Dodge Skill vs Parry Skill

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Gnarsh

Yeah. It really does depend on the "flavor" of your game. How much armoring enchantment do you allow? Do you have stacking limits on spells? How strictly do you follow the encumberance rules?

30-40 points isn't really that high, even using "standard" spell rules. Let's assume you're playing in a game (like mine) where spells are capped at 4 points for rune and 8 points for spirit (ok. we use a scaling cap, but whatever). So a priest of humakt is facing you with a broadsword with truesword and bladesharp 8 going. That's hardly even out of the range that a random beginning level priest might have. Let's also say he's got sufficient points of the strength spell to get a 2d6 strength bonus (typically about a strength 4). Again. Nothing is out of the ordinary, nor even requires any houserules (aside from those limiting the possibilities).

Average damage on a regular hit becomes (5.5*2=11)+7+8=26. Against someone with say a 12 point shield (pretty typical) and 6 points of armor (ring+leather, arguably the best ap for the enc in RQ3), he's going to take 8 points of damage to a location every single swing (which will likely take that location down barring significant strengthening enchantment). A special gets "ugly" in this situation, since it bumps the damage up an additional 11 points (now an average of 37) if he chooses to impale, or 5 points if he chooses to just take max damage.

Max damage in that situation is 18+12+8=38 damage on a regular hit, and 36+12+8=56 on an impale. That's pretty brutal.

Ok. But let's pretend that you're also a priest, and you've got 4 points of shield and 8 points of protection. That's an additional 16 points of armor. Note, that this armor "works" whether you parry or not. So your worn armor has jumped to 22. Suddenly, the 12 points of parry from the shield isn't as significant as the worn armor you get. Avoiding a critical matters *more* (since it's worth 22 points) then the parry. Of course, you could pretty safely parry as well, since in this case, your parry gives you 34 points of protection and the other guy has to get a lucky hit (an impale or better) to have much chance of doing any damage to you.

That's an edge case honestly. The two skills are almost a wash. But if we transform that opponent into a Zorak Zoran priest using crush4, wielding a troll maul, and capable of getting a 3d6 damage bonus, suddenly are numbers might not look so great. Dodging starts to look pretty good when the opponents average damage hits 18+10+13.5+8=41.5 damage (yes, that's average for a 3d6 bonus, with a troll maul with truemace, crush4, and bludgeon8).

I'll also point out that the above mentioned troll would only need some spirit spells (which he can pick automatically once he's a priest and spends one power for spellteaching), and 5 points of rune magic (and since he needs 10 to qualify for priest, that shouldn't be a problem, right?). So basically, any random zorak zoran priest can do this without any special items or abilities.


IMO, it's quite common to face foes that can do that kind of damage. And of course, one of the disadvantages that PCs have is that while they're expected to fight and defeat many foes over the course of an adventure, each foe they fight is *only* fighting the PCs. Thus, he's likely to run out of shield before the foes he fights over the course of an adventure run out of stuff like truesword, crush, or slash.

Having a dodge is pretty darn nice in those situations. Yes. It's harder to get the skill up. It starts at a lower base and suffers penalties based on enc. But more experienced characters in my campaign almost always take some time to learn some dodge just so that they have the chance to use it if/when they need it.

With that level of offensive spells, characters should have an equivalent of defensive spells, and their armor will be well over 6 points (plus 12 for shield).
You're speaking of rune level, which probably means (with the warrior cult you've cited as exemple) iron chainmail (10 AP) plus hoplite shield (18 AP) plus some protection spells (for exemple, protection 4 is not unrealistic) plus shield 2 (not unrealistic considering the level of offensive spells). If you add a couple of POW for armoring enchantments, that would give you the staggering amount of 43 AP, well in line with the damage you've calculated.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Gnarsh]

Originally Posted by Kloster

With that level of offensive spells, characters should have an equivalent of defensive spells, and their armor will be well over 6 points (plus 12 for shield).
You're speaking of rune level, which probably means (with the warrior cult you've cited as exemple) iron chainmail (10 AP) plus hoplite shield (18 AP) plus some protection spells (for exemple, protection 4 is not unrealistic) plus shield 2 (not unrealistic considering the level of offensive spells). If you add a couple of POW for armoring enchantments, that would give you the staggering amount of 43 AP, well in line with the damage you've calculated.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

