Topic: To Increase Parry Effect or Not

[Fornitus]

 We are going to start a new campaign sometime this year and I was wondering what you all thought about a House tweek I am considering.

 Maybe its my players, maybe its how I run combat, but, I have never had many of my players put mutch into parry during combat. Due to the possible Kill (effectively) on the crit charts, they seem to always decide to go all out and try to end it as fast as possible. They are taking great risk when they do this (especialy if opponent wins inish) but still decide to chance one or two higher crits (C's) compared to five or six little crits (A's).

 So, my new idea to balance this is to subtract the number of ranks used for parry to also drop the opponents crit rolls. Just the number of ranks not the skill total.

 I already alow a plus one on a crit (if acheived) for each skill rank removed from the OB. Yes, NPC's also.

 So, basicaly, Freddy the Pathetic (who has no stat, lvl, or item bonuses) may attack with his +50 from his 10 skill ranks and hope, or,
 Freddy may attack with +20 and transfer +30 to DB. This also would adjust his opponents crit roll by -6 since Freddy is using 6 ranks to parry. Then just hope someone else finishes their oponent and comes to help.

 I think this would alow freddy to just hold out longer without the fear that a random A crit will take him out in the first round.(unless the opponent is upping their crit with skill ranks)

 I would consider this a matching rule with the crit increase option. Who thinks what?

[Marc R]

Might get a little complicated with stat or item bonuses, can you not put that into parry/reduce crit?

Also, at high levels, this might make it appealing to take those +1 OB ranks way up top. . . like "I parry with my top 10 ranks for +10 DB and -10 crits, then use the lower ranks for OB.

[Fornitus]

 Just what I was intending. Yes a 3rd lvl PC can get that lucky hit and kill the 20th lvl NPC, but, if it isnt quick, the high lvl character should just cut up the begginer like fish bait.

 Item bonuses wouldnt apply beacuse its a pure skill issue.

[PiXeL01]

I think then you would remove some of the flair of RM, if you handle it like that. In raw bonuses the lvl 20 still have alot of advantages over the lvl 3, but the beauty of RM is you can never feel safe. There can be some lucky sob who can take you down, no matter what.

But why not just say -1 on crit rolls pr full 5 transferred to db from ob?

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

We are going to start a new campaign sometime this year and I was wondering what you all thought about a House tweek I am considering.

 Maybe its my players, maybe its how I run combat, but, I have never had many of my players put mutch into parry during combat. Due to the possible Kill (effectively) on the crit charts, they seem to always decide to go all out and try to end it as fast as possible. They are taking great risk when they do this (especialy if opponent wins inish) but still decide to chance one or two higher crits (C's) compared to five or six little crits (A's).

 So, my new idea to balance this is to subtract the number of ranks used for parry to also drop the opponents crit rolls. Just the number of ranks not the skill total.

 I already alow a plus one on a crit (if acheived) for each skill rank removed from the OB. Yes, NPC's also.

 So, basicaly, Freddy the Pathetic (who has no stat, lvl, or item bonuses) may attack with his +50 from his 10 skill ranks and hope, or,
 Freddy may attack with +20 and transfer +30 to DB. This also would adjust his opponents crit roll by -6 since Freddy is using 6 ranks to parry. Then just hope someone else finishes their oponent and comes to help.

 I think this would alow freddy to just hold out longer without the fear that a random A crit will take him out in the first round.(unless the opponent is upping their crit with skill ranks)

 I would consider this a matching rule with the crit increase option. Who thinks what?

Fornitus, I don't think that your plan is going to work very well. If they are not into parrying, I doubt that these changes will help change their attitudes.

Also, parrying is determined by a number of ranks, it is determined by the overall bonus. You are better off just saying "+x to critical for every 5 points of OB shifted to DB" or else you will run into the problem mentioned by Lordmiller.

I would suggest, instead, using the Style rules from Combat Companion as the Specific Maneuvers can add a lot of excitement and variety to combats. (but then again, I am a bit biased...  )

[Fornitus]

 It would negate some of the death threat that currently exists in our games for higher lvl NPC's the party is trying to kill.

 I know the Death Threat is the reason they do whatever to avoid or end a combat as fast as possible. Maybe I am better off leaving it alone. But you gotta think about any adjustments before the new campaign starts.

[jasonbrisbane]

Personally the monster they fight is what makes the difference...

We use HARP ( I know, different game), with the Martial LAw Armour adjustments.
We fought a giant beetle (Hard Carapace = plate) and thus the adjustment meant we were bouncing off its armour (the limit to  weapons size damage meant we were never going to kill it outright.
So we had to parry and where it down through death of a thousand paper cuts.
it however was fine up until the end (we could do enough damage to incur injury penalties).

This taught us that parry is important... it might help with your guys...
(or something similar...)

[Fornitus]

 We once ran into an elk (I was a PC), the party was 2nd lvl or so. 5 PC's. We decided were low on food supplies. It kicked our ass. Nobody died (GM was nice) but we only got it to 1/2 hp by the time it had all of us into single didget hp left.

 In my scenarios most (85% or so) of the enimies are humanoid. Often human. A Lord has guards, an evil cult has definders, ect....
 So it was aimed at Trained Fighter combat.

[Warl]

If you want to make your PCs think about using parry try this.

Make sure you can put multiple opponents on your PCS.. Then who ever the PC is attacking you put on Full parry while the other opponent Attacks at Full OB. If the PC switches targets cause the one guy is hitting him to much, Then have both opponents go to Full parry Until your sure the PC is concentrating on one then have the other go FULL ob again LOL...

