Parry

[TempusCCK]

Presenting new feats to make your melee combatant more defensive.

Parry [General, Fighter Bonus]

Prerequisite- BAB +3, Combat Expertise

Benefit- By taking the parry feat, a character can add his strength bonus plus any bonuses he gets from Weapon Focus or Greater Weapon Focus, to his armor class as a competence bonus. He gains this bonus to AC only against Melee attacks made against him, which includes natural attacks and touch attacks. As well, he has the option of making a Parry roll in any round where he fights defensively or takes at least a -2 on attack rolls with the Combat Expertise feat. If your roll exceeds the attack roll of the attacker, you negate their attack. You add your complete Base Attack Bonus, strength bonus and any weapon enhancement bonuses to your roll, just as if you had made an attack roll yourself. A parry roll completely negates a single attack made against you, and you can make as many parry rolls you have attacks in a round. The benefits of this feat do not apply if you are flatfooted or otherwise denied your dexterity bonus to AC. In any round where you choose to make a Parry attempt, you do not gain the STR and Weapon Focus benefits to AC against the attack that you attempted to parry.

Special- The penalty for fighting defensively using the Combat Expertise Feat does not apply to the Parry Roll, in fact, it is the opposite, you apply a whatever bonus you receive from Combat Expertise as a bonus to your parry rolls, reflecting your skill in defensive maneuvers. If it applies to the Parry Roll, however, you do not apply that to your armor class if the parry roll does not succeed for that round.

Parry, Greater [General, Fighter Bonus]

Prerequisites- Base Attack Bonus +6, Combat Expertise, Parry

Benefit- With the Greater Parry Feat, any penalty you take to your attack rolls and apply to your parry rolls when making a parry attempt are doubled, so a -1 to attack is +2 on parry rolls, so on and so forth. As well, you can forego any AoO you may get in a round from feats such as Robilars Gambit, Hold the Line, or from an enemy moving through a space you threaten to instead make a Parry attempt against the attack made against you. This parry attempt does not count against your allotted Parry attempts for the round, but instead against your allotted Attacks of Opportunity.

[TempusCCK]

Ray Deflection-

Price: +2 Bonus

Property- Melee Weapon, Slashing or Bludgeoning

Aura: Moderate Adjuration

Activation: ----

The Ray Deflection Property gives any slashing or bludgeoning weapon the ability to parry ray or ranged touch attacks and other magics with discernable lines of effect, such as fireballs, delayed blast fireballs, Orb Spells, Lightning bolt, Magic Missles, and so on. The parry attempt must succeed at defeating the attackers attack roll to deflect the attack, in cases of things such as Magic Missles, the parrying character must make a Parry roll against each missile he wants to deflect, and can only deflect a number of such missiles equal to his strength bonus, the rest slip through his parry and act as normal. The exploding effect of a Fireball or Delayed Blast Fireball can not be parried, but if the bead which spawns the blast is in the air, the blast lands in a randomly determined location, determined by the rolling of a D8, the same applies with Rays and other line of effect spells.

1- Heads straight up into the air
2-Lands at the deflectors feet
3- Heads to deflectors right
4- Heads to Deflectors left
5- Heads in a diagonal right of the deflector
6- Heads in diagonal left of deflector
7- Heads back in direction it came
8- Reroll.

The deflected spell continues until it’s range is met, only with a different direction.

Special- If you have the Greater Parry Feat, you can attempt to deflect the ray a certain way, choose a general direction such as “Forward” “Left” “Right” or “Up” and roll a D3.

1- Rays Heads to the Left of Direction chosen
2- Rays head to the right of direction chosen
3- Ray Heads exactly the direction chosen

So a 3 on a parry attempt to the “left” would then send the ray in an exact 90 degree angle to the left, while a one would send it flying off diagonally to the left, and away from where the parrying character is facing.

Moderate Abjuration, CL 10, Ray Deflection

Defending (Revised)

Price: +1 bonus

Property: Melee Weapon

Aura: Faint Abjuration

This defending weapon can be of any bonus, and functions exactly like a normal defending weapon, except that the defending bonus can be applied to either Armor Class or Parry Rolls, as chosen by the character at the beginning of each round.

[Zyme]

wow this strikes me as overpowered. I would reccomend that you restrict the feat's for fighting defensively or full defense.