As I stated earlier, it depends on where your game is in terms of armoring and whatnot. I play in a game that's more or less RQ3 in a modified Glorantha-like setting (actually based on the old QuestWorld stuff. kinda...). In our game, runemetal is *rare*. Let's face it, given the starting skill levels in RQ3, it's just not that hard, nor does it take that long, for people to qualify for runepriest. You just need some skills at 50% or higher (some 90%s depending on cult), and 10 points of runemagic.

So it's quite common for a relatively beginning level priest in our game to have the exact spells and gear combination I mentioned earlier. My point was that without *any* extra gear, or power spent on enchantment, or heroic level augmentation of your character's stats and bodies, they can achieve the sorts of damage levels I was talking about. If you need to add in runemetal armor with perhaps some armoring enchantment to counter it, that's great! But it does not change the fact that those sorts of damage levels really are "normal" for any RQ3 game that uses standard RQ cults and spells.

You don't need anything but standard RQ3 rules and spells to obtain them. And it's not even difficult to do!

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Gnarsh

As I stated earlier, it depends on where your game is in terms of armoring and whatnot. I play in a game that's more or less RQ3 in a modified Glorantha-like setting (actually based on the old QuestWorld stuff. kinda...). In our game, runemetal is *rare*. Let's face it, given the starting skill levels in RQ3, it's just not that hard, nor does it take that long, for people to qualify for runepriest. You just need some skills at 50% or higher (some 90%s depending on cult), and 10 points of runemagic.

So it's quite common for a relatively beginning level priest in our game to have the exact spells and gear combination I mentioned earlier. My point was that without *any* extra gear, or power spent on enchantment, or heroic level augmentation of your character's stats and bodies, they can achieve the sorts of damage levels I was talking about. If you need to add in runemetal armor with perhaps some armoring enchantment to counter it, that's great! But it does not change the fact that those sorts of damage levels really are "normal" for any RQ3 game that uses standard RQ cults and spells.

You don't need anything but standard RQ3 rules and spells to obtain them. And it's not even difficult to do!

I agree with you it is easy. My point was that, even for warrior cults, offensive spells are not the only way to spend POW, money and time. Characters with such level at least should have also spells and equipment to defend and protect them. I have thus used standard equipment and spells, with a like amount of expenditure.

My opinion is that they should also have at least an equal amount in OTHER expenditures (utility spell, like worship deity, healing magic, non combat equipment, perception spells, etc) just to be viable (and accepted).

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Gnarsh]

Certainly, and I even tossed in an example of an opposing priest using shield 4 and protection 8 to defend against the guy with the bladesharp and the truesword.


I think that my original point has kinda been lost in all of this. Assuming you use a "dodge subtracts success off attack" system (which most people do use, and I believe is the default "standard" in the BRP rules), then all of those things actually increase the utility of dodge, rather then the other way around.

IIRC, runemetal by default is 150% ap and 50% weight, right? This means that it's less restrictive on dodging then normal armor (assuming I'm remembering the weight thing correctly. I know we've always played it that way). So a successful dodge skill will always ensure that you get that armor on every single attack, no matter what. You can't be criticalled unless you fail your dodge skill. As the worn armor value increases, this makes dodge more valuable.

Add in armor enchanting of locations and/or armor and this gets even bigger. A shield is nice, but if we're assuming someone with lots of time/power on his hands, he's going to have significant worn armor points even before casting spells (which add even more). His parry becomes pretty small in comparison. When we add in runemetal armor into the equation, my point becomes stronger.