Drove one of MY players NUts with that... and I made sure to say things like "your attack misses due to the opponents parry" or " your attack only did an 11A becuase of the opponents Parry"

The players end up getting the point real fast.

Though I do Like your idea of letting the ranks put to parry Reducing the Crit Roll Though I tend to work parry diffrently, I don't work it by ranks but just #s. So I would Probably make it every 5 or 10 points put to parry reduces the crit 1 point.

Might have to think about this one a bit.

[Dark Schneider]

Make sure you can put multiple opponents on your PCS.. Then who ever the PC is attacking you put on Full parry while the other opponent Attacks at Full OB. If the PC switches targets cause the one guy is hitting him to much, Then have both opponents go to Full parry Until your sure the PC is concentrating on one then have the other go FULL ob again LOL...

There is a good skill to evade that, 'reverse striking', as you don't need to rotate to hit anyone, they can't know who is the target, so you bind all foes to parry or be in danger of a full attack with no parry. This, that makes foes to use half parry usually, plus an heavy armor (AT19-20, min. AT16 or AT18), makes you a very more efficient multi-foe combatant.

I think combat in RM is balanced, we play much time and we have no problems like that, I can say you about advantages of parry:

1) You can't now who attack first, so if you use full OB, but you lose initiative, you can die easily. Usually at first time you must parry, and if you make a critical that gives you initiative win next round/s, or foe must parry/stun, etc. Then you can use full OB to attack, but this is called 'take advantage in combat', and you don't have it from beginning.

2) You can fumble, maybe you can recover the fumble with swashbuckling skill, but in any case you lost your attack, so now you need to defend your foe's attack, but if you are not parrying...
This is the same if you do a very light attack, not fumble but rolls like 10-15.

So, to be really safe, you should only use full OB in cases like foe can't attack (stuned, must parry, etc.), and use less parry (maybe 20% OB) if you have sure initiative (foe earlier critical result), because you can fail your attack, and you have some defense.

For multiple-foes combat, use 'reverse strike' and always FULL OB, unless the foe in front of you is stronger than the others, in that case you can parry with some OB against that foe. And don't forget crossing your fingers.

[Fornitus]

 Definatily still thinking.

 It would work and be very worth the PC's doing, but I dont want to remove the flavor I always get by the posibility of getting killed being lowered.

 Perhaps a quick Perception to know if your opponent is shifting the crit in any way so you can also shift to try to compensate. Maybe. Just a standard part of battle awareness so no extra rolls?

[pastaav]

Your problem is basically that your characters does mad berserker charge all the time and since parry is symmerical this means everything becomes init race. You can't really use parry to stop a loon that does not parry unless you are very superior in skill.

Actually I don't think there are any easy solution, any attempt to use many enemies to teach a lesson risk giving the players the impression that you made the encounter too hard to win. That the encounter would been easy if they had parried requires understanding of the benefit of parry.

Maybe you can use super speeded enemies that is given to win intiative to teach them how parry can benefit. Yet this is risky since they might be slaughtered if they use their regular tactic.

[Warl]

sometimes dieing is the best teacher.

[markc]

 The rule I use is each opponet after the first that attacks a target gets an additional +20 to OB. So 2nd attacker +20, thrid attacker +40 etc. This helps multiple attackers on opponets as well as informs players the importance of parrying.
 Another note is if you do not parry the first round or so you do not know how powerful your opponet is. I also say to players you either parryed the blow easily or hard so that lets them know approx. how they stack up OB vs OB on there opponet.

MDC

[Marc R]

Are you being strict about declaring ob/db split before rolling initiative or declaring actions?

I've seen many games where the GM lets this slip, and often the PCs who go before their foes end up going full OB, only using parry when they loose init to their opponant.

I find that tightening up on that rule improves things, not only by inserting more uncertainty, but also by stressing parry by making it a phase of the round. .Just asking every player "What's your parry" as a direct question often puts it into people's heads that it's something to do.

[mocking bird]

Make sure you can put multiple opponents on your PCS.. Then who ever the PC is attacking you put on Full parry while the other opponent Attacks at Full OB. If the PC switches targets cause the one guy is hitting him to much, Then have both opponents go to Full parry Until your sure the PC is concentrating on one then have the other go FULL ob again LOL...

That seems a little devious as it involves a little GMK (GM Knowledge?) imbued in the NPC's. 

But in the end, point does this convey really?  If they have survived w/o parrying so far, is it really necessary to make them change their style of play?  Besides, at higher level healing become so powerful short of decapitation or incineration it is impossible to die.

sometimes dieing is the best teacher.

As I tell my kung fu students - you tend to block better once you have been hit a few times.

[markc]

MB,
 Isent that "you tend to want to block better after you have been hit a few times"?

 But IMO both work and as a fan a MMA I have seen it in action to the point of people blocking instead of attacking.

MDC

[Fornitus]

 LM- maybe I am just looking for the combat to last longer than 3 rounds in a one on one.  I will try and rember to try that to reinfoece the parry part. I thought I was being clear and requiring it before inish, but thinking about it, I have let a bunch of small stuff slide a little beacuse it started getting in the way of the story.
 this is all in consideration for the next campaign anyway. ;DThe last one has run for 5 years, religiously every friday night for 6 hours or so. And they are finnaly 16th lvl.
(yes, only 16th, but the power level is probaly equivilant to 25 or so.)