Parry Fighting Style

[Oerlaf]

Parry Fighting Style. When you take damage from a melee attack that isn't a crtical hit, you can use your reaction to make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check against a DC equal to the modified attack roll of the attacker. If you succeed, you don't take the damage. If you succeed by 5 points or more, you can make a counterattack with a melee weapon you're wielding or with unarmed strike as part of the same reaction. If you have the Extra Attack feature, you can try to parry as many attacks as you can make yourself using the Attack action. In this case, only the first parry attempt costs you a reaction, while others require no action since you effectively entered a defensive stance.

[GeoffWatson]

Crazy overpowered.

[GalacticAxekick]

Fun idea. Far too powerful.

Other fighting styles do things like "+1 AC" or "+2 damage per hit" or "give one attack disadvantage, as a reaction"

Yours is "give one attack pseudo-disadvantage, as a reaction.

...But instead of trying to beat your AC, it's trying to beat your acrobatics, which improves faster and higher than your AC.

...And as you gain levels, you can do this to more than one attack.

...And sometimes you get a free counterattack"

[Oerlaf]

Fun idea. Far too powerful.

Other fighting styles do things like "+1 AC" or "+2 damage per hit" or "give one attack disadvantage, as a reaction"

Yours is "give one attack pseudo-disadvantage, as a reaction.

...But instead of trying to beat your AC, it's trying to beat your acrobatics, which improves faster and higher than your AC.

...And as you gain levels, you can do this to more than one attack.

...And sometimes you get a free counterattack"

I personally didn't think of that as powerful because the DC equals the modified attack roll of the attacker. So if he rolled 18 and his to-hit modifier is +10, you would have to beat a DC 28 Acrobatics check to negate the damage.

[JNAProductions]

I personally didn't think of that as powerful because the DC equals the modified attack roll of the attacker. So if he rolled 18 and his to-hit modifier is +10, you would have to beat a DC 28 Acrobatics check to negate the damage.

If the attacker has +10 to-hit, you're probably at least level 11.

Which means (assuming Dex 20 and Expertise in Acrobatics) you can Parry with an Acrobatics of +13.

This gives you a 66% chance of blocking any given attack, and a 42.75% chance of counterattacking.

Heck, in your given example, when the enemy rolls really, really well, you still have a 30% chance of blocking it, and if you roll a nat 20, STILL get a counter attack.

The concept isn't bad, though I don't think it should really be a Fighting Style-the execution is very OP.

[Quizatzhaderac]

Arguably, parrying is represented in a character's AC.

A character without a scrap of armor has an AC of 10 + DEX bonus because of their ability to block, dodge, or parry. Which of these they do is typically ignored since it generally doesn't matter and saves having to worry about which ones are appropriate for each weapon paring.

This also explains why a basically competent warrior is missing half the time. The LV1 fighter could hit a target dummy 100% of the time, but the attack roll mechanics assume an armed, aware, and able bodied target.

So maybe a parry that you can counter attack from occurs when an attack roll against you fails by 5 or more.

Or maybe the fencer picks an opponent the expect to be attacked by, and exchanges the reaction to instead increase their AC versus that particular opponent.

[MrStabby]

Parry Fighting Style. When you take damage from a melee attack that isn't a crtical hit, you can use your reaction to make a Dexterity (Acrobatics) check against a DC equal to the modified attack roll of the attacker. If you succeed, you don't take the damage. If you succeed by 5 points or more, you can make a counterattack with a melee weapon you're wielding or with unarmed strike as part of the same reaction. If you have the Extra Attack feature, you can try to parry as many attacks as you can make yourself using the Attack action. In this case, only the first parry attempt costs you a reaction, while others require no action since you effectively entered a defensive stance.

I think there are two issues here. One is that it is too powerful, massively, but that has already been covered.

The other thing is that it is complicated and slows the game down.

There is an attack and you determine if it is a hit or not as normal... then you need to make a seperate ability check, then you need to determine not just whether you succeeeded but also by how much, then you (may) need to make a counterattack, then you need to keep track of how many times you have done this... the amount of additional time and complexity just becomes a burden for everyone else at the table waiting around to have a turn.

I would do something simple like "if you are wielding a melee weapon you may use your reaction to add +2 to your armour class against enemies you can see until the start of your next turn". Like defensive style but bigger, at the cost of a reaction and doesn't help if you are an archer. Even then it is probably still too good.