Topic: Declaring parries during action declaration phase

[Athelstaine]

I have a question.

On page 213 of RMFRP Core Book (Hardback) it says...

"The defender must be aware that he will be subject to a missile attack" to be able to parry.

Situation(from last saturdays' game)
Two players are squared off in melee with equal number of npcs'. About 50' away are two npc's with short bows.

 During action declaration phase i announce that the npc's will shoot there bows into melee brawl. So the players know the archers are there and are capable of shooting them. When it comes time for players to declare, i am of the assumption they should announce any possible parries against the archers even if they do not know if they are the taget in question. They may shoot the other guy instead.

 Problem is my players feel that i have to actually declare their pc as a target for them to declare parry. I get the "How do i know to parry if i am not the target?" I just say "You don't know, that's the risk you take."

 I consider the same as if it was a 3 v/s 2 in a melee combat. You parry because you are not sure.

 I was/am willing to announce that missile fire is happening, but i feel that if you choose not to parry you should live or die by the consequences of your actions. It's not like i am making them Roll Observation or Alertness or any of the myriad Situational Combat checks.

 I was wondering what others think on this.

[Marc R]

You're correct. Think about it this way.

You and I are facing two goblins in melee.

You attack goblin 1 and declare parry on him, I attack and parry goblin 2.

The goblins decide to go counter intuitive, and attack across each other with their spears. . .so Goblin 1 is attacking and parrying me, and 2 attacking and parrying on you

All parries in this situation are wasted, nobody declared parry on the person attacking them, so none of that OB into DB applies to any valid attack.

You can guess someone is attacking you, and by positioning it can seem obvious, or you can force it, but you never absolutely know, even in melee.

[Athelstaine]

Okay thanks for the response. I was beginning to think i was mis-interpreting the text.

[jdale]

RMSR pg 97 says you can only parry the person you are attacking. If you choose Full Melee or Press & Melee, you have to declare your target. So in this case it's as you say. In the goblin example, no one gets any parry. I think this is unrealistically inflexible, especially for a 10 second round, personally.

But you could also declare a React & Melee action. That gives you -10 OB but you don't have to declare your target (who your Parry will be applied to) at the beginning of the round. If you are concerned, this would be the appropriate action to take.

It's not clear to me that you can parry missile fire (50% action) and also attack (60-100% action) in the same round. It also doesn't specify you need to designate which missile attack you are parrying, only that you can only parry one. If you wanted to rule that you do, it would make sense to allow missile parry without designating which attack, at a -10 penalty, in accord with the React & Melee option.

[Ynglaur]

Nice writeup.

[VladD]

The RAW seem a little silly in this case. I'm going out on a limb here, but this makes ANY fight that involves more combatants than your group utterly lethal, since you can't defend properly against extra attacks from the extra combatants. Besides that how about parries executed for someone else's benefit: like you see your popular extra attacked near you and you can move in to protect him/ her from the blow with your shield, or weapon... My problems with that are many fold, but the main problem is that it is totally out of wack with reality. I house ruled it differently.
Like the example with the goblins: How on Earth could that EVER work that way. I'm a bit stunned to find out a thinking community like these forums would use that rule as is.

No one's got better rules than the RAW?
I simply let people choose how much to parry and let them divide it as they wish, I'd even allow a phrasing like 30% vs the first attacker, and 20% against the second attacker: I even let the same parry amount work for a whole round on the same combatant, so if that foe is hasted or what not, that the defender isn't totally undefended the next attack, imagine how it would turn out for a hasted, 2 weapon combo combatant. Then his first attack is a sort of feint and the others come in pretty nicely...

Then there's the missile paradox... rule 1: can only parry that foe when attacking that foe. Rule 2: parry a missile attack is a 50% activity: so no attack possible, no attacking the foe (because when that can happen, he can't attack you due to ANOTHER rule).
I'm pretty positive that people CAN use their shield to make themselves bad archery targets AND fight with someone: its called tortoise formation. Hence my rule: divide parry as you like. The only thing I do enforce is that if you want to parry all of your OB, but do not want to make an attack, you spend 50% activity so you might even run for cover! Another totally plausible realistic scenario.

