Contested Rolls in BRP0?

[RosenMcStern]

Originally Posted by The Last Conformist

How does it add realism?

Your ability to parry effectively no longer depends on how sturdy is your weapon, but on your skill.

[The Last Conformist]

Originally Posted by RosenMcStern

Your ability to parry effectively no longer depends on how sturdy is your weapon, but on your skill.

Huh? In my experience (SB5, mostly) skill is far more important than weapon quality already. And if you wanted to further diminish the importance of weapon sturdiness, removing the weapon damage on criticals would be a much simpler and more targeted fix.

[RosenMcStern]

We are talking different system variants. MRQ is more similar to RQ3 (with lowered weapon APs) while SB is already focusing more on skill. There is no "weapon damage on criticals" in any edition of RQ, for instance.

[The Last Conformist]

Changing the attack/parry matrix still sounds like the wrong solution to me - why not make the weapons more durable across the board instead? Even a "hollywood parry" that blocks rahter than deflects a blow ought be unlikely to break a decent sword.

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by RosenMcStern

Ah, The Big Complaint #2, you mean! The "attack succeeds but AP is subtracted" happens only if both roll the same number (and none has a skil above 100%). Many people complained that this makes APs useless, but I think they are wrong because this is effectively what happens in CoC and "default", AP-less BRP, so it is a perfectly viable rule.

I think it falls down when you try to parry a brontosaur. I don't know what MRQ's position on parrying *enormous* attacks is, but BRP says "you can't parry a brontosaur". Which is fine, except you start getting into the question "well, what *can* I parry, then?", which ends up with everyone learning Dodge 'cos at least that's usable pretty much anywhere and you only need one skill

Admittedly the BRP rule works fine as long as you don't split Attacks / Parries (where Dodge is the fallback for all instances where you can't use your generalised Weapon Skill to defend). Personally - all IMHO of course - I think if you *do* split Attacks and Parries, you pretty much have to go down the old RQ rule of allowing a successful parry to block a certain number of points, and the rest get through, but you can try and parry an airliner if you want to - although unless you've got some pretty heavy sorcery going you're going to end up smeared all over the runway...

I'm loathe to houserule things, but as I prefer separate Attacks & Parries, I may have to make an exception here...

Cheers,

Sarah

[RosenMcStern]

Originally Posted by Shaira

I think it falls down when you try to parry a brontosaur. I don't know what MRQ's position on parrying *enormous* attacks is, but BRP says "you can't parry a brontosaur". Which is fine, except you start getting into the question "well, what *can* I parry, then?", which ends up with everyone learning Dodge 'cos at least that's usable pretty much anywhere and you only need one skill

The discussion is getting messy 'cause we are discussing MRQ rather than BRP. Anyway, the official position in MRQ after the player's update is that you *can* parry a brontosaur. After a long debate on The Other Forum I think that the reality is that you can parry a Brontosaur, but only with a polearm, i.e. something that can damage the creature or hold it at bay. Parrying in that case is rather anticipating the opponent's move and feninting so that it does not really have a chance to attack, or its attack is disrupted - difficult but not thoroughly impossible. A shield or short weapon would be pointless in this case. The problem is "how do we define a rule of thumb to decide what can parry what?"

(where Dodge is the fallback for all instances where you can't use your generalised Weapon Skill to defend).

The point is that any Parry is always also a partial Dodge, and any Dodge is facilitated by the fact you have a weapon. In cases like the above (the Bronto) I would rather go for a Dodge augmented by the parrying skill with the weapon in hand. In my current RQ3 group we are experimenting with penalties to Dodge if you have no weapon in hand - unless of course you are dodging an unarmed attack.

[NickMiddleton]

I haven't got BRP zero to hand, and this is off the cuff, but how about:

1) Attack vs. Dodge is an Opposed Roll per the opposed skills rule (with a bit of fine tuning and clarification#).

