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Zorgoth
2013-10-19, 09:54 PM
So, while there is fighting defensively, parrying is obviously not really implemented in d20 (for one thing, parrying would not be a dodge bonus but a separate parry bonus, and for another, its effectiveness varies massively based on the weapon you are wielding). So I developed two different ideas for how to implement parrying, although I'm sure lots of people have done this before. One is a simplified mechanism designed to be easily understood, and the other is something I think is a little more realistic, although it still has some concessions to game mechanics, but it is much longer and more complicated. So here are the things I'm considering:

First, just for fun,

New weapon: Saber : 1d8 one-handed slashing martial weapon, 19-20x2. Finessable, cannot be wielded in two hands for additional strength bonus (this weapon is not as effective at parrying as the rapier, but is better than other weapons, and is more durable).

Simple version of parry:

I haven't sorted out how this combines with combat expertise but the priciple is simple and it shouldn't be hard to work out:

Some weapons have a parry rating. When fighting defensively or taking the total defense action, you may use up to your parry rating to gain the following effects:
rating 1: -1 dodge bonus to AC from fighting defensively, +2 parry bonus to AC, +1 to attack
rating 2: -1 dodge bonus to AC from fighting defensively, +3 parry bonus to AC, +2 to attack
rating 3: -2 dodge bonus to AC from fighting defensively, +5 parry bonus to AC, +3 to attack
rating 4: -2 dodge bonus to AC from fighting defensively, +6 parry bonus to AC, +4 to attack

Parry ratings:

Longsword, Spear, Shortsword: 1
Quarterstaff, Sabre, Scimitar: 2
Rapier: 3

When you are wielding a sabre, gain +1 to parry rating if your offhand is empty. When wielding a rapier, gain a +1 to parry rating if your offhand is empty. Thrown weapons, two handed weapons, and piercing weapons ignore the first 2 of a parry bonus to AC, while projectile weapons and two handed reach weapons used from over 5 feet away ignore the first 3. Parry bonuses do not apply against touch attacks and are denied whenever Dexterity to AC is denied.

Feat associated with simple version of parry:

Improved parry: Thrown weapons, piercing weapons, and two handed weapons do not ignore any of your parry bonus to AC. Projectile weapons and two handed reach weapons ignore only one point of this bonus.

Complicated version of parry:

Since the full version of my draft of the complicated version is very long, I am writing a shorter description and including the full thing as a spoiler:

When using appropriate weapons, parrying goes like this: Someone chose to parry instead of one of their attacks, they choose a melee attack to parry. They make an attack roll with some modifiers to intercept the weapon. They then make a strength or dexterity check against their opponent's strength check to hold or deflect the blow, with certain modifications; if the attacker wins the strength check they get an attack and may damage or destroy the parrying weapon. With an appropriate weapon, after a successful parry you may make a riposte, which denies the opponent dexterity to AC but does not gain Power Attack and only gets half strength modifier. With an appropriate weapon, The riposte may be parried (but cannot power through the parry) and followed by a counter-riposte, but it is harder to parry a riposte than an initial attack and the difficulty accumulates until one side gets to make an attack.


You may replace any attack you are entitled to with a parry at the same attack bonus if you are wielding any kind of weapon. You may select any one melee attack made against you in the next round and attempt to parry it. You must have your dexterity bonus to AC against that attack and not have any condition that would prevent you from making an attack normally. You make an attack roll to intercept the attacker's weapon, opposed by your opponent's attack roll to hit you. Except for specific weapons with specified bonuses, there is a -4 penalty for the defender with either a two-handed or a light weapon, a -4 penalty to the attacker with a two-handed weapon, . Swords have an additional +2 bonus, while non-light piercing weapons have an additional +4 bonus to avoid being parried.

Special: The above rules do not apply to certain specific weapons. Rapiers have a +8 bonus and sabers have a +6 bonus to parry, while both have a +4 bonus to avoid being parried. Quarterstaffs and spears have a +2 bonus to parry (but not to avoid being parried). Natural weapons cannot be used to parry. Before rolling to parry, you must decide whether to attempt a riposte. If you do, you are denied your dexterity bonus to AC if the parry fails. If a natural weapon is parried, the attacker takes weapon damage using their own Strength and Power Attack modifiers. If wielding a rapier, you may attempt to parry a ranged attack, but thrown weapons get a +5 bonus and projectile weapons get a +10 bonus (this replaces all other bonuses and penalties). No beats or ripostes occur in this case.