[TempusCCK]

No more overpowered than a Wizard or a Ubercharger. Think of this merely as a Defensive counterpart to Power Attack.

Also, you must understand that the power level I'm rationing this by is not your standard fighter or Barbarian, right now I'm lingering somewhere below the sorceror as far as power levels go, but I think this still doesn't fit the bill.

[FireSpark]

Hmmm, I feel that though the intent of the feat is good and clean, the actual feat as written seems too powerful and complicated. I could see how being focused in a weapon would make you better at parrying with it, but why would you need to specialize in a weapon just to learn how to knock blows away? Then there’s the AC competence bonus granted. So in addition to having a good chance at stopping an attack, negating a hit, your going to up their AC, and make them even harder to hit? That cries out as too much. Especially with such a low prerequisite as BAB +3. Hell, Greater Two weapon defense grants you a mere +3 shield bonus to AC, and to get that you have to be holding two weapons and have a BAB of +11. As written, a Half-orc fighter could have a potential +6 competence bonus to his AC, at merely 3rd level. And to this I say nay-nay.

Might I take a crack at it though. Perhaps if it looked something like....


Parry [General, Fighter Bonus]

Prerequisite - BAB +3, Combat Expertise
Benefit – With this feat, a character gains the ability to deflect incoming melee attacks made against him, by giving up some of his offensive readiness. Whenever a character with this feat is the target of a melee attack, to include touch attacks and attacks made with natural weapons, he may sacrifice one of his AoOs for that round to make a Parry roll.
A parry roll is resolved as a melee attack roll (including any bonuses granted from feats or magical enhancements) that must meet or exceed the attack roll made by the attacker. The target of an attack must decide whether or not to use a parry attempt, before the result of the attacker’s roll is known.
If the defending character succeeds in meeting or exceeding his attacker’s roll, the attack is negated as the blow is turned aside. If the defending character fails to beat the attacker’s roll, the attack continues as normal, except that any physical damage dealt by the attack is reduced by one half, as the strike was interrupted and turned into a glancing blow. (This reduction in damage does not apply to any energy damage, such as acid/cold/electricity/fire/sonic, nor to any effect that does not deal physical damage, such as negative energy attacks, etc.)
In addition, if a character uses his combat expertise feat in the same round as he attempts a parry, he gains a +1 bonus to his parry roll for every 2 points of penalty taken in using the combat expertise feat.
The benefits of this feat do not apply if you are flat-footed.


Parry, Improved [General, Fighter Bonus]

Prerequisites - BAB +7, Combat Expertise, Parry
Benefit – This feat works in addition to the Parry feat, and you may now make a parry roll against any opponent making an attack roll that you currently threaten, even if you are not the target of the attack.
As with the Parry feat a successful parry roll negates the attack, and a failed parry allows the blow to land, but dealing only half damage. In addition, if the parry roll does fail, the attacker must apply a penalty to the total of his attack roll, equal to one forth the total of your parry roll (rounded down). If this new attack roll total does not qualify as a hit, then the attack is still negated.
Additionally, a character using the combat expertise in a round that he attempts a parry roll, now receives a +1 bonus to the roll for every 2 points of penalty taken in using the combat expertise feat. This replaces the bonus granted by the Parry feat.


Parry, Greater [General, Fighter Bonus]

Prerequisites - BAB +11, Combat Expertise, Improved Parry, Parry
Benefit – This feat works in addition to the Parry and Improved Parry feats. Now, whenever you successfully parry an attack, you may choose to attempt to turn the blow upon your enemy. In place of an attack roll, you use the parry roll you just made, but with a -4 to the total. This penalty applies to all attacks made until the beginning of your next turn, as performing such an action puts you off balance (multiple penalties from multiple parry attack attempts stack). If this new result would qualify as a hit on the target, resolve the attack as normal, but as with a failed parry roll all physical damage is reduced by half.
Additionally, a character using the combat expertise in a round that he attempts a parry roll, now receives a +1 bonus to the roll for every 1 point of penalty taken in using the combat expertise feat. This replaces the bonus granted by the Improved Parry feat.


And there you have a whole tree of progressing skills, that with each feat, add another ability into your parrying repertoire. And just for kicks, I spelled out some examples of each feat below.