2) Attack vs. Parry is not treated as an Opposed Roll

i) A successful (critical, special or normal) parry blocks the parrying objects AP from a succesful (critical, special or normal) Attack's damage roll.
ii) Whichever "object" achieved the lesser degree of success out of the attack or parry reduces its AP by 1 if its AP were exceeded by the other objects damage, plus an additional one for each degree of success less.
iii)Where sensible (e.g. Impaling weapons vs. Shields) aspects of weapon special effects may (GM's discretion be applied) e.g. impaling weapons getting stuck in a shield.

So... Parrying with a shield, even perfectly, probably won't break a sword, and may well not stop all the damage, but unlike armour CAN'T be by passed (and the shield will have a LOT of AP); weapon AP's have a role, and weapons and shields do degrade, but slowly.

And in the past in RQIII I've let characters use their weapon skills as a Maintenace roll with appropriate resource's to hand to "first aid" their weapons and shield and replace lost AP, so I'd certainly allow that as a possibility.

Quite like that actually, will have to try it some time...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

# Specifically, that when Degrees of Success are tied, the higher roll wins but is in ALL cases treated as having only achieved a normal success, so ties on any DoS result in a normal success for the winner.

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by NickMiddleton

I haven't got BRP zero to hand, and this is off the cuff, but how about:

1) Attack vs. Dodge is an Opposed Roll per the opposed skills rule (with a bit off fine tuning and clarification#).

2) Attack vs. Parry is not treated as an Opposed Roll

Nick - you're a genius, sir! That's the method I use!

Well, mostly. I ended up rewriting the Attack Matrix with an entirely new Parry column, which is more or less the "common sense" version of RQ3. I've just uploaded it to the Downloads section (Game Aids). It means that parrying weapons and shields will stop a certain amount of damage but that with high levels of damage some will get through. It looks horribly complex, but isn't actually.

Anyhow, just a bit of fun!

Cheers,

Sarah

[lawrence.whitaker]

I think it falls down when you try to parry a brontosaur. I don't know what MRQ's position on parrying *enormous* attacks is, but BRP says "you can't parry a brontosaur".

Surely this is a simple matter of commonsense? Why on earth would you need an explicit statement? If you're playing a brontosaur, then its simply like-for-like, but if you're a poor old human, armed with a decent shield, and see a bloody great foot coming your way, intent on stamping you flat, you're hardly likely to say - 'Yep, I'll parry that.' You'd most likely say 'Shit! I'm rolling out of ther way!'

And, if someone did try to parry whilst I was GMing, then they'd find themself pancake-shaped. There's no way on earth that a human, no matter how good their skill or how big their shield, could withstand a tree-sized leg, backed by 40-odd tons of animal behind it. Magic's another matter; but in terms of straight combat...

Really, commonsense should prevail in situations like this - no matter what the rules do or don't say.

[Shaira]

Originally Posted by lawrence.whitaker

Surely this is a simple matter of commonsense? Why on earth would you need an explicit statement?

Hi Loz,

I think you took me a bit too literally there . Brontosaur is a reductio ad absurdum just to ram the point home (in case it needed it... ). The point being, if you have a judgement call - ie "well, of course you CAN'T parry a brontosaur, that's absurd", then at some point you enter the fuzzy ground where it's more "hmm... well you *might* be able to parry that great troll maul / griffin claw / elephant tusk, but I'm not completely sure". Your judgement then, in the current case of parry-blocks-all-damage, is that you have to somehow imagine that a weapon parry could conceivably block all the damage / knockback / whatever before you can allow a parry to happen, ie a relatively arbitrary GM decision - and before you know it you're houseruling so you don't have to be quite so arbitrary.

Whilst my point is, if you go with the old "parrying-weapons-absorb-a-certain-amount-of-damage-but-let-the-rest-through", then you have a watertight rule with no arbitrariness and you no longer have the problem of trying to decide whether the attack can actually be parried or not. Sure, you can *try* and parry that brontosaur / troll maul / griffin claw / elephant tusk / whatever, but you're probably gonna get squished unless you're sewn into your armor real good!

Anyway, it's an old argument, and I'm completely happy with the new BRP paradigm as long as you *don't* separate Attacks & Parries - it's just that in my campaign we *do*, so I think I'll be houseruling. No big deal.

Mind that bronto!

Cheers,

Sarah