I'll admit that my parry rules were in effect even when I hadn't read the correct phrasing of the RAW, just because my rules make sense and they allow for a much less deadly game. Crits are deadly enough, even when silly rules don't stand in the way.

[Kristen Mork]

I, too, disregard the RAW.  During the declaration phase the player chooses a number of parries (using the rules in Ars Certo (Guild Companion)), or a total amount with which to parry.  When an attack is made against the character, one of the parries (or some amount of the parry total) is used to parry the attack.

Note that this approach makes defending oneself easier.  My biggest issue with the RAW is that once you are outnumbered, you need to even the numbers ASAP.  So, a fighter facing two opponents needs to drop/stun one opponent immediately because he cannot parry the other one.  Thus, I have long played that a character can parry any opponent, not just the one he is attacking.  (Although opponents with situational modifiers incur penalties that can be overcome with Reverse Stroke skill.)

Ars Certo summary:
A half parry requires 20% activity, and a shield requires 5% activity (but neither is an action).  Each parry reduces the opponent's attack by OB/2 + Parry bonus.  Each shield use reduces the opponent's attack by the shield bonus.  If you parry the same opponent twice (to get OB + Parry bonus), you cannot make an attack.

In the example you gave, to protect against the archers, each character would need to declare at least one shield use (5% activity).  A character can choose to use the shield bonus against a melee attack, but a subsequent missile attack would ignore the shield (unless the wise character declared two shield uses for 10%).  Thus, a conservative approach might be to: half parry, shield twice, and attack with the remaining 70%.

Using a more standard parry system, I would allow a character to split his OB into three parts: a shield parry, a weapon parry, and an attack.  Although, as others have noted, even that's not RAW.

[yammahoper]

I think of parry as a state of defense and apply it against all frontal attacks, half value to flank (which may require perception/combat awareness/etc).

I've used this rule for over 20 years, since merp.  Never had a problem.

[Ynglaur]

I allow multiple parries if you can use multiple attacks, based on the Combat Companion.  It makes fighting multiple opponents very dangerous, but doable for higher-skilled fighters.

I think it comes down to realism vs. cinematic, and all of the degrees in-between.

[VladD]

Phew; I'm glad for so much diversity and good ideas!

[Athelstaine]

The main thing i was wanting from that encounter was wether they were parrying or not. The example was just for that particular instance. There were three other players there as well, getting ready to engage the opposite archers.

As far number of parries or what not. I allow as many parries as you decide to tank your OB for for any facing besides the rear. I Ignore the 50% action and 1 attack limit.

The main thing being if they were going to declare. I am not out to kill the players or anything, but they tend to be power creepers, which is fine. I just wanted to know if i had to declare a specific individual for them declare any parrying. They tend to try and exploit the rules if it benefits them but it's the end of the world if backfires.

I must say they keep me on my toes when creating encounters. I agree with Vlad. It is nice to see such interesting and varying house rules and people who can carry an intelligent conversation,  even if they disagree with someone else's views.

Thank you for all the replies and informative input.

[Cory Magel]

One of my go-to methods of dealing with stuff like this is to remind the players that it will work the other way around also.  This often makes them accept the most reasonable solution without thinking they, specifically, are the ones getting the short end of the stick.

[yammahoper]

Certainly the bad guys get the advantage also.

I have learned over the years that my parry rule adds greater depth to combat.  A skilled foe or player, when facing multiple foes, might parry big and prep a skill, such as power striking, to gain an OB bonus the next round and increase his chance to crit one of the foes while losing no DB.

It has also reduced the fear of multiple foes slightly while increasing tactical thought and focusing on not being out flanked.  Combat becomes a focus of mnving and position rather than winning init and full attack. 

Parry is still declared before init of course.

