At the risk of muddying the waters still further, I do think the entire Attack / Parry / Dodge system does need to be laid out, explicitly, in one place at some point.
Here is what I have pieced together so far - I know Jason is having a good look at the entire issue before posting his response, so I could be completely wrong, but this is what *seems* to be the likely way it works:
1.) Dodge is treated as an Opposed Roll vs. Attack. You don't use the Attack & Parry Matrix, rather a successful Dodge vs a successful Attack will reduce the success level of an Attack as per Opposed Skill Rolls on p173, with the caveat that the success level of an Attack can be reduced to no further than a Failure (see the Dodge Skill description on p55). Basically, a successful Dodge, no matter how successful, cannot make a successful Attacker Fumble - the worst they will do is simply Miss.
2.) Successful Attack vs Successful Parry. My assumption here is that the Successful Attack rolls its damage and compares it to the HP of the weapon or shield which has Parried. If the damage exceeds the HP of the weapon or shield, one of two things happens:i.) If the parrying item is a weapon, that weapon breaks.
ii.) If the parrying item is a shield, that shield takes the extra damage to its own HP. If those HP are reduced to 0, the shield then breaks.
In both cases, if there are any damage points remaining, they "go through" and damage the target.
3.) Special or Critical Attack vs Critical / Special / Normal Parry. This is where the Attack & Parry matrix needs to be clarified. My assumption is that the dodgy "OR" is actually an "AND". So, on a Critical Attack vs Normal Parry, for example, you get: Attack does full damage plus rolled damage bonus, and has its special effects based on impaling, bleeding, crushing, etc. I *think* that you then DO NOT match this damage against the parrying weapon or shield's HP, but I'm not sure. In any case armour seems to protect. And, finally, the parrying weapon or shield takes 2 HP damage anyway.
I *think* that the principle behind the Attack & Parry matrix is that Attack/Parry is being treated as an Opposed Roll. Thus, if you get a Critical vs a Success, what's actually happening is that the Success is being bumped down to a Failure and the Critical to a Special, for the purposes of determining effects. NB: the Successful Parry doesn't actually *become* a Failed Parry, but is simply treated as one for damage purposes, etc.
If this is the case, then Critical vs Critical, Special vs Special, and Success vs Success should all have the same result: looking at the Matrix, they basically do. However, when you try to extend the theory further, it starts to fall apart quickly - you can see *similarities* between Critical vs Special, Special vs Success, and Success vs Failure, but that's all they are.
Hopefully Jason will get back with some clarifications on how all this works pretty soon. I'm sure it's actually extremely straightforward - you seem to have SB5 with Criticals and Specials rather than just Specials, so it should be just a question of clarifying the permutations and making sure the whole narration flows from top to bottom. At the moment we have the rules scattered about rather, and some *seem* contradictory (but may not be!).
One thing I will say: having seen the farce which was MRQ's muddy and confusing portrayal of combat 18 months ago when the rules first came out - and the fact that people on the MRQ forums are *STILL* asking today how combat works, I think it's worth making sure this is CRYSTAL clear in the BRP rules! I know the BRP *rules* work fine in this respect - we just need to make sure the *wording* of those rules is completely and unambiguously clear, even at the risk of repeating things.
Cheers!
Sarah