Crack Pairings IV - You Can't Unread It

[Dark_Stryke]

Wow. Very good. Again, this is the sort of thing that I could have seen happening in the comic(though you need to give Roy something else to call his Archon, that part seems stilted).

I do think you need to work on the action scenes a bit. You seem to have wanted to have Roy starting off unarmed and cornered, and to gain the upper hand through use of his environment and by arguing with Miko. He does better as she gets madder sort of a thing, correct? The pacing seems right, but the action doesn't convey that. It's hard for me to follow who's getting injured and how badly.

Edit: why is it that I have a lot of praise and one minor complaint, but the complaint is twice as large?

Mm, yes and no to the "he does better as she gets madder" thing. They're both strong warriors, and Miko has been shown to be able to fight well even when she's mad, so it'd be silly for Roy to beat her with a non-magical knife just because she was angry. Neither of them ended up particularly injured during the fight. Roy was taking total defense actions at the beginning, and Miko's damage output dropped dramatically once she lost her main weapon.

Mechanical examination of the fight:

Spoiler

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At the start of the fight, Roy is using the chair as an improvised shield and taking total defense actions, boosting his AC. Miko only scores one hit on him with the katana during this time. She isn't power attacking yet.

Roy circles her, but doesn't account for the position of the bar, thinking he has the whole room to use to maneuver. Seeing him trapped, Miko charges and power attacks for the entirety of her Base Attack Bonus, which allows Roy to do his "drop and roll" maneuver. I'm playing somewhat fast and loose with the D&D rules, yes. I'd imagine some feat combination that Roy probably doesn't have would replicate that sequence, though.

Next, when Miko's sword get stuck in the bar, Roy power attacks her with the chair for a decent amount, but probably not his full attack bonus. He wanted to hit her with a chair because he thought it was funny. He takes a moment to congratulate himself and turns away. Miko attacks with her short sword, power attacking while he's flat footed. This is where he gets the gash on his side, the only major wound he receives in the fight.

At this point he has no weapon and again starts taking total defense actions. He puts a table between the two of them, first using it as cover, then backing away from it. Miko vaults over it with a jump check.

Roy makes two improvised thrown attacks, one with a mug and one with a chair. Both miss (represented by her dodging one and kicking the other while it's in mid-flight).

Miko finally makes Roy mad here, and he grabs a steak knife. They start really fighting here for a round or two, trading a few hits (Roy gets two gashes and cuts Miko's face). Miko eventually gets angry enough that she throws everything she has into another charging power attack, apparently not having learned that Roy's AC is rather high. He hits her instead, as her AC dropped from charging.

The fight pretty much ends at this point. They're both high level, and neither of them is fighting with a main weapon, so they haven't taken a considerable amount of damage.

I'll work on getting the amount of description right, though. I really don't want to over-describe what's happening, because that can make an action sequence seem really boring, and I wouldn't want that. I'd rather have the reader filling in a few blanks and be entertained than get a blow-by-blow account and be bored.

Rest assured this won't be the last action sequence. I'll try to add some more description next time and see how it goes.

Edit: Oh, and thanks for the compliments! I understand that criticism sometimes has to be more in depth