So, Joe the orlanthi runepriest can walk around in his rune iron platemail, giving him 12ap on every location. Add to that his shield 4 and his protection 8, and he's sitting at 28ap everywhere. Note, that this is before armor enchantment is even considered. In our campaign, we restrict this to double the normal AP of an item, or the HPs of a location (for armoring skin for example). Some campaigns don't place such restrictions, so it's hard to say what's "typical". If he's facing the guy with a truesword and a bladesharp 8, he could parry and probably do just fine. Average damage with say a broadsword would be sitting at 11+7+8=26. Easily stopped. Even before the parry. Max damage is 36+12+8=56. Not so easy. Even with a parry (but hopefully, not that common either).

Note, however, that if Joe makes his dodge (assuming the "level subtracts" system), he can reduce an impale to a normal hit, putting the damage level back into the "I can take this with my worn armor" range. An average impale would do 22+7+8=37 damage. Parried, that'll be stopped. Dodged, that will be stopped. An average critical will do the same damage, but the armor will be avoided (so you just get the parry). Even with a hoplite, he's still taking 19 points of damage to a location (which will probably sever it). Same critical if dodged will result in only 9 points of damage being taken. That will likely put a location under, but not sever it.


The point I'm trying to get here is that if you play where dodges subtract the level of success, the whole "critial kills a dodge" concept falls apart. What we find is that as worn armor increases in proportion to parry, dodge actually gets *better* against criticals.

[Kloster]

Originally Posted by Gnarsh

Certainly, and I even tossed in an example of an opposing priest using shield 4 and protection 8 to defend against the guy with the bladesharp and the truesword.
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True

Originally Posted by Gnarsh

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I think that my original point has kinda been lost in all of this. Assuming you use a "dodge subtracts success off attack" system (which most people do use, and I believe is the default "standard" in the BRP rules), then all of those things actually increase the utility of dodge, rather then the other way around.
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True also.

Originally Posted by Gnarsh

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IIRC, runemetal by default is 150% ap and 50% weight, right? This means that it's less restrictive on dodging then normal armor (assuming I'm remembering the weight thing correctly. I know we've always played it that way). So a successful dodge skill will always ensure that you get that armor on every single attack, no matter what. You can't be criticalled unless you fail your dodge skill. As the worn armor value increases, this makes dodge more valuable.
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No, this is RQ 2. For RQ III, you only have 150% AP.

Originally Posted by Gnarsh

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Add in armor enchanting of locations and/or armor and this gets even bigger. A shield is nice, but if we're assuming someone with lots of time/power on his hands, he's going to have significant worn armor points even before casting spells (which add even more). His parry becomes pretty small in comparison. When we add in runemetal armor into the equation, my point becomes stronger.
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No, the iron only add 3 points on the 43. Let's say he has no iron and count 40 points. In that case, the shield, and thus the parry, counts for almost half of the points, which furthers my point.

Originally Posted by Gnarsh

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So, Joe the orlanthi runepriest can walk around in his rune iron platemail, giving him 12ap on every location. Add to that his shield 4 and his protection 8, and he's sitting at 28ap everywhere. Note, that this is before armor enchantment is even considered. In our campaign, we restrict this to double the normal AP of an item, or the HPs of a location (for armoring skin for example). Some campaigns don't place such restrictions, so it's hard to say what's "typical". If he's facing the guy with a truesword and a bladesharp 8, he could parry and probably do just fine. Average damage with say a broadsword would be sitting at 11+7+8=26. Easily stopped. Even before the parry. Max damage is 36+12+8=56. Not so easy. Even with a parry (but hopefully, not that common either).

Note, however, that if Joe makes his dodge (assuming the "level subtracts" system), he can reduce an impale to a normal hit, putting the damage level back into the "I can take this with my worn armor" range. An average impale would do 22+7+8=37 damage. Parried, that'll be stopped. Dodged, that will be stopped. An average critical will do the same damage, but the armor will be avoided (so you just get the parry). Even with a hoplite, he's still taking 19 points of damage to a location (which will probably sever it). Same critical if dodged will result in only 9 points of damage being taken. That will likely put a location under, but not sever it.
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IIRC, on a critical, you don't substract the protection afforded by spells 5they don't have weak spots). We ruled that enchantments don't have neither, but without that, he still has 34 AP with parry, which is enough.

