Unarmed Combat

Not all fights between combatants involve knives and clubs. In fact, bringing a weapon to a fight implicitly states that the struggle is serious. One or more people will not only be hurt, but possibly killed. The alternative is to go into a fight unarmed, using only one’s body as a weapon. Unarmed combat applies the Brawl Skill and usually inflicts bashing damage. Going unarmed into battle doesn’t have to put one at a disadvantage over opponents. Training in this style of combat can make your character fully capable of disabling others.

There is a variety of options possible in Brawl combat. The fundamentals available to anyone include punches, kicks and grapples. More versatile and even exotic maneuvers — throws, nerve pinches — are learned by studying the martial arts. See the Boxing and Kung Fu Fighting Style Merits (pp. 110 and 111) for examples of such training. The average guy on the street with no martial training can perform any of the following basics.

Strike: The basic unarmed attack — a blow with a fist, knee, head, foot or elbow. Roll Strength + Brawl with- out any bonus dice.

Bite: Your character’s teeth — whether human-sized or gigantic fangs — clamp down on a target. Roll Strength + Brawl, with a number of bonus dice based on the size of attacker’s jaws and teeth. An ordinary human’s offer no bonus. A large dog’s offer +1. A wolf’s confer a +2 bonus. A great white shark gets a +4 bonus. Generally, a bite from a person inflicts bashing damage, while that from an animal or supernatural creature inflicts lethal harm. The Storyteller may decree that a human combatant can bite an opponent only after successfully grappling (see below).

Grapple: Your character gets a hold of or tackles a target and may apply a clinch with various effects, from immobilizing the victim to crushing him. Roll Strength + Brawl to achieve a hold. The target’s Defense is subtracted from your attack pool, as normal. If you get at least one success, your character has a hold of the target.

If the victim has yet to act in the turn, he may try and break loose at his stage of Initiative. Alternatively, the target may try to turn the tables on his attacker and perform an overpowering grappling maneuver of his own. In either case, roll Strength + Brawl, but the attacker’s Strength is subtracted from the dice pool. Even one success breaks the hold or allows a maneuver to be performed, as explained below. If the attacker’s hold is broken, the grapple is over (although the attacker can attempt to grapple again). If the victim’s roll fails, he does not free himself or does not accomplish a maneuver. The attacker still has a grip on him. The victim of a grapple can try to free himself or perform a maneuver in subsequent turns, unless he is immobilized (see below).

If in the next turn the attacker still has a hold, he can try to overpower his opponent. A Strength + Brawl roll is made. The target’s Strength rather than Defense is subtracted from the attacker’s dice pool. If no successes are gained, the attacker still has a hold, but accomplishes nothing more in the turn (he does not overpower his victim).

If even one success is gained, one of the following overpowering maneuvers can be accomplished in the turn.

