Your character is trained in the art of Filipino fighting, which is often called escrima or kali. He may have learned this from an instructor or a family member. Most escrima techniques use weapons and are meant predominantly for self-defense.

Dots purchased with this Merit allow access to unique combat maneuvers with blunt weapons. Each maneuver is a prerequisite for the subsequent maneuver. So, your character cannot have “Disarm” until he has “Lock and Block.” These maneuvers and their effects are described below. All maneuvers are based upon the Weaponry Skill.

Note that to perform these maneuvers, a character must have at least one blunt weapon in hand. This weapon is potentially one escrima stick (or a pair), but it can be any blunt object shorter than two feet in length. If the character wields two weapons, he still assumes the –2 penalty for off-hand attacks. Once the character reaches the fourth and final level of this style, he can then choose to use any of the maneuvers without weapons. At this stage he learns the “empty hand” techniques of escrima.

Lock and Block (•): With this move, your character uses an adversary’s momentum against her. If you succeed on a Strength + Weaponry roll, your character captures an opponent’s attacking arm in his own and gains a grapple over her (for grappling rules, see p. 157, the World of Darkness Rulebook). You may add your character’s Defense to the Strength + Weaponry roll, as he is technically making a defensive maneuver. However, if you choose to add his Defense to this attack, you may not apply his Defense against any incoming attacks that turn. If he has already applied his Defense, he may still utilize this maneuver, but he does not get to add his Defense to the roll.

Disarm (••): This allows your character to capture an incoming attack and bring his own weapon down upon a foe’s forearm, potentially forcing the enemy to drop her weapon. (Note that this is different than the Disarm Merit.) To enact this maneuver, make a normal attack roll (Dexterity + Weaponry). Compare the successes on this roll against the opponent’s Stamina. If the successes are equal to or exceed her Stamina score, she drops the weapon. This attack does cause damage to the opponent, as well. Take the successes gained on the attack roll and halve them (round up). The opponent takes this damage, bashing.

Off-Balancing Attack (•••): With this attack, your character uses his weapon to set a foe off-balance. This attack can take any form: thrusting a baton into a solar plexus, hitting a foe’s temple or the bridge of her nose or using a stick’s momentum to push her into an awkward position. The attack is made at a –2 penalty. If successful, the attack does full damage and the opponent’s next attack is made at a –3 penalty.

Many-Handed Defense (••••): Escrima practitioners know how to move and flow with the combat in ways often unparalleled in other weapon-style systems. In this case, you may apply your character’s full Defense (or Dodge) to all attacks against him in a single turn. They are not diminished at all by attacks made after the first.

Filipino martial arts include more than stick fighting, but the methods listed under its Fighting Style in World of Darkness: Armory are a suitable core template for any sophisticated school of the club. Note that this core styles relies on using the properties of a stick to defend, disarm and bind opponents. To simply strike with it is a variant of the core Light Sword Fighting Styles. Experienced Filipino martial arts practitioners will often know that style as well, if not additional styles reflecting the diverse possibilities in their system, making a true escrima, kali or arnis school a compound Fighting Style (see p. 95).

The Filipino method integrates weapons and empty-handed training, but the core style does not. For this reason, it is strongly suggested that for consistency’s sake you remove this benefit from the Fighting Style and use the new Merit: Weapons to Empty Hands instead. If existing characters already use this benefit, give them the Merit for free.

Schools: Sticks and clubs are universal weapons, so there are many schools devoted to mastering them, but not all of them have this style’s particular orientation. Police learn the style’s maneuvers to employ the PR–24 side handle baton in the field. Various Chinese and Japanese schools teach cudgel-based disarms and grappling as well.