Remove magical damage boosts for unarmed combat

[kevingranade]

Summary

SUMMARY: Balance "Remove magical damage boosts for unarmed combat"

Purpose of change

I was reviewing the damage calculations for melee combat, and these effects jumped out at me as totally egregious. First, we double the effective skill level if you aren't wielding a weapon, which makes no sense whatsoever. Then we simply add that doubled skill level to damage output, again with no discernible rationale.

Describe the solution

Remove both of these arbitrary effects.

Describe alternatives you've considered

This needs to go significantly further, to the extent that I expect unarmed combat to be useful vs zombies, it would be about manoeuvring and stunning them, which is easier to manage if you aren't encumbered with a weapon, but your ability to rapidly deal damage with hands and feet and other body parts is in every way lower than using any kind of weapon. Before doing that though, we need a set of tests outlining expected damage output, exertion, etc for unarmed vs various weapon types. I feel like the rationale for this adjustment is clear though.

Additional context

To demonstrate this, spawn a survivor with middling strength and unarmed skill (optionally melee), 12/4 or so, and take on some random groups of zombies. The player in this situation is able to absolutely dominate, and this is only made worse via unarmed attacks being extremely fast, enabling extremely easy kiting.

[Night-Pryanik]

Then we simply add that doubled skill level to damage output, again with no discernible rationale.

Well, I believe the rationale was "If we can punch hard with our bare hands, we can punch even harder with unarmed weapon, adding the power of our unarmed punch to the potential damage output of unarmed weapon". But strength already affects unarmed damage, and it is disputable whether unarmed combat skill should affect unarmed damage too.

[kevingranade]

If we can punch hard with our bare hands, we can punch even harder with unarmed weapon

That part is fine, there's just no rationale for that base damage increase in the first place, or why it isn't applied to skills other than unarmed.

I'm pretty sure I know what the real reason for adding this was originally, which was adding something to unarmed to make it keep up with melee combat. But that's a non-starter, unarmed melee is simply not as effective as armed melee, full stop.