starting Chi Power points) to get up to a 2d attack, while other templates, like the Barbarian and Knight, get well past 3d base swing damage, thanks to weapon damage and Weapon Master bonuses.

The Power-Up

The new solution that I'll be using going forwards is a crushing innate attack with the ST-Based, Limited enhancement from Power-Ups 4.  It ends up looking like this:

Crushing Innate Attack (Melee Attack, Range C,1 -20%; ST-Based, Limited +30%; Unarmed Only -40%; Chi -10%) [3/level]

This boosts unarmed attack damage to 3d+ for 6 points, and up to 3 levels is probably still okay.

There's still one problem here: the innate attack damage won't do anything if the Martial Artist uses Lethal Strike to target the vitals or eyes, which is something that Sado Con did a lot in his brief time in my game.  That would require an alternate attack, and because ST-Based can't do piercing, we'll have to do impaling instead.  It's probably best to restrict this damage to max 1 level, to bring it in line with how all templates are restricted by low thrusting damage when it comes to targeting the vitals/eyes.

Impaling Innate Attack (Melee Attack, Range C,1 -20%; ST-Based, Limited +30%; On Lethal Strike Only, -60%; Chi-10%) [3.2/level] (0.6/level as an Alternate Ability)

A recommended starting Unarmed Martial Artist will spend 10 points and buy two levels of the Crushing attack and one of the Impaling, allowing them to do 3d+1 cr with normal punches (assuming gauntlets), or 1d pi + 1d imp (just call it 2d pi) with a lethal strike.