My half-orc, 3rd level fighter, Kronk, has a 20 strength, 14 dexterity, a BAB of +3, and has the combat expertise, combat reflexes, and parry feats. Kronk has been flanked by skeletons. The first skeleton swings, and Kronk attempts to parry the blow. The skeleton rolls a 15, while Kronk parries with an 18. The skeleton’s blow misses. The other skeleton attacks with a 19, and Kronk again tries to parry, but only gets a 13. The skeleton hits for 6 points of damage, but since the Kronk partially deflected it with his attempted parry, he takes only 3 points of damage.

Later at 7th level, Kronk is faced with a similar situation, when he is flanked by ogres. But now he has the improved parry feat. The first ogre swings at him with a 25, but Kronk deftly knocks it aside with a 30 on his parry roll. The second ogre swings at Scoot, Kronk’s favorite Halfling friend, with a 28 attack roll. Kronk tries to stop the blow, but only gets a 20. However, with the improved parry feat, the ogre’s new attack roll is only a 23, and not high enough to hit Scoot. Kronk happy!

Having survived to 11th level, Kronk is facing down a giant, on his own. The giant swings his massive club with a 29, and Kronk negates it with a 34. The giant swings again, this time with a 37, Kronk is only able to parry with a 19 (bad roll). The giant’s new attack roll is 30 and still high enough to hit Kronk. The damage roll is a whopping 35, but thanks to his attempted parry, Kronk only takes 17. On the giant’s last swing, he attacks with a 25, Kronk parries with a 36, and he decides to turn the tables and tries to get the giant to himself. The effective attack roll is 32, and the giant takes one to the face!

But what if Kronk were to face an evil clone of himself, feats and all?!? If two warriors, both with the greater parry feat face each other they can basically parry away until either one runs out of AoOs (and thus parry attempts), or one of them misses (remember the cumulative -4 penalty on turning an attack). Classic back and forth sword play!

[TempusCCK]

I do like your feat chain, however, I feel that it's a problem to create very feat intensive builds, which is why I limited it to two.

The only issue I have with your post is that with my feat, you do not gain the ability to apply your STR to AC in a round where you make a parry attempt, the STR to AC is only to reflect your ability to use your weapon to quickly put it in place between you and your foes. A parry roll, however, represents you actually attempting to negate an attack, and so the STR to AC is being "occupied" with the parry roll.

Also, I don't like how your Combat Expertise scales with your level of the feat chain. A charcter wielding a two handed sword can double his power attack damage at level one, why should someone specialized in parrying have to wait such a long time for their option to scale so well?

Though you have convinced me that the feat chain could use a few more prerequsites, which I've been pondering anyway.

[FireSpark]

I do like your feat chain, however, I feel that it's a problem to create very feat intensive builds, which is why I limited it to two.

The only issue I have with your post is that with my feat, you do not gain the ability to apply your STR to AC in a round where you make a parry attempt, the STR to AC is only to reflect your ability to use your weapon to quickly put it in place between you and your foes. A parry roll, however, represents you actually attempting to negate an attack, and so the STR to AC is being "occupied" with the parry roll.

Also, I don't like how your Combat Expertise scales with your level of the feat chain. A charcter wielding a two handed sword can double his power attack damage at level one, why should someone specialized in parrying have to wait such a long time for their option to scale so well?

Though you have convinced me that the feat chain could use a few more prerequsites, which I've been pondering anyway.


Because Power Attack and Combat Expertise deal in two completely different areas. One drops attack bonus to add damage bonus, the other drops attack bonus to add AC bonus. And if you do some comparisons of monsters, and other charcter builds, it's easy to see that damage dealing bonuses traditionally grow larger much faster than attack and AC bonuses. (Take the Weapon Focus vs. Weapon specilization feats for example, +2 vs. +4) The reason for this is becuase HP increase with every Hit Die, but AC and Attack, not so much. Thus if you boost one of those two on the same scale that damage scales, then things become out of balance. You either have a character that can't miss, or one that can't be hit.

And the reason I progressed the bonuses from using the combat expertise was because as HD continue to increase, the favor tends to lie with those of high AC. So instead of crippling someone who wanted to make use of his combat expertise, in the end I simply offset the penalty that the feat imposes on attack rolls, but only insofar as parry rolls are concerned.

[nonsens]

I'd give it the prequisite dodge.
You can parry the blows of the opponent you selected for your dodge feat