Beat (not to be confused with "beat attacks" in fencing): If you successfully parry an opponent's attack made with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon, they still may be able to hit you if you cannot stop or deflect the power of their blow. The attacker makes a strength check, opposed by the defender's strength or dexterity check, whichever is higher. The defender gains a +4 bonus on this check. For both attacker and defender, the wielder of a 2-handed weapon has a +4 bonus and the wielder of a light weapon has a -4 penalty. Two-handed reach weapons used from 10 feet away or more have an additional +4 bonus. Natural weapons are treated as one-handed. In addition, there is a +4 bonus for each size category above medium and a -4 penalty for each size categories below.

If the defender wins the beat check, the blow is harmlessly deflected or blocked. If the attacker wins the beat check by less than four, the parrying blade is deflected and the attack proceeds as normal, but with a -2 penalty to attack and damage. If the attacker succeeds by four or more, the parrying weapon is struck by the full force of the blow, and then the attack proceeds as normal against the defender except with a -2 penalty to attack and a penalty to damage equal to the lesser of the defender's Strength modifier and half of the damage taken by the parrying weapon. If the defender chose to make a riposte, they are denied Dexterity to AC against attacks due to a successful beat.

Special: Rapiers have a -2 penalty to Beat checks (attacking or defending). If the attacker is using the Power Attack feat, they gain a +1 bonus to their check for every 2 damage their attack would be granted by Power Attack if it hit.

When parrying with a spear or quarterstaff, you gain a +4 bonus to your beat check, but a successful beat check by the opponent always damages your weapon. If your weapon is not destroyed, you are not hit.

Riposte: When wielding a one-handed or light sword, a quarterstaff, or spear, you may choose to attempt a riposte after a successful parry, although this choice must be made before the parry. This attack is made immediately after the parry with the same attack modifiers as the parry, including parry modifiers, and the target is denied their dexterity bonus to AC. Anyone capable of parrying can attempt to parry a riposte, regardless of whether they prepared a parry, and is then entitled to their riposte if successful. However, a subject of a riposte take a cumulative -4 penalty to parrying for every riposte they have been subject to in this exchange (started by a single attack against the initial parrier), including the current riposte. Ripostes do not gain a benefit from the Power Attack feat, although they still take a penalty to attack, and any strength bonus to damage is halved. You cannot beat with a parried riposte. You cannot riposte against an opponent against whom you could not normally make an attack.


Feats associated with complicated version of parry:

Improved Parry
Prereq Int 13, Dex 15, Combat Expertise

You gain a +4 to all checks to parry an opponent's weapon, a +4 to all defensive beat checks, and a +4 bonus to attack on all ripostes. You also know the beat modifier of an attacj before you make the decision to parry it.

Block arrows
Prereq Int 13, Dex 17, Improved Parry

You may parry ranged attacks with a rapier or saber. No beats or ripostes are allowed in this case. The attacker gains a +2 bonus to avoid being parried with a thrown weapon and a +4 bonus to avoid being parried with a projectile weapon, but none of the bonuses or penalties mentioned in the description of the parry maneuver. (as is also mentioned in the spoiler, do not confuse beat with "beat attack" in fencing, it is just the word I am using for powering past a parry)

Fosco the Swift
2013-10-19, 10:11 PM
This is very in-depth and obviously you've put a lot of work into it. And just as a notice, this has been done before, but no where close to the amount of effort this has. Check out the 3.5 Defense Overhaul thread if you are interested in this kind of thing.
Couple of things- this is grossly overpowered, and will be overused. Weapons would be shattered constantly or rogues would suddenly be battle experts because of their high DEX and the common usage of rapiers. Plus I can see this extending battles and getting so frequent and repetitive that some people would just drop it. EVERYONE would start Fighting Defensively or using Total Defense, which yes gives some usage out of those underused abilities, but would make battles take forever. Plus, even with the simple version you have quite a few extra additions and subtractions to one's AC, and then a bonus to hit. And because you have the total AC bonus equal to the Total Attack bonus, this just adds complications to battles, without a lot being gained. That's for the simple version of course, for the Complicated version all you've really created is the ability to sunder without AoO, or sundering when its not your turn. That's for the strength section at least.

