Topic: Multiple Parries?

[markc]

The parry only applying to one opponent, and that opponent being the one in front of you doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me.  The saberists in the fencing club I use to belong to would usually end practice with a melee.  When faced with 2+ opponents even the best fencers would almost invariably lose if they stood their ground and fought.  The only 2 ways they could usually survive would be to either fall back on a curve (putting one opponent between them and the other attackers --this worked fairly well unless a wall or someone sneaking up behind interferred) or to launch an all out running attack with hopes of cutting down one attacker while getting behind the others.  They usually got hit going through the line of the attackers, but when succesful it could eliminate 3 or 4 opponents in a the space of a few seconds. 

So in terms of game mechanics, armour, manuevering or having someone cover your flanks becomes vital.

 I agree.
MDC

[Kristen Mork]

The parry only applying to one opponent, and that opponent being the one in front of you doesn't seem all that unreasonable to me.  The saberists in the fencing club I use to belong to would usually end practice with a melee.  When faced with 2+ opponents even the best fencers would almost invariably lose if they stood their ground and fought.  The only 2 ways they could usually survive would be to either fall back on a curve (putting one opponent between them and the other attackers --this worked fairly well unless a wall or someone sneaking up behind interferred) or to launch an all out running attack with hopes of cutting down one attacker while getting behind the others.  They usually got hit going through the line of the attackers, but when succesful it could eliminate 3 or 4 opponents in a the space of a few seconds. 

So in terms of game mechanics, armour, manuevering or having someone cover your flanks becomes vital.

It depends, really, on whether you want realism or more heroic fantasy.  I agree that when outnumbered, you're pretty much screwed IRL.  But, some of us prefer a game in which a high level fighter can hold his own against a pack of orcs.

[Marc R]

Something really satisfying about diving into a pack of enemies like Conan and hewing the lot of them into hamburger.

[RandalThor]

And we are already limiting the amount of realism by having the combat round 10-seconds long.

I like a certain level of realism in my games, like: up is up, blue in NOT green, and rocks are hard and can hurt you. But, for playability reasons, certain things have to be abstracted - not too much, mind you, but some. And, as has been mentioned a few times, the amount of heroism you want will help dictate certain aspects.

[RandalThor]

Something really satisfying about diving into a pack of enemies like Conan and hewing the lot of them into hamburger.

Yes, that can be fun. But I also distinctly remember having a great time when my 7th level fighter had to deal with 2 orcs. Exciting, edge of your seat kind of stuff, y'know? So both can be fun, imo.

[Jacinto Pat]

It depends, really, on whether you want realism or more heroic fantasy.  I agree that when outnumbered, you're pretty much screwed IRL.  But, some of us prefer a game in which a high level fighter can hold his own against a pack of orcs.
[/quote]

Absolutely agree -- the style of the adventure should drive what is "possible", not boring old reality (not that fencing is all that "realistic").

[markc]

  After giving it some thought the prevalence of the shield in combat would go along way in helping with multiple attackers. Also with some of the (MAC and RMC CC) combat style options it becomes a lot more of an reality to survive a large group encounter. 
MDC

[RandalThor]

  After giving it some thought the prevalence of the shield in combat would go along way in helping with multiple attackers. Also with some of the (MAC and RMC CC) combat style options it becomes a lot more of an reality to survive a large group encounter. 
MDC

Probably one of the main reasons they were developed in the first place. (The dealing with multiple attackers, not the MAC and RMC CC stuff, I don't think they knew about those way back when - I could be wrong, they might have known...)

[Ynglaur]

I like the rules in Combat Companion.  They allow for multiple attacks, which then provides a mechanism for multiple parries.  The rules provide a nice balance between realism and fun: the penalties are hefty, the skill requirements are high.  It gives that Level 30 warrior a bad-ass feel, but still: if he's facing 4-5 opponents it's probably time to back off.

