Topic: Parry or Blocking for someone else!

[Dreven1]

Hello All -

I have a problem which our group ran into the other day.  A caster was about to get hurt or hit by a creature or trap and a tank-like PC (with all the plate and defense) wanted to jump in the way and block / parry for the weak character.

The "tank" had initiative over the situation and should be able to act accordingly.

How do other GM's out there handle the OB deduction or negative for the tank PC to do this?  There is movement involved, the tank PC is not in the most defensive stance since they are going out of their way to protect something/someone else, and they are using their abilities to not protect themselves as much as protecting the other person.

Also, does anyone let / make the attacker (NPC, trap, etc) roll a maneuver to see if it can navigate past the blocking character to get to the goal?

Any info would be useful!!!!

Thanks!
Dreven

[Kalu]

A caster was about to get hurt or hit by a creature or trap and a tank-like PC (with all the plate and defense) wanted to jump in the way and block / parry for the weak character. [...] How do other GM's out there handle the OB deduction or negative for the tank PC to do this?

I guess I would let Tank roll an "Armor" maneuver (or a similar skill, Tackling or Blocking perhaps?) with a suitable difficulty to get between Mage and his assailant. If this succeeds, Tank is the one who is attacked instead (roll against Tank's AT, DB, etc.). Partial success should give the assailant the chance of still hitting Mage (a 70% success from Tank would give the assailant a 30% chance of hitting Mage), and could additionally be turned into a penalty (maybe assigned directly to DB) for Tank for "sacrificing" himself.

//K

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Simple -- for the character being defended, the "Tank" is cover.

For the tank, he is putting himself in the way, so he is either parrying/defending an attack on himself, OR he is attempting to attack another attack (in which case, the tank would have to make a Very Hard (or tougher, depending upon the situation) maneuver roll to see what percentage of the attack it blocked).

[Marc R]

The rules, as is, only allow you to parry for "helpless" people. Makes sense if you think about it, in that a downed person is not moving, otherwise the PC would need to coordinate themselves to their motion, the attacker and the defender. .

I would allow a moving maneuver to "Substitute" yourself for someone else in melee.

If melee is just about to happen, and everyone is "moving into combat" then it's just ordinary movement.

if a Troll declares "Move up 10' and attack the mage"
The Mage declares "Cast on the troll"
The Fighter declares "Move up 10' and attack the troll."

If the fighter has initiative, they move up 10', and the troll would need to either fight through them, or cancel and disengage, run over the the mage. The reverse if the troll won init.

If the troll won, and attacked the mage, the fighter can't normally parry for the mage. (They could if the mage goes down, or if they want to try a moving maneuver to get between the troll and the mage.)

OTOH this kind of situation is where you move and make a flank or rear attack on the troll as it focuses on the mage. . .if you get behind it, killing it might be the fastest way to save the mage.

[pastaav]

I don't think init is a good way to resolve this. At least not unless you don't want the old school console game style when every character stands still until it is their init.

IRL the question if the fighter can intercept the attack and block it is based on movement speeds of involved persons and not how fast they start to move.

[Marc R]

I agree, in general, and especially if everyone is 30 or 50' apart when combat starts. . .likely you end up with everyone who chooses to "Close for melee" meeting around halfway.

OTOH at 10', that's 3 paces. . . so a second or two can put you there. . .if the three folks above were equally 10' apart from each other at the start of combat, then initiative would likely trump even partial movement, unless one of the combatants is a Shard.

[Rask Tril]