Honestly, its great that you took the time to crete this really awesome parrying idea, but all I see is it being overused to the point when people start getting bored of it.

Zorgoth
2013-10-19, 10:17 PM
This is very in-depth and obviously you've put a lot of work into it. And just as a notice, this has been done before, but no where close to the amount of effort this has. Check out the 3.5 Defense Overhaul thread if you are interested in this kind of thing.
Couple of things- this is grossly overpowered, and will be overused. Weapons would be shattered constantly or rogues would suddenly be battle experts because of their high DEX and the common usage of rapiers. Plus I can see this extending battles and getting so frequent and repetitive that some people would just drop it. EVERYONE would start Fighting Defensively or using Total Defense, which yes gives some usage out of those underused abilities, but would make battles take forever. Plus, even with the simple version you have quite a few extra additions and subtractions to one's AC, and then a bonus to hit. And because you have the total AC bonus equal to the Total Attack bonus, this just adds complications to battles, without a lot being gained. That's for the simple version of course, for the Complicated version all you've really created is the ability to sunder without AoO, or sundering when its not your turn. That's for the strength section at least.

Honestly, its great that you took the time to crete this really awesome parrying idea, but all I see is it being overused to the point when people start getting bored of it.

It might be overpowered as written (although it can be modified), but as a note you can't sunder an opponent's weapon by parrying; you choose to parry an opponent's weapon, and then they can sunder yours if you get unlucky - this is one of the balancing factors, and it's realistic that you probably won't try to parry a power attack 10 from a greatsword with your rapier, and this is why.

Zorgoth
2013-10-19, 10:26 PM
A simple way to tone down the power of the simple version is to only do AC improvements at odd levels and attack improvements at even levels, so that it just becomes a -2/+4 instead of a -0/+6 for fighting defensively at parry rating 4.

Fosco the Swift
2013-10-20, 09:05 AM
So this is how its going to work for the complicated version, somewhere in mid round. Both Opponets are fighting defensively and are weilding rapiers. They are dubbed 1 and 2. 2 has 2 attacks via high BAB
1 gives up his only attack to parry.
2 attacks 1 with his rapier once, and uses his second attack to parry.
1 wants to risposte the attack, and then succeeds on his parry.
2 fails to "beat" 1.
1 rispostes against 2, 2 decides to try to risposte. 2 succeeds on parry.
2 gets his riposte. (Can 1 parry this? He does not have another parry attempt that he can make.)
(Assuming 1 can parry) 1 parries 2. No risposte.
It is now 1's turn again. Repeat events.

This is how a battle can work out.

ThermalSlapShot
2013-10-20, 09:51 AM
Here is what I've been working on for 3.5, something to give Extraordinary classes some oomph. Do note that you may only make 1 immediate action per round. This is a very very very rough draft of it.

Parry
Action: Immediate (Con Mod number times per day; max 5)
Target: One attack effects the PC (Spell, Spell-Like, Supernatural or Extraordinary [mundane]).
Special: Only PCs whose 3/4 th of their classes have full BAB progressions may use this ability.

Effect: As an immediate action you may parry an oncoming Melee attack, Ranged attack (must have strength of 26 to parry a ballista), Physical trap (giant rolling ball, or swinging log trap), magical ray (example ray of enfeeblement), magical burst (example fireball), Magical Line (example Dragon's Breath, Lightning Bolt), Magical Ball (Ball of Fire), or Magical Wall (special). When an attack or effect is parried the PC is considered not to been effected by it at all.

The effect that is parried may be targeting you or a creature you can reach with your weapon or shield. The player must make an attack roll against a DC to determine success.

Spell/Spell-Like/Supernatural: DC = 10 + Spell Level + Caster's Con Mod (Con mod represents the Caster's ability to hold the spell as it is intended to be, somewhat like a concentration check). This seems low and it probably is, however there is always a chance the person foing the Parry rolls a one.

Melee/Ranged/Trap: DC = Attack Roll of the triggering effect.

Wall: When a magical wall is created and parts of it will cause damage (such as wall of fire or when a wall of iron is tipped over) the PC may parry the wall. In case of walls that don't create lasting effects (wall of fire and such) the areas that are parried are destroyed as they come into existence and are nullified which may cause additional areas of the wall to be destroyed since it must be a continuous wall. Walls that are created as lasting permanent objects (wall of stone, iron) that are parried are redirected in any direction away from the PC. The number of squares that are redirected equal to the number that may be reached with the PCs weapon or shield.

