This Striking sub-style concentrates on offense and raw toughness. Practitioners develop the conditioning to absorb blows and the specific strength needed to dish out serious damage. The core rulebook’s Boxing style is a specialized version of this Merit.

It uses the following maneuver progression:

Body Blow (•): Your character can deliver powerful blows that leave opponents reeling and gasping for air. If successes inflicted in a single Brawl attack equal or exceed a target’s Size, the victim loses his next action.

Iron Skin (••): Your character has hardened his body to physical blows, allowing him to withstand repeated hits with minimal effect. He has an effective armor trait of 1 against bashing attacks only.

Combination Blows (•••): Your character’s training and experience allow him to devastate opponents with a flurry of rapid blows. He can make two Brawl attacks against the same target in a single action. The second attack suffers a -1 penalty.
Drawback: Your character cannot use his Defense against any attack in the same turn in which he intends to use this maneuver. If he uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before he can perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the maneuver in the turn. He is too busy bobbing and weaving out of the way of attacks.

Haymaker (••••): Your character can deliver powerful, accurate blows capable of knocking an opponent unconscious with a single punch. A single Brawl attack that equals or exceeds the target’s Size in damage might knock him unconscious. A Stamina roll is made for the victim. If it succeeds, he is conscious but he still loses his next action due to the Body Blow (see above). If it fails, he is unconscious for a number of turns equal to the damage done.
Drawback: Your character cannot use his Defense against any attack in the same turn in which he intends to use this maneuver. If he uses Defense against attacks that occur earlier in the Initiative roster, before he can perform this maneuver, he cannot perform the maneuver in the turn. He is too busy bobbing and weaving out of the way of attacks.

Lethal Strike (•••••): By focusing his might and concentration, your character can kill or maim an opponent with a well-placed strike. A strike inflicts lethal instead of bashing damage.
Drawback: Spend one Willpower point per attack. Note that this Willpower expenditure does not add three dice to the attack.

Schools: Common Aggressive Striking Arts include “hard” karate styles such as Shotokan and Uechi-ryu, Hung Gar kung fu and old school bareknuckle boxing. Remember that specific styles may have specialized maneuvers (see p. 106 ).