Creatures with parry

[Lupine]

So, I was playing roll20 with my group, and everyone was enjoying it. That was, until the group started trying to stab the erinyes, and it has parry. At one point, I had the erinyes let one blow pass, because parrying it wouldn't change the result (hit either way), and chose to parry the next blow instead, causing it to miss. Now, the rules lawyer in the group jumped up at that, and challenged the ruling (he does that more frequently when the party is in a tough scrap :smallbiggrin:)
His justification was that players have to choose things like parrying (or bardic inspiration, for that matter) before knowing the result, whereas I (as the monster) was choosing to parry or not using the knowledge of the monster's AC.

Ok, fair enough. I see his point. I told him I would look into it, but that the rule stands, then surreptitiously subtracted the 11 damage his attack would have done from it's health pool (Failed my stealth roll. He noticed, and whispered a thanks to me).

Anyway, here I am, looking into it. Can I, as the DM, choose what attacks a monster parries --knowing the result--, or must the monster always attempt to parry the first attack that hits (or some other pre-formulated system)?

[stoutstien]

So, I was playing roll20 with my group, and everyone was enjoying it. That was, until the group started trying to stab the erinyes, and it has parry. At one point, I had the erinyes let one blow pass, because parrying it wouldn't change the result (hit either way), and chose to parry the next blow instead, causing it to miss. Now, the rules lawyer in the group jumped up at that, and challenged the ruling (he does that more frequently when the party is in a tough scrap :smallbiggrin:)
His justification was that players have to choose things like parrying (or bardic inspiration, for that matter) before knowing the result, whereas I (as the monster) was choosing to parry or not using the knowledge of the monster's AC.

Ok, fair enough. I see his point. I told him I would look into it, but that the rule stands, then surreptitiously subtracted the 11 damage his attack would have done from it's health pool (Failed my stealth roll. He noticed, and whispered a thanks to me).

Anyway, here I am, looking into it. Can I, as the DM, choose what attacks a monster parries --knowing the result--, or must the monster always attempt to parry the first attack that hits (or some other pre-formulated system)?

Your player does have a point but DM has final say regardless. You could have easily have the NPCs feature worded in a way to only activate after a hit would land like shield spell.

depending on how tactically minded your table is you could point out some things after the fact that would work like blocked sight, disarm, or shoving.

On a side note I don't allow players to challenge rulings during the game unless it results in a PC death. they are welcome to bring it up between or at the beginning of the next session. if I did really screw something up which is inevitable I use the Jeopardy logic of bad calls.

[JellyPooga]

Parry. The erinyes add 4 to its AC against one melee attack that would hit it.

No mention of having to declare ahead of time and it's clear you should be aware of the AC and to-hit roll in question before activating the ability. There's an argument that the ability should always activate on a hit that would hit it, i.e. the first one that would, but it's a weak argument IMO. Using a Reaction is always a) reactive to the triggering condition (i.e. an attack that would hit) and b) at the players discretion (i.e. yours as GM) unless otherwise noted.

Abilities that must be declared before the result is known say so.

Your player was wrong.

[DrKerosene]

I read Parry from the Erinyes, Gladiator, and Bandit Captain as being similar to the spell Shield. You can use it to turn an attack that would hit you into a miss, it’s in the wording. The fact that Parry only works against a single attack (unlike Shield buffing your AC for a period of time) means it’s only working once per round.

I don’t run a game where you’d have to declare using the Shield spell or Defensive Duelist feat before knowing the attack roll total (and if the ability would make a difference).

[Crucius]

Do you tell your player (with a hypothetical 15 AC) when you make an attack against them "I rolled a 19 to hit" or do you just say "I hit"? In both cases the shield spell would cause the attack to miss, but the difference is in the player knowing the to-hit. If the to-hit were 21 then they could have wasted the shield spell on an attack that still hits.

Whichever you do (there is no wrong answer), make sure you also follow this on your own monsters, even though you know the to hit in both cases. Keeps things consistent.

Fights are more interesting if the monsters make mistakes from time to time, allowing the party to capitalize on that, swinging the fight in their favor. There is nothing bad about that!

[Lunali]

Treat it the same way you do the shield spell.

If you only tell players whether they got hit or not and leave them to decide whether to try to use shield or not, you should follow a similar restriction. If you tell players what the roll was and let them tell you if it was a hit and/or whether they're using shield, then you should be able to decide based on whether it would help you.

[da newt]

I can see both sides of the argument, I don't think you can go wrong as long as you are consistent.

RAW - The BM fighter's PARRY maneuver states that it can be used "when another creature damages you with a melee attack" - no need to declare before you know if you've been hit.

The Erinyes has a 14 INT - I'd think its reasonable for her to be able to determine if a strike worth parrying.

In my opinion, it's fair for your monsters to have the same info / lack of info as your PCs for parry or shield decisions. If the PC's don't know the specific numbers, your creatures shouldn't either.

Lastly - Why would a Erinyes ever allow herself to get caught in melee? She's too smart for that and should be attacking with her bow and staying out of reach of melee if at all possible.

[Mr Adventurer]

I think the abilities don't need to be consistent even though they have similar or identical names. Each specifies how it works in its description. So, the way you did things in the first place was fine, and your player was wrong that they should be treated the same, but right that it feels unfair from the player side! ;)

[Desamir]

+1 to "treat it the way you would treat a player's Shield spell."

If you are not giving any information to players about monster's attack rolls (besides hit/miss) then I'd play the Erinyes with the same ignorance. Conversely, if you are telling or hinting to your players what numbers your monsters are rolling, then play the Erinyes the same way.

[Zalabim]

I want to add that you can also have the monster hold off on using Parry for any discernible reason as well. Like only Parrying the barbarian's hits, or never parrying the cleric. Save it for the swashbuckler? Perfectly valid.

[Lupine]

Lastly - Why would a Erinyes ever allow herself to get caught in melee? She's too smart for that and should be attacking with her bow and staying out of reach of melee if at all possible.

Summoned right in front of the players, tried to fly away after dealing 63 damage to the monk. Bard had broom of flying, tossed it to monk. Monk flew after Erinyes, then jumped onto the Erinyes’s back (that’s their favorite tactic for flying enemies. He tries to stun them out of the air)

What I’m getting is roughly half saying that by RAW, what I did is find, and the other half saying however I treat player shields, I should treat monster parries.
I generally tell players the to-hit, but not always.

[MaxWilson]

Summoned right in front of the players, tried to fly away after dealing 63 damage to the monk. Bard had broom of flying, tossed it to monk. Monk flew after Erinyes, then jumped onto the Erinyes’s back (that’s their favorite tactic for flying enemies. He tries to stun them out of the air)

What I’m getting is roughly half saying that by RAW, what I did is find, and the other half saying however I treat player shields, I should treat monster parries.
I generally tell players the to-hit, but not always.

As a matter of good practice (which has nothing to do with RAW) and providing a positive game experience, I would recommend using similar parry rules for both players and monsters. This could mean changing how you treat your players, if everyone thinks that knowing the rolls but not the modifiers is more fun than knowing nothing.

[Telok]

You run it however you like, keeping in mind whether or not it is fun for you and the players.

I had a DM who uled that npcs casting darkness or invisibility became hidden until a pc won a contested perception check. Pcs still had to make hide actions because those were the pc rules in the PH, but npcs used different rules so they just got hidden when they used the abilities.

[HappyDaze]

I don't find that the game suffers in the least about making the target numbers and bonuses plainly clear to everybody at the table. This completely removes issues like the OP presented and emphasizes the game part of RPG.