(Note: I've changed evasion to work something like this too but is Dex/Con based and can dodge even ballistas without the strength requirement).

This doesn't slow down game play all that much and gives mundanes something good. We are still play testing it though. Redirecting a wall of stone was pretty fun, and when the wall of fire was put up... and my Fighter cut/blocked it from going any further... I couldn't help but think of Fighter from 8 bit theater where he can block anything.

Now to add in rules for when you are falling and you can block the earth...

Prime32
2013-10-20, 11:08 AM
for one thing, parrying would not be a dodge bonus but a separate parry bonusYou realise that Dwarven Defenders get a dodge bonus to AC by staying immobile, right? :smalltongue:

Easiest way to handle parrying: Get rid of attack rolls; when you attack, the target must instead make an "AC check" to avoid it with a DC equal to your attack modifier +20.

If you want more than that, then give everyone (other than monsters) an AC bonus equal to half their BAB. It helps vs touch spells, and monsters with massive attack bonuses.

Zorgoth
2013-10-20, 01:54 PM
So this is how its going to work for the complicated version, somewhere in mid round. Both Opponets are fighting defensively and are weilding rapiers. They are dubbed 1 and 2. 2 has 2 attacks via high BAB
1 gives up his only attack to parry.
2 attacks 1 with his rapier once, and uses his second attack to parry.
1 wants to risposte the attack, and then succeeds on his parry.
2 fails to "beat" 1.
1 rispostes against 2, 2 decides to try to risposte. 2 succeeds on parry.
2 gets his riposte. (Can 1 parry this? He does not have another parry attempt that he can make.)
(Assuming 1 can parry) 1 parries 2. No risposte.
It is now 1's turn again. Repeat events.

This is how a battle can work out.

1 can parry, because parrying a riposte does not use a parry; it's just something you can do. And well, attack parry riposte counter-parry counter-riposte... is in fact how a fight between two skilled people wielding rapiers would generally go (even an incompetent fencer can probably parry the first attack or two from a skilled one - parrying is easy with that kind of weapon).

But yes, it would take a while, and I've realized that actually it can pretty much be simulated with a parry beat riposte stop system, given appropriate modifiers, without the counter-ripostes, since really all the repeated counter-parries do is change the chance of who hits who, and there's already a certain chance of the attacker hitting and a certain chance of the parrier hitting. So while less "realistic" the same model can be obtained with a simpler parry beat riposte without counter-ripostes. So that is at most three rolls.

With the modified system, possible outcomes of 2 parrying with riposte are:

1)
i) 1 attacks, 2 tries to parry, parry fails - attack is normal, 2 gets no Dex to AC
2)
i) 1 attacks, 2 tries to parry, parry succeeds
ii) 1 overpowers 2's parry, either does or does not attack weapon depending on beat check, rolls attack on 2 with some modifiers.
3)
i) 1 attacks, 2 tries to parry, parry succeeds
ii) 1 fails to overpower parry
iii) 2 ripostes. Riposte does or does not hit. No parry attempt (unless possibly 1 is allowed to use a prepared parry - this is basically like another attack being used though).

Which is longer than a regular attack, but not a lot longer than a similar combat maneuver. Note that this replaces two attack rolls, not one, since 2 would otherwise be attacking as well.

urkthegurk
2013-10-21, 12:28 PM
Ok, my main problem with this is: isn't everyone trying to parry, all of the time? Anyone who's armed or proficient with a weapon, that is. How I would model this is through special parry feats, the way ripostes are done through feats like Robilar's Gambit. Further, if you want to reflect the fact that unarmed characters are more vulnerable, give unarmed character a -4 vs melee attacks, or a -2 if they're armed but nonproficient. Viola!

For special parry feat trees, we could have some of the ac-bonus stuff we see above, but I would limit it to targets of your dodge feat, tie it in with Combat Expertise, etc. Is there a feat that lets you increase the number of targets you dodge? There should be. How about a feat where, if your opponent misses, they get a penalty on all their attacks for one round? Then there's that feat where if they miss, you can make a 5-foot adjust! So you can avoid full attacks.

What about if you take a full defense action (or -4 or greater from combat expertise) you get 20% concealment, for the purposes of avoiding attacks? (so you can't make a hide check, for instance)

How you can spend an attack of opportunity to switch the target of your dodge bonus out-of-turn? Or another feat that says targets of your dodge feat can't flank you?