[markc]

Not RAW;
 I use a different combat system generally but I allow a person to parry who they want with full BD and then reduce their DB by 20-30 (depending on game) per additional attack. I also only allow 1 use of the shield DB unless there is a special combat art ability or magic ability.
MDC

[MariusH]

We play it almost like RAW, and although that means facing multiple foes can be really dangerous, it works ok. We have all parry be against all attacks from the same foe, though. Also, we DON'T declare actions out loud, so no one would KNOW in advance that an enemy would be firing a bow. But if he's standing there at a distance, bow ready, declaring missile parry might be a good idea (we'd allow that. "Guessing" that you'd be fired at would be enough to be allowed to declare missile parry). Also, since missile parry takes 50% and a melee attack requires at least 60%, we don't allow missile parry in melee (unless hasted or something).

"Split Parry" is a Warrior Mage spell, which allows you to split your parry between two opponents. I guess if you allow that anyway, it becomes useless. Also, 2WC, although expensive, is a great skill partly for the reason that it allows you to parry two opponents. Nevertheless, we HAVE discussed if we should allow parry to be split against several foes. So far, we have decided that being outnumbered SHOULD be really dangerous, and has to be dealt with carefully, so we still use RAW. Interresting to read how other handles this, though.

[Kristen Mork]

"Split Parry" is a Warrior Mage spell, which allows you to split your parry between two opponents. I guess if you allow that anyway, it becomes useless. Also, 2WC, although expensive, is a great skill partly for the reason that it allows you to parry two opponents.

You just need to modify "Split Parry" so that it's still beneficial.  It's been a long time since I've had a WM in the party, but IIRC we allowed that spell to let a character use a single parry against multiple opponents.

With respect to TWC, I agree with the observation.  It's struck me as odd that switching from sword and shield to sword and sword makes one better able to defend oneself.  For us, TWC is an offensive option: it has no defensive benefit, but by launching two attacks you either get one attack past the opponent's parry or you force him to parry twice.  Once he's parrying twice, you can switch to power-attacking with one weapon (for a much larger OB) and trick him into wasting the second parry (because you're only making one attack).

[MariusH]

Peter: Since we allow parry to count against ALL attacks from one foe, that wouldn't work with us. I really prefer parry to work like this, as it seems consistent with the "your attack is not a single stroke, it actually lasts the whole round" thinking. That should go for "parry" (defensive fighting, as we see it), too. So, we parry the foe, rather than the attack. There may be exceptions, of course, like say a Dragon big enough to bite attack you from one direction and "bash" attack you with it's tail from another direction, but we've not encountered such situations yet.

Having said that, I certainly can see reasons for allowing parry against multiple foes. But again, since we think that facing several foes SHOULD be difficult, we don't. Yet. 2WC is still better for offence than defence, though, although the opportunity to parry two attacks this way is a very neat option sometimes.

[Kristen Mork]

Peter: Since we allow parry to count against ALL attacks from one foe, that wouldn't work with us.

I think that's the more common approach.  Just not our approach.   

[Marc R]

Parry works on one foe, not one attack, per the RAW. . .the only instance that wouldn't be true in is if say you declare parry on Joe, then joe throws a knife at you then attacks with his sword. . .you'd have to have declared melee and missile parry on Joe to block both.

But if Joe is TWC adrenal speed and haste attacking you like a storm of blades, your single melee parry declaration is good vs every melee attack he makes this round.

That's pure RAW, without getting into house rules.

[jdale]

It's struck me as odd that switching from sword and shield to sword and sword makes one better able to defend oneself.

This is really only because RM, like most games, undervalues the shield. It is much harder to get a hit on someone who has two weapons than on an opponent with one. And much easier for a person with two weapons to defend against multiple attackers.

But shields are extremely effective, better than +25 DB for sure. There are reasons shields were so common in medieval combat.

In terms of rules, it would make sense to me if you could split your parry between the person you are fighting and the person you use your shield against -- if you have a shield. Even if people without shields do not get to split their parry.