Alternate Parrying [Archive]

Jaime T. Matthew

01-21-1998, 11:25 AM

> Parrying in 2nd Ed is rather lame (my opinion, of course) so I've
> instituted this alternate:

I certainly can't argue with that conclusion....

> THAC0 - 10 = Parrying AC.
>
> Player's substitute this AC for their normal AC at the cost of one attack
> in the round, only useful in melee and only against one attack per attack
> sacrificed.

Sacrifice is the right word....

Obviously this is an extreme example, but it shows where this can get
very strange....(The following character is from a fairly high magic
game.)

My 12th Level fighter, Cassia Vessellos has a normal combat AC of
- -10 due to her high dex, magic armor, magic shield, magic cloak,
shield proficiency, etc. Her THACO with her +4 long sword (which was
just destroyed while she was parrying in an anti-magic shell) is 0.
That gets her back to -10. Why waste an attack?

The problem with this is that it presumes that the person's AC will
actually improve by using this method.

In our games we are currently using the following method for
parrying:

The person parrying has to hit AC: 4 modified by all of the To-Hit
bonuses of the attacker.

Using Cassia as an example here, her total bonuses To Hit with her +4
longsword are (sigh, were...) +8, so someone trying to defend
themselves from the Grandmaster would have to hit AC: -4. Difficult,
but not impossible. Our rationale is that it is easier to defend
than it is to attack -- after all, you have a pretty idea that the
attack is going to be coming in your direction.... There are only so
many possible arcs of attack from an opponent you are aware of, and
if you aren't aware of the opponent you can't parry the attack
anyhow.

The assumption made here is that attacks are base AC4. I don't
recall offhand where we got that number, but I suspect the Fighters
Handbook is to blame. We just modified it to account for skill if I
recall correctly.

Originally we tried using the AC struck as the base AC to parry
against, but it ended up being nearly impossible to parry an attack
that hit if you had a decent AC in the first place. If your AC is
- -10 (Not as ridiculous as it sounds, I assure you), and the attack
hits...why bother trying to strike better than that yourself -- no
point in wasting an attack.... So we discarded this method for the
above.

We've been using the (AC:4 - bonuses) method for a couple of years
now, and it seems pretty balanced. We also give additional bonuses
for parrying with a shield if you have the shield proficiency from
PO:C&T.

The attack being parried must be declared the dice are
rolled to see if it hit. So in the case of multiple attacks, you
have to just guess which one to block, or blow your multiple attacks
for the chance for multiple parries. Depends on how worried you are
about taking damage.

> In this way a weapon master is more defensive, and low level people people
> aren't unbalancing the game by being untouchable. I also allow the standar
> Full Parry as described in the books at the cost of all actions in the
> round (except to backpedal)

We allow the Full Parry as well, as it just adds to your AC if you
want to be REALLY defensive and do nothing else that round. If that
is your only concern, you can dance around and avoid damage....

If people are interested, I can try to track down the other house
rules that my group uses in our games....

(Heck, I personally use the HERO system anyhow, where the parrying
rules are already pretty good.... Blocking is blocking, dodging is
dodging.)

Jaime
__________________________________________________ ____
Jaime T. Matthew
mrjamela@writeme.com
http://www.geocities.com/~mrjamela