Since all characters have to declare thier actions before determining initiative, there are two scenarios...
First Scenario: Prior to the current round, the tank found out the caster was going to be attacked, and now needs to know how to resolve declarations and actions.
Second Scenario: During the current round, the tank sees the caster trigger the trap/monster and now needs to cancel his previsously declared actions in order to lend a hand.
Regardless of which scenario you're looking at, the basic question now is...can the tank make it in time to help and what happens if he can......
FIRST SCENARIO--caster has to "beat" the attack on the caster by acting before the attack is launched.  If the trap/monster attacks in the Snap Action phase, then the only way to beat it is to declare a Snap Action and have a higher initiative.  If the attack will occur in the Normal Action phase, then the tank could declare either a Snap Action (with higher or lower initiative) or a Normal action move manuever (with a higher initiative than the attacker).  Assuming the tank can fairly easily put himself within distance to help, you could do a Conflicting Actions test (tank vs trap/monster-page 53 RMFRP), but I would suggest that the tank be required to make a Medium Move Maneuver roll (with applicable mods such as -20 for snap action, etc) with the result being the amount of the trap/monster attack that he deflects upon himself. For instance, if the caster has triggered a spear trap (OB 80), the tank could declare a snap action "move and defend the caster". Then, the tank rolls on the manuever table and gets a result of "57".  The GM now makes two attack rolls for the spear trap, one against the tank (at OB 57) and one against the caster at (OB 23)(with an additional modifier for cover provided by the tank). So maybe the tank deflected the spear enough to save the caster, or maybe he didn't (I'd use a single attack roll and apply it to both attacks).
SECOND SCENARIO--(Please remember this takes longer to read than to play). Here we are assuming the trap/monster attack was triggered during the current round, but after all action declarations. So, the tank has to cancel his declared actions in order to lend a hand to a new situation.  There are rules for this (page 54 RMFRP--tank actions all resolved during Deliberate action phase) but I don't like them and have my own House Rule which I'll apply to this scenario (assuming the trap/monster attack is triggered during the Snap Action phase): Since the tank had initiative,his declared Snap Actions are already done and he cannot intercept a Snap Action attack against the caster. If he didn't declare a Snap Action, or if the trap/monster attack will occur in a later phase, the tank could react by declaring "Cancel my actions and protect the caster!".  Whenever a character cancels declared actions, I require them to make a Medium Move Maneuver to determine how much of thier remaining activity they've "squandered". Then, I require them to re-roll thier own initiative (yes, this means their initiative could improve by doing something unexpected, but usually at a high cost of activity). Notice that high AT's make this even more difficult because of thier intrinsic MMP's. So the tank rolls a Medium Maneuver and gets a "55".  This is the % activity left to him to use that round. Now he re-rolls initiative (hoping he didn't lose the initiative to the trap/monster) and still beats the trap. This basically brings us back to the first scenario, where we either do a Conflicting Actions test or the tank determines how much of the trap/monster OB is deflected upon himself.
It all plays out very quckly, really. 

[Marc R]

Got not problems with that logic, except "Trap". . .unless it's a goldburg device, by the time you know you've set it off, you're already hit. (Same for an ambush or surprise attack).

[Fornitus]

 I'd have fighter make Manuv roll then penalize his inish for the ground covered and see if he has time enough to do anything. If he dose'nt he still trys and get there late.
 Then a Precep for monster. if monster dosent see fighter he wont aim at him.
 Then run as normal with fighter as Full Hard cover (armour) for wizard.
 If monster sees both it gets to decide who to attack

[Rask Tril]

Absolutely, it depends on the trap.  Step on a plate, and it goes "boom", no chance anyone can help.  Break a line of twine across a path, and it "snaps" and releases a pendulum weapon the GM can determine if its possible someone can "deflect" it (or pull the hapless victim out of the way). Push a button which opens a sliding door (behind which a monster lurks and attacks) and a nearby friend should be able to help if they're on thier toes.

I want to add that I have another House Rule (combat reflexes) that allows a character with combat reflexes to roll on the Medium Maneuver Table when surprised to determine %activity available during the surprise round.  Also, to dissuade multiple people from declaring a "Cancel Action" action, each subsequent Cancel Action is one level of difficulty higher.

Gotta love this game!

[RandalThor]

I would do it like this: after determining the rough distance between the mage and the fighter - along with any obstructions - I would assign a modifier to the fighter's MM/Hard roll, this modifier includes their armor mod. The result (minus the percentage for the MM) is the amount of OB they have left to defend both with. This means that if they assign it all to defense of the mage, and the monster/whatever attacks them they will only have their base DB. If the fighter had to cancel his previous action in order to go and protect the mage, then you could: 1) add another modifier to the MM roll, or 2) increase the difficulty of the MM roll - I would go with extremely hard, but you decide for yourself what works for your game.


Have fun.

[Temujin]

We house ruled in our games that Swashbuckling could be used to parry attacks against characters you wish to actively defend if they are next to you, with the Swashbuckling skill acting as a limit to the BO that can be applied to that specific parry.  It has saved a few asses here and there

[Skaran]

We found that combats like this it was useful to use miniatures to see who could actually get into a position to help someone else. For example the fighter runs to cover the mage facing a troll, he attempts to get his shield (generally on a left arm) in between the mage and the warhemmer being used by the troll. Sadly he could only approach from the left side so his shield is to far away to do any good. His weapon arm and head may be in the perfect location to cover the mage.