This is where I would go to deal with these things. Some of those are actually good feat ideas, I should write them up! I've been trying to figure this out for awhile now, and I'm only getting close now.

Zorgoth
2013-10-22, 10:54 AM
1 can parry, because parrying a riposte does not use a parry; it's just something you can do. And well, attack parry riposte counter-parry counter-riposte... is in fact how a fight between two skilled people wielding rapiers would generally go (even an incompetent fencer can probably parry the first attack or two from a skilled one - parrying is easy with that kind of weapon).

But yes, it would take a while, and I've realized that actually it can pretty much be simulated with a parry beat riposte stop system, given appropriate modifiers, without the counter-ripostes, since really all the repeated counter-parries do is change the chance of who hits who, and there's already a certain chance of the attacker hitting and a certain chance of the parrier hitting. So while less "realistic" the same model can be obtained with a simpler parry beat riposte without counter-ripostes. So that is at most three rolls.

With the modified system, possible outcomes of 2 parrying with riposte are:

1)
i) 1 attacks, 2 tries to parry, parry fails - attack is normal, 2 gets no Dex to AC
2)
i) 1 attacks, 2 tries to parry, parry succeeds
ii) 1 overpowers 2's parry, either does or does not attack weapon depending on beat check, rolls attack on 2 with some modifiers.
3)
i) 1 attacks, 2 tries to parry, parry succeeds
ii) 1 fails to overpower parry
iii) 2 ripostes. Riposte does or does not hit. No parry attempt (unless possibly 1 is allowed to use a prepared parry - this is basically like another attack being used though).

Which is longer than a regular attack, but not a lot longer than a similar combat maneuver. Note that this replaces two attack rolls, not one, since 2 would otherwise be attacking as well.

Well I guess I'm trying to model something very complicated that is sort of implemented in the rules but not very well. A flat AC bonus has several problems:

1) It doesn't reflect the massive differences between the ability of different kinds of weapons to intercept blows
2) It doesn't reflect the interactions between different weapons (a rapier is the best weapon for parrying a rapier, but if someone is attacking you with a greatsword you want something at least as big as a saber or longsword)
3) It makes it hard to decide when you can make a riposte

However, you do have a point about parrying all the time. What if parrying could also use attacks of opportunity, but otherwise works more or less the way I described? I don't really see the point in tying it in with dodge (a parry-focused character with a rapier or saber already probably needs combat expertise, improved parry, combat reflexes, and weapon finesse, which is a a lot of feats to begin with).

What I would do instead of tying it with dodge is just have the parrier designate a target for his parrying each round. To parry an attack against himself by the target, he gets a +4 bonus, to parry an attack against someone else by the target, he gets a +0 bonus, to parry an attack by someone else against him be gets a +0 bonus, to parry an attack by someone else against someone else he gets a -4 penalty. Some of the modifiers in the original would have to be changed, as they were not based around a +4 for the parrier (hence the massive bonus for parrying with a rapier; it's very hard not to get parried by a rapier).

Robilar's gambit doesn't strike me as quite right for ripostes. Parry-riposte is a more defensive maneuver than attack, at least with a rapier. You don't have to move or adopt a special stance to riposte; by lunging to attack, your opponent has closed the distance for you. Robilar's gambit strikes me as don't-parry-just-attack.

Zorgoth
2013-10-22, 11:05 AM
Of course in that case parrying could make someone virtually untouchable against a single opponent with a single attack at low levels. I'm not certain whether that's actually a problem though. When wielding parry-focused weapons it might be realistic anyway if they are less skilled than you and aren't wielding a massive two-hander. Possibly parrying should only be enabled only when fighting defensively or using combat expertise -2 to make a bigger trade-off. Or maybe you just take a -X on attacks to enable parrying separately. Another balancing factor could be making riposte consume either another attack of opportunity or an attack, so that you need combat reflexes to gain extra attacks from parrying.

Edit: Trading 2 dodge bonus that must be acquired from combat expertise or fighting defensively to enable parries might be the best way to balance it.

Edit: A possibly better way to handle ripostes is to say the parry check and the defensive beat check both have to win by 2 or 4 to allow a riposte, or to modify the attack roll by difference in parry checks + difference in beat checks -8 or -10.