Brawling

[Steve Jackson]

New intro to Brawling skill -

Brawling (1) (IQ 7) Experience with unscientific bar fighting, friendly or otherwise. If you also have Carousing skill, you can roll 2/IQ to keep a brawl friendly, unless you then do something evil.

[JLV]

I like that you say it that way: "Experience with unscientific bar fighting..." I've never met anyone who either claimed to have been "trained" or to be a "trainer" in barroom brawling! That's one of those things you pick up the hard way -- by going through it a few times!

Here's an interesting quote from one of my early Martial Arts instructors (I was about 14 at the time). He said: "I'm here to teach you Karate. I'm not here to teach you how to fight. If you want to learn that, go to the sleaziest dive bar you can find down on Dyer Avenue (back then it was the place where all the crappy bars and strip joints were because it was right outside the main gate for Fort Bliss), find the biggest, hairiest, meanest looking thug you can, and spit in his drink. When you get out of the hospital, go back and do it again. When you finally win the fight, then you'll know how to fight!" His point being that "fighting" is generally a different experience than what you learn in Karate prior to being a brown belt or so...

[Skarg]

Well, while as my nym (Skarg) implies, I certainly expect it to be used in brawls, I think it's also going to be a popular skill for conventional warriors for use in battle, particularly when caught in HTH.

[JLV]

I don't disagree with you, Skarg, but I do understand where Steve is coming from in terms of the concept behind it.

[zot]

I still haven't seen an answer to: can you combine brawling and UC?

If they are truly different techniques, Bruce Lee would certainly combine them.

[flankspeed]

NOTE #1: While I like the idea of Talents interacting with each other, I would not allow any interaction with Carousing. I would not want characters controlling how their opponent fights by making a dice roll. I believe the deadliness of the fight is up to the individuals to choose and should only be affected by role playing.


NOTE #2: Advanced Melee states that any individual may try to improvise a club/weapon with GM approval. If Brawling Talent is going to augment this, then I would add the following to the standard rules that apply to any character without Brawling Talent. Brawling Talent will reduce the chance of breakage and improve the chance to hit.


IMPROVISED WEAPONS

Subject to GM approval, any figure in an appropriate location such as a tavern may pick up and “ready” the following:
-- a bottle into an unthrowable dagger now requiring Knife Talent to use properly but prone to break after every successful strike on a 1d roll of 4-6,
-- a mug or bottle to strike with doing one-handed club damage, or to throw as if it were a rock (1d-4 damage), though glass mugs and bottles normally break after one such use,
-- a chair to use as a two-handed club prone to break after every successful strike on a 1d roll of 3-6, then becoming a one-handed club prone to break after every successful strike on a 1d roll of 5-6,
-- the remains of broken furniture to use as a one-handed club, but prone to break after every successful strike on a 1d roll of 5-6.


NOTE #3: As far as I know, all normal, bare-hand fighting already inflicts actual hits of lethal damage on opponents. (Please forgive me if I am forgetting an existing rule here.) To me, this is already "dirty," deadly fighting whether you are skilled in Brawling or not.

I would rule that anyone wishing to fight non-lethally or in a friendly manner inflicts only Fatigue Hits and will not drive an opponent below ST=1 unless a critical success is rolled. (Extra damage from Brawling or Unarmed Combat would count as Fatigue Hits if the character is fighting non-lethally.)

Thus the evil opponent strikes the noble hero for lethal damage while the hero does only Fatigue damage in return. It's obvious to combatants and spectators who is striking to kill and who is only trying to render unconscious.


THUS, here is my current take on Brawling as street fighting rather than relating it strictly to bars, subject to revision as needed:


IQ 7 TALENT

Brawling (1): Experience with unscientific street fighting.
• Improvised Weapons. Because of your familiarity, you wield such unconventional weapons at +1 DX to hit in HTH or regular combat, and they break on one less chance out of six as appropriate (1d roll of 4-6 instead of 3-6 for chairs, 5-6 instead of 4-6 for glass bottle daggers, and 6 instead of 5-6 for one-handed clubs).
• Savage Strikes. You do one extra hit of damage with bare hands in either HTH or regular combat.
• Finisher. If fighting bare-handed, you may choose to unleash a finishing move on your opponent by striking at -1 DX to hit in HTH or regular combat in order to do one extra hit of damage (for a total of two extra hits including Savage Strikes).

[Melichor]

When I think of a Brawl that isn't a serious combat I figure all the damage is going be dealt as fatigue to the target rather than lasting damage.

If a brawl is serious and real damage is being dealt then it's regular combat and there are already enough talents for that.

For Brawling I want something like what you'd see in a movie like the Quiet Man or Every Which Way But Loose.

[Steve Jackson]

Originally Posted by zot

I still haven't seen an answer to: can you combine brawling and UC?

If you have both skills, then where they have different bonuses you could use them both. Is that what you mean?

Also, someplace you asked about bare hands damage scaling with ST. Are you perhaps remembering something in GURPS?

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

If you have both skills, then where they have different bonuses you could use them both. Is that what you mean?

Also, someplace you asked about bare hands damage scaling with ST. Are you perhaps remembering something in GURPS?

Hi Steve,
Yes, we are asking, "if you have both Brawling AND UC talents, then their bonuses do add?"

On Advance Melee page 21, there is a table where you do more damage with your fist as you get stronger. I found it too generous, and suggested a table with a slower rate of increase elsewhere in these forums. (Basically at 20 ST, fists were doing 1 die damage, not 1d+1 or 1d+2 at ST 21.)

it seemed you were saying that TFT fighters do a flat 1d-4 with their fists, in the thread for the new UC talents. Given that the UC talents gave such high bonuses to damage, people were wondering are fists are now limited to 1d-4?

EDIT:
If you do want to keep the table where fists do more damage with ST, perhaps is should be adjusted that the damage rises more slowly, reaching 1 die of damage at 30 ST?

Warm regards, Rick.

[Melichor]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

Also, someplace you asked about bare hands damage scaling with ST. Are you perhaps remembering something in GURPS?

Advanced Melee page 21
COMBAT WITH BARE HANDS, DAGGERS, CESTUS or CLUB

ST		Damage
8 or Less	1-4
9 or 10		1-3
11 or 12	1-2
13 or 14	1-1
15 or 16	1
17 to 20	1+1
21 to 24	1+2
25 to 30	1+3
30 to 40	2+1
40 to 50	3+1
50 to 60	4+1
and so on...