Topic: We never parried

[Aotrs Commander]

My "problem" with parrying as being an expected tactic to balance attacks out is that it only works for melee combat, where you get to apply skill-to-skill (plus some bonuses like shields and whatnot).

When you start hitting ranged weapons and modest to high level (or power level), the paradigm collapses. Our primary RM/SM party rapidly scaled out to the point that cover bonuses just didn't cut it (especially with the high-end AE weapons in use) especially since you got more attack rolls per round. So I started letting people use AD apply to ranged attacks. And then of course shields, and it ended up in an ever-increasing mess of rocket tag, as whatever you do, or cut out, it ends up nasty (especially since in SM2 you only got half your parry bonus to DB when ranged parrying and I'm not even sure you were allowed to do that in SMP...) And, of course, if you have a party with an average superhuman speed, you always want to get hat first strike in anyway...

My current rules say you benefit from ranged parry (which no-one ever does, except for the Jedi), and any two of AD, cover or shield (i.e. force screen, not scutum!) I'm not sure there is a good solution, unfortunately.

(And I've given up pretty much anything other than throwing chaff encounters at the PCs, since no boss monster has ever managed to get anywhere without being open-ended fluke-critted to death in short order, even when I stacked insanely in their favour...!)

[Spectre771]

We allowed parrying only for the three people one could realistically deal with in a battle; the front opponent and up to two flanking opponents.  The total parry + DB had to be split among the possible targets, so the defender didn't get +125DB vs. each opponent.  It was like 50, 50, 25, or some GM's stated the total DB had to be divided equally among the 1-2-3 targets.  The flanking bonus of +15 helped negate some of the parry bonus making it more difficult to defend against, as well it should.  You were never able to parry anyone at your back or rear flanks and you couldn't parry more than the three attackers in the frontal arc.

Parrying (lack of parrying) is one of my major gripes with other gaming systems... parrying doesn't exist.  You dodge and do nothing that round, or you fight and eat a full attack.  There was no in between.  RM allows parry and to me, that's a huge step up in evolution, like opposable thumbs!  But we still used it judiciously, it has it's limitations.  Fighting 2 v 1 isn't too difficult with some training.  By maneuvering (which I would agree with Green Manalishi) to keep one opponent "out of the attack" is certainly a parrying maneuver, but it is also eating up some of your concentration and your offensive ability as you are devoting time to keeping the foes lined up a certain way and by doing so, you may not be giving yourself the most opportune (i.e.: full OB) attack, but you are certainly making it difficult for two foes to attack you at their full OB which is what parrying is.