[Ecthelion]

As a house rule I allow the DB to be split arbitrary in combat and I am still to discover any negative effect of this after years of use.

Such a ruling makes spell such as the RMSS/RMFRP's Warrior Mages "Split Parry" and "Split Attack" spells useless, which allow this profession splitting attacks and parries among his opponents. Other than that I don't see any negative side effects, as long as the same ruling is applied to PCs and NPCs alike.

[Marc R]

If allowing it, I'd likely use some version of "0 OB attacks are not rolled", so that it's only a division of DB/parry, and doesn't spawn multiple attack rolls.

[pastaav]

As a house rule I allow the DB to be split arbitrary in combat and I am still to discover any negative effect of this after years of use.

Such a ruling makes spell such as the RMSS/RMFRP's Warrior Mages "Split Parry" and "Split Attack" spells useless, which allow this profession splitting attacks and parries among his opponents. Other than that I don't see any negative side effects, as long as the same ruling is applied to PCs and NPCs alike.

I changed split parry spell to provide bonus DB to the targets that the character is not attacking. IMHO this is one of many small tweaks needed to make the Warrior Mage more playable. Seriously...the spell as written is ridiculously underpowered if you consider what happens 9 out of 10 times when a character need to do split parry. Diminishing returns mean the OB of Warrior Mage will almost never be enough, it is very hard to have a higher OB than two other characters combined.

Split parry with no penalties mean that in rare situations this tactics make sense when you need to stall opponents and keep them from advancing.
Split parry with penalties is basically useless unless the opponents are totally unskilled, the OB of the defender will never be enough for him to both pay the penalties and have OB left to do a useful parry.

[pastaav]

If allowing it, I'd likely use some version of "0 OB attacks are not rolled", so that it's only a division of DB/parry, and doesn't spawn multiple attack rolls.

I totally agree. You should only get one attack even if multiple opponents attack you.

[RandalThor]

I changed split parry spell to provide bonus DB to the targets that the character is not attacking. IMHO this is one of many small tweaks needed to make the Warrior Mage more playable. Seriously...the spell as written is ridiculously underpowered if you consider what happens 9 out of 10 times when a character need to do split parry. Diminishing returns mean the OB of Warrior Mage will almost never be enough, it is very hard to have a higher OB than two other characters combined.

I agree, and would always choose the Monk or the Armsmaster over the Warrior-Mage, even though the idea of a magic using fighter is one that I really like. (Yes, the other two do fit the bill, but they are also somewhat more specialized.) I also like the idea that after casting the spell (which should be instantaneous, if it isn't already) it allows you to use your full DB for more than one person. Example: 100 OB, 50 DB, I cast Split Parry I, it allows me to put 50 OB into DB and use the now 100 DB against 2 foes/attacks. That would be a much better use of the spell.

[Ecthelion]

As a house rule I allow the DB to be split arbitrary in combat and I am still to discover any negative effect of this after years of use.

Such a ruling makes spell such as the RMSS/RMFRP's Warrior Mages "Split Parry" and "Split Attack" spells useless, which allow this profession splitting attacks and parries among his opponents. Other than that I don't see any negative side effects, as long as the same ruling is applied to PCs and NPCs alike.

I changed split parry spell to provide bonus DB to the targets that the character is not attacking. IMHO this is one of many small tweaks needed to make the Warrior Mage more playable.

Of course it is possible to again adapt the Warrior Mage's spells, so that the house rule does not penalize this profession. But personally I am not a fan of such a chain of house rulings where the second rule needs to fix the flaws of the first and then perhaps a third house rule is needed to fix the problems introduced with the second rule. I mean, it does not end with the Warrior Mage's spells, MAC Weapon Styles with an additional attack also lose their advantage of being allowed a split parry.

Seriously...the spell as written is ridiculously underpowered if you consider what happens 9 out of 10 times when a character need to do split parry. Diminishing returns mean the OB of Warrior Mage will almost never be enough, it is very hard to have a higher OB than two other characters combined.

