Improvised Weaponry

Type: Fighting
Cost: Variable • to •••
Prerequisites: Prerequisites: Wits •••, Weaponry •

Most people don’t walk around armed. While someone pulling a knife or a gun can cool a hostile situation down, it can also cause things to boil over — an argument that wouldn’t be more than harsh words suddenly ends up with three people in the morgue. If your character is on the receiving end of someone pulling a knife, it helps to have something in his hand as well.

Your character is good at making do with what he’s got. Sometimes he’s lucky — if your character’s in a bar, he’s got a lot of glass bottles, or maybe a pool cue, to play with. However, he’s got something like a sixth sense, and can find a weapon almost anywhere.

Always Armed Your character can always get his hands on something dangerous, and he has an instinctive understanding of how to put it to good — and deadly — use. At the start of your turn, make a reflexive Wits + Weaponry roll to grab an object suitable for use as a weapon in pretty much any environment. (The player is encouraged to work with the Storyteller to determine an appropriate item — a large, jagged rock in the wilderness, for example, or a heavy glass ashtray with one sharp, broken edge in a dive bar.) Regardless of what he picks up, the weapon has a +0 weapon modifier, -1 initiative penalty, Size 1, Durability 2, and Structure 4. On an exceptional success, increase the weapon modifier and Size by 1, but the initiative penalty increases to -2. Whatever your character grabs doesn’t cause you to suffer the normal -1 penalty for wielding an improvised weapon.
•• In Harm’s Way Your character’s got a knack for putting his weapon in the way of an oncoming attack, no matter how small or inappropriate for blocking it might be. While he’s wielding an improvised weapon acquired with Always Armed, you can treat the Structure of your character’s weapon as general armor against a single Brawl or Weaponry attack. Any damage he takes inflicts an equal amount of damage to the improvised weapon, bypassing Durability. Your character can use the weapon to attack later in the same turn, but can only use this ability when applying his Defense to an attack.
••• Breaking Point One sure way to win a fight is to hit the other guy so hard that he doesn’t get back up, even if that means losing a weapon in the process. When making an all-out attack with an improvised weapon acquired with Always Armed, you can reduce the weapon’s Structure by any amount down to a minimum of 0. Every 2 points of Structure spent in this way adds 1 to the weapon modifier for that one single attack. Declare any Structure loss before making the attack; this Structure is reduced even if the attack does no damage. If the weapon is reduced to 0 Structure, it is automatically destroyed after the attack. You can use this technique in conjunction with In Harm’s Way, allowing your character to parry an attack made on a higher Initiative and then go on the offensive, provided that the weapon wasn’t destroyed.

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