Striker

5 points, 6 points, 7 points, or 8 points

You have a body part that you can use to strike an aimed blow, but not to manipulate objects (see Extra Arms), or walk on (see Extra Legs). This might be a set of horns or protruding tusks, a heavy tail, a stinger, or any number of other natural weapons.

Your Striker can attack at reach C ("close combat only"), inflicting thrust damage at +1 per die; e.g., 2d-1 becomes 2d+1. Damage is crushing or piercing for 5 points, large piercing for 6 points, cutting for 7 points, or impaling for 8 points. See Innate Attack for details.

Roll against DX or Brawling to hit with your Striker. You can also use it to parry as if you had a weapon. Use the higher of (DX/2) + 3 or your Brawling parry.

Special Enhancements

Long: Your Striker is long relative to your body. This increases your effective SM for the purpose of calculating reach (see Size Modifier and Reach). +100% per +1 to SM if you can attack at any reach from C to maximum, or +75% per +1 to SM if you can only attack at maximum reach (and never in close combat).

Special Limitations

Cannot Parry: You cannot parry with your Striker. -40%.

Clumsy: Your Striker is unusually inaccurate. This is common for tails and similar Strikers aimed from outside your usual arc of vision. -20% per -1 to hit.

Limited Arc: Your Striker can only attack straight ahead, straight behind, etc. Specify a direction when you buy the Striker. If your target isn’t in the right place, and you cannot maneuver to put him there, you cannot attack him at all. -40%.

Weak: Your Striker is unusually blunt or light, or simply incapable of using your full ST. It inflicts only basic thrust damage, without the +1 per die. -50%.

Martial Arts

In a cinematic game, the GM may permit fighters to buy any body part that isn’t a limb or an extremity as a Striker. Real-world martial artists have claimed to have “iron” foreheads and buttocks, among other things. Such Strikers must be crushing, can’t have the Long enhancement, and frequently suffer from Cannot Parry, Clumsy, and/or Limited Arc.

Video game-inspired Strikers – such as a heavy spiked ball at the end of a long braid – have no such restrictions. They can have almost any reach and damage type. It’s up to the GM whether things like that spiked ball are Strikers or just equipment. As a rule, if it gets damage bonuses from unarmed combat skills and you’re gaming in an unrealistic genre where searches for weapons always conveniently overlook it, it’s a Striker.

All Strikers inflict thrust damage at +1 per die – more than most punches and kicks.

New Special Limitation

Limb: Your crushing Striker isn't a new body part but a limb. The limb has its normal reach and can strike with Brawling or Karate. Find punching or kicking damage as usual, including skill bonuses, and add +1 per die for the Striker. This isn't cumulative with the effects of Claws. Limb, Arm is cinematic, and also lets you parry with the arm as if it were a weapon; Unusual Background and training time are as per Claws (p. 42). Limb, Shin is a realistic part of some styles' training, and enhances shin kicks (p. 112). -20%.

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