• Render opponent prone — Both combatants fall to the ground. Either party must break the hold in order to stand again in a subsequent turn. Rising is considered an action in a turn. (See “Going Prone,” on p. 164.) If one combatant manages to rise, close-combat attack rolls to hit the prone opponent gain a +2 bonus.
• Damage opponent — Successes achieved on this turn’s Strength + Brawl roll are applied as points of bashing damage inflicted on your character’s opponent. Your character crushes, squeezes, bends or bites his victim.
• Immobilize opponent — Y our character seeks to interfere with his victim’s actions. Even one success renders the target immobile. The victim’s physical actions are restricted to breaking free (he cannot attempt any overpowering maneuvers of his own), although he could bring mental or some supernatural capabilities to bear (Storyteller’s discretion). Furthermore, the victim’s Defense does not apply against attacks from opponents outside the grapple. So, if your character immobilizes a victim, attacks on him from your character’s allies are not penalized by the victim’s Defense.
  Once an opponent is immobilized, he remains so from turn to turn until he breaks the hold. You do not need to make further overpower rolls from turn to turn to keep the victim immobilized. He is automatically considered immobile thereafter. Your character can do nothing except maintain the hold, however. If he dedicates an action to any other effort, the target is no longer immobile. Your character still has a grip, but a successful overpower effort is required in a subsequent turn to immobilize the opponent all over again.
  Trying to break free from immobilization is handled like a contested action between grapplers. A Strength + Brawl roll is made for the victim, and it’s penalized by the holder’s Strength. Successes rolled are compared to those that were gained by the holder when he applied the immobilization maneuver. If more are gained, the hold is broken and the victim is free again. Say that Greer manages to immobilize Sloan and gets three successes in the effort. To break free in subsequent turns, rolls made for Sloan (Strength + Brawl - Greer’s Strength) must achieve four or more successes.
• Draw weapon — With one or more successes, your character reaches a weapon on his person, on his opponent or nearby. Drawing or acquiring the weapon is an entire turn’s action. The weapon has to be small, such as a knife or small gun (a pistol), in order to be brought to bear in grappling combat.
• Attack with drawn weapon — An attack is made with a drawn weapon. Each success achieved on your Strength + Brawl roll inflicts a point of damage. The kind of damage is appropriate to the weapon used — bashing for brass knuckles or lethal for a knife or pistol. A Weaponry or Firearms roll is not made under these circumstances, because it’s your character’s ability to overpower his opponent in grappling combat that dictates how well the weapon is used. The advantage of bringing a weapon to bear manifests in bonus dice to your Strength + Brawl roll for the attack, and in the severity of damage that might be done (say, lethal for a knife).
• Turn a drawn weapon — If your character’s opponent has a weapon drawn in a grapple, your character may seek to turn the weapon on her enemy. Her action is dedicated to gaining control of the weapon and turning it, even while it’s still in her opponent’s hand. Your character’s action in a subsequent turn must be a successful attack in order to turn the weapon completely. If your character’s opponent manages to regain control of the weapon in his action, before your character’s attack is completed, no attack can be made in a subsequent turn. Thus, control of a weapon can be wrestled over from turn to turn in a grapple, with each combatant seeking to gain control and then make an attack.
• Disarm opponent — If you get one or more successes, your character manages to pry an object from his opponent’s hand. Taking possession of the item thereafter (in another turn) is the equivalent of drawing a weapon
  (see above). No damage is inflicted.
• Use opponent as protection from ranged attacks — see “Concealment” on p. 162.

If multiple people seek to grapple a single target, and they get a hold, the target can try to break free of all holds simultaneously. Roll Strength + Brawl and subtract the highest Strength among the grapplers, with an additional penalty for each grappler after the first. So, if Anton tries to break out of a hold imposed by three opponents, and the highest Strength among them is 4, Anton’s breakout roll suffers a -6 penalty.

Grappling with an opponent has its drawbacks. Grapplers lose the capacity to dodge (see “Dodge,” p. 156) and can perform only close-combat attacks. Ranged attacks are not allowed. (Wrestling over and using a small gun in a grapple is not considered a ranged attack for our purposes here.) Also see “Shooting into Close Combat,” p. 162, and “Autofire,” p. 160. The “All-Out Attack” technique (p. 157) cannot be used to attempt overpowering maneuvers or to break out of a grapple. All-out attack negates the user’s Defense in close combat, while grapplers already ignore each other’s Defense once a hold is achieved.

Example: Drew seeks to grapple with Anderson. Drew first needs to get a grip on Anderson in his part of Initiative. Doing so requires an action and a successful Strength + Brawl roll, penalized by Anderson’s Defense. If Anderson’s order in Initiative comes later in the turn, he can try to break out with a successful Strength + Brawl roll, in this case penalized by Drew’s Strength. Or Anderson can immediately try to perform a maneuver on Drew since the two are already locked. The same roll (Strength + Brawl - Drew’s Strength) is applied and any successes rolled allow Anderson to perform a task, from doing damage to prying an object from Drew’s free hand.

If in the next turn Drew still has a hold on Anderson, a Strength + Brawl roll, penalized by Anderson’s Strength, is made to see if Drew can perform any maneuvers on Anderson.

Anderson can keep tying to break free each turn, or he can attempt maneuvers on Drew each turn. Until Anderson breaks free, the grapple continues and Drew may continue to inflict his own maneuvers.