[Nightshade]

Originally Posted by Atgxtg

First with parry.
It really doesn't matter much how powerful the blow is. It's physics. The object has a vector and you are adding a second vector for movement. So if the object is moving in the -axis and you can apply force from the Y- or Z-axis both vectors will affect the object.

What would matter is how fast the object is travelling and it's mass. The whole point of a parry isto the block the attack but redirect it.

Speed plus mass _is_ power. There isn't any meaningful distinction between the two, as its all about deflecting kinetic energy, and within the game, that's a rather big part of the damage component (some is impact point and other things, but some of those are already factored in other areas).

Sure you can. Let's say someone is swinging a sword at you. If you step back you might only get hit by the point as opposed to the "sweet spot" farther down the blade.

Grazes are, I'll admit, a messy case, but for the most part they're also a marginal case; getting hit by the top quarter or the top half of the blade isn't going to typically make a huge difference, because you just end up applying the same force to a smaller area.

Or if someone is going for you head you could duck or sidestep and only get scratched or grazed along the top of the skill rather than being decapitated.

See my comment about that above. As far as I can tell, its likely the case that a graze is a "miss" by the standards of BRP and RQ, as I doubt the damage typically even translates into a point, given the scale involved.

It isn't so much rolling with the blow, but avoiding the brunt of the blow. All weapons have a sweet spot that does the real damage, and if you avoid contact with that spot, or initiate contact with another spot, like stepping into a halberd and getting hit by the shaft rather than the axe, you mitigate some of the damage.

In the majority of cases, I'd argue you eliminate the vast majority of the damage or none doing that; I don't think there's a lot of middle ground.