But if the Warrior Mage's Split Parry spell is so "ridiculously underpowered" in RAW, then the simple splitting the parry bonus must also be "ridiculously underpowered" and thus probably useless. Then why introduce it for everyone in the first place? But I rather think that the option to parry against a second attacker is instead quite powerful. I rather prefer the RAW way and not allow this feat to every character. Perhaps the way it is done in HARP is quite nice, where for every partial 10 ranks developed one more target can be defended against (i.e. 1-10 ranks => 1 parry, 11-20 ranks => 2 parries etc.). But the normal rules, where only special spells or special weapon styles grant access to the option of a split parry is what I like the most. And it also gives non-spell users a bit more of an edge since they usually are the only ones who have enough DPs left to develop such stlyes incroporating a second attach (and thus a second parry target).

Just my 2 cents

[pastaav]

I changed split parry spell to provide bonus DB to the targets that the character is not attacking. IMHO this is one of many small tweaks needed to make the Warrior Mage more playable.

Of course it is possible to again adapt the Warrior Mage's spells, so that the house rule does not penalize this profession. But personally I am not a fan of such a chain of house rulings where the second rule needs to fix the flaws of the first and then perhaps a third house rule is needed to fix the problems introduced with the second rule. I mean, it does not end with the Warrior Mage's spells, MAC Weapon Styles with an additional attack also lose their advantage of being allowed a split parry.

I would argue the flaw is the core rules that has a limit on how many you can simultaneous parry for no good reason at all. A rule that mean the only reasonable tactics when you are attacked by multiple opponents is not parry at all but gamble on winning initiative does not add anything good to the game IMHO. If you fix the root cause a number of more or less broken ways to dodge the problematic ruling in core book becomes obsolete, but that is no big deal in my book.   

Seriously...the spell as written is ridiculously underpowered if you consider what happens 9 out of 10 times when a character need to do split parry. Diminishing returns mean the OB of Warrior Mage will almost never be enough, it is very hard to have a higher OB than two other characters combined.

But if the Warrior Mage's Split Parry spell is so "ridiculously underpowered" in RAW, then the simple splitting the parry bonus must also be "ridiculously underpowered" and thus probably useless.

Needing to spend pp mean pretty much. Let us for instance look at the lvl 20 spell Split Parry IV....20 pp spent for being allowed a single round of trying to stretch your OB to be enough to parry 4 opponents. Can't understand why anyone would ever cast the RAW version of the spell.

I rather prefer the RAW way and not allow this feat to every character. Perhaps the way it is done in HARP is quite nice, where for every partial 10 ranks developed one more target can be defended against (i.e. 1-10 ranks => 1 parry, 11-20 ranks => 2 parries etc.). But the normal rules, where only special spells or special weapon styles grant access to the option of a split parry is what I like the most. And it also gives non-spell users a bit more of an edge since they usually are the only ones who have enough DPs left to develop such stlyes incroporating a second attach (and thus a second parry target).

I think the HARP rule is pointless. The character with less than 10 ranks will not have a OB large enough to make an effective parry against multiple opponents so why have a rule that prevent such in the first place?

At the end of the day it all boils down into OB and DB and it is simple to sit down and test how different rules play out. Unfortunately I don't think the people designing RM and HARP ever did such comparison. If you do test combats between different opponents it soon become very obvious that multiple enemies is horrible news even if you are allowed split parry at no penalty.   

[markc]

From Pastaav;
 

The character with less than 10 ranks will not have a OB large enough to make an effective parry against multiple opponents so why have a rule that prevent such in the first place?

[/size]
IMHO it gets you something for nothing, it also gives you the ability to create some interesting magic items and spells if you allow this rule. But all in all I do not allow multiple parries in my game except where the rules in the MAC allow you to do so or as RAW from core or suppliments.

MDC