Originally Posted by Gnarsh

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The point I'm trying to get here is that if you play where dodges subtract the level of success, the whole "critial kills a dodge" concept falls apart. What we find is that as worn armor increases in proportion to parry, dodge actually gets *better* against criticals.

On this, we agree, Dodge gets better against critical, but this becomes significant at higher levels than the 'easy ones' you've cited.
The real gain of dodge is that once you've started to dodge, you can continue to dodge all attacks from the same attacker.

Runequestement votre,

Kloster

[Merak Gren]

I think that the real problem is that critical dodges and parries do not allow any advantage against standard and special successes.

I saw that in MRQ (for) a crit combination) a crit parry can riposte. In BRP crit dodges are wasted on normal successes.

I have studied some Iaido and done some Kendo and Aikido. In all these Tai Sabaki (body movement) is very important. It allows to move in and out of range of an opponent and strike at the same time as he strikes.

The defender simply sidesteps, the attack misses and the defender attacks at the same time he sidesteps. This is an example of a dodge creating an opportunity for an attack.

Similarly, I was taught that every parry is an attack. The difference is that in practice we do it short to meet the incomming blade, but in a real situation, the defender would parry the wrists of the attacker, severing them.

In addition we were taught how to follow every parry by a strike, as the attackers sword has been safely deflected and unable to strike again or block the defenders attack.

That's just my take on this and something I may houserule into BRP.

[Gnarsh]

Well, we actually created a whole set of new martial arts skills that higher skilled folks could learn (basically, you had to have a combat skill with 100% attack and parry). Within that system, we introduced things like riposting, splitting skills unevenly if you wanted, better aiming, fumble avoidance, removing impales, increasing average damage (used the old truesword method for this), etc...

Those were add ons though. We specifically left them out of the basic combat system so that they didn't impact lower level combats. The idea is that below 100% skill, you're basically just doing straight attacks and parries/dodges. Nothing special. What you roll is what you get.

Oh. We also modded the crit system a bit. Instead of no armor at all, a crit reduces all ap by half (including parry). We found that worked better at balancing out the use of parry versus dodge (for more or less the reasons I've discussed earlier). We also put specific limits on armoring enchantment. In addition to limiting total enchantment to double original APs, we restricted the parrying benefit for armoring shields and weapons. Basically, you can armor enchant a weapon, but you get no extra parrying effect for it. The weapon is just harder to break. Shields can gain up to half again their base AP for purposes of parrying when enchanted. Armor can gain the full x2 APs.

The objective in our game was to make each method of defense useful and viable by itself, but with varying benefits. These adjustments worked pretty darn well. Dodging is effective due to the combination of level subtraction and increased ability to potentially armor locations over parrying items. Parrying with a shield is effective due to simply being able to add more to the total APs (since crits only halve, you're much less likely to take damage from a crit from a lesser foe). Parrying with a weapon is least effective at preventing damage, but with our martial arts system allows for ripostes (which by themselves are pretty darn powerful effects).

We also use a combat system that allows a character to subtract their natural skill over 100% from an opposing skill. So a significantly better skilled warrior can often make an opponent miss (at at the least drastically reduce the chance of being specialed or criticalled). There's a few other minor house rules we use as well.


Obviously, those are pretty significant mods to the base game system. But we've tweaked them over the last 20 years or so and have them pretty much perfect at this point (for our game anyway). We have powerful characters that use any of the three defensive methods. All of them are quite effective. At the lower end, obviously shield parry is pretty dominant, if for no other reason then a higher starting chance and more total APs. However, any method can and does work and all of them become more effective as a character gains skill.


I've always found this particular topic to be fascinating, simply because there are so many different ways to approach these skills and so many different seemingly minor rules that can significantly affect how the abilities work and therefore how balanced they are. There's no specifically right way to do this. However, I do think it's important within a game mechanic context to try to make sure that the choices offered to the characters in terms of development have a somewhat equivalent pro-con balance. If everyone in your game uses shields because that's always a better way to go, it might be a good time to look at why that is and maybe make some adjustments. Same thing with dodge. At one point in our game, dodge was actually too overpowered (trust me. It's possible!). Whatever works and makes your players happy is good though...