Brawling (POCT)

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No character is entirely helpless while still conscious and free to move. Improvised weapons such as iron spikes and chairs often lie within easy reach, and a blow from a fist often can be as telling as a dagger thrust.
Brawling is generally less deadly to the defender than armed combat, but it does, however, carry its own risks.
==Brawling Attacks Against Armed Opponents==
Any brawling attack provokes an attack of opportunity from any and all opponents who are armed and threatening the assailant. The defender gets a +4 bonus to attack and damage rolls. If an attack of opportunity slays the attacker, there is no brawling attack. If an attack of opportunity creates a knockdown chance, the brawling attack automatically fails and is wasted, even if the attacker's saving throw succeeds and he is not knocked down—the defender's weapon keeps the attacker at bay. If an attack of opportunity results in a critical hit, the character who scored the hit can choose to roll for the critical hit (see Chapter Six) or force the brawling attack to automatically fail.
==Temporary Damage==
Only one quarter of any damage inflicted in brawling combat is normal. Divide the damage from each attack by four and round down. The result is the normal damage from the attack; all remaining damage is temporary. If a single attack inflicts less than four points of damage it is all temporary damage. (Two humans with average Strength scores pummeling each other with bare knuckles can inflict only temporary damage.)
Temporary damage automatically heals at the rate of one point per combat round (or standard round if the Player's Option combat system is not in use) no matter what the injured character does. It is helpful to keep track of temporary damage separately.
Characters reduced to –10 hit points by temporary damage (or a combination of temporary and normal damage) are still dead. Characters reduced to between 0 to –9 hit points recover one temporary damage point each combat round (instead of losing a point each round), but remain unconscious for 2d6 full turns or until healed. Normal damage takes precedence over temporary damage. If a character has suffered enough normal damage to reduce his hit points below zero, he loses one hit point each round (as described in Chapter One under Damage and Dying) and regains no temporary damage.
The attacker in an unarmed combat can opt not to inflict damage—this is called pulling the punch, though it applies to all forms of unarmed combat. The attack may still generate special effects such as knockouts, knockdowns, holds, locks, and pins, but it inflicts no damage at all.
==Opposed Rolls==
The brawling procedures make extensive use of opposed rolls. See Chapter Two for a discussion of how to use opposed rolls in combat. Note that in an opposed ability check a die roll of 20 is always a failure, even if the effective score is 20 or more. In an opposed attack roll, a die roll of 1 is always a failure, even if adjustments to the roll would allow for success.