Contested Rolls in BRP0?

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by lawrence.whitaker

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

If rules produce situations that offend against common sense, like this, then they need changing.

Originally Posted by Shaira

No big deal.

Au contraire. Rules matter.

[RosenMcStern]

Indeed, this is a subjec that might arise in real play. Some time ago (fifteen years, in fact - please forgive my senile babbling) I introduced the Chaos Gaggle in my campaign. And it happened that a Rune Lord attempted to parry an attack from the Zeech [for those who lack this widespread knowledge, a Zeech is a land-crawling chaotic whale]. Now my GM ruling was "let's figure out the damage and see if the parrier survives" - there was the chance of a critical, after all. The most experience player contested me: "It's a whale, now what chance can he stand?". My GM judgement would be different now - I would just skip the attempt. Rules should cover the average situations, not the extremes. A whale ram cannot be parried, no matter the APs of your weapon.

[Lord Twig]

I think you were right the first time. This is not Bronze Age re-enactment, this is heroic fantasy. This is the same world where someone can throw a javelin, jump on top of it and ride it into battle. How is that possible?

He's a hero, that's how it is possible. We had a character who, after much hero question, was effected by the rune of stasis. After that he could not lose a Str check, at the worst he could tie. He became the 'immovable object'. He would definitely try to parry a whale, dodging wasn't his style.

[RosenMcStern]

Yes, this is correct when the parryng weapon is inherently magical or, as in the case you mentioned, the parrier has heroquesting powers (<i>Garyunder</i> can jump on a thrown javelin, not everyone). I have witnessed and handled several occasions when a player character wielded a true adamant weapon, and in this case we just followed the AP rule - the weapon has infinite armor points and thus can parry anything. But we are speaking of an item forged for the gods, not a mere AP-enhancing enchantment. In this case the point was "Yes, you can do this with your weapon as it actually becomes, when you are on the Hero Plane, Arkat's Unbreakable Sword." rather than "Oh, your weapon has a lot of APs, you can parry it."

[Lord Twig]

Just thought I would mention a house rule we had.

Armoring enchantment on armor and shields helped to block more damage up to double their AP (A house rule limit on armoring enchantments). Armoring enchantment on weapons helped to keep the weapon from breaking, but it stopped the same amount of damage as an un-enchanted weapon. So if you enchanted your Iron Greatsword to double AP (12 +6 iron +18 enchantment = 36 AP, the most that we allowed) it still only blocked 12 points of damage, but you needed to do at least 37 points of damage to damage the sword.

Certain 'heroic' swords of course could block more, but they were exceptions.

[frogspawner]

But the new rule is that everyone has a "true adamant weapon-of-the-gods", and can normally parry anything (unless, ad hoc, the GM says they can't) ?

If so, your weapons may not break - but it's the rule that's broken.

[RosenMcStern]

@Lord Twig: I agree with your ruling, and in fact I also like to rule that a 1-handed weapon can never block more than its wielder's STR (STR x 1.5 for a two-handed weapon or shield). However, this sort of rules, although very realistic, tend to be not very appreciated because they add complexity. Furthermore, if your magically enhanced sword cannot totally block the attack of a weapon with Bladesharp on it, you are unbalancing combat magic.

Frogspawner: In a fencing or kendo contest, it works exactly that way - either you hit or you miss, no "amount of damage to be blocked". And this is better portrayed by an opposed roll than by checking if the blow overcomes the APs. However, in a real battle you will see a lot of blows clumsily blocked with shields and wapons just to avod being killed, so I just allow both options - opposed and unopposed rolls.

[frogspawner]

Originally Posted by RosenMcStern

Frogspawner: In a fencing or kendo contest, it works exactly that way - either you hit or you miss, no "amount of damage to be blocked". And this is better portrayed by an opposed roll than by checking if the blow overcomes the APs. However, in a real battle you will see a lot of blows clumsily blocked with shields and wapons just to avod being killed, so I just allow both options - opposed and unopposed rolls.

From what you say, both real battles and stylised duels would be best portrayed by normal rolls (non-opposed), with a special ability for more highly skilled combatants (such as the over 100% reduce-the-opponent's-skill effect).

Opposed rolls just add game-mechanic confusion, not realism.

[NickMiddleton]

Originally Posted by frogspawner

But the new rule is that everyone has a "true adamant weapon-of-the-gods", and can normally parry anything (unless, ad hoc, the GM says they can't) ?

If so, your weapons may not break - but it's the rule that's broken.

Err, which "new rule"? In BRP zero, a critical Parry or Dodge negates an attack and in the case of the parry the parrying object takes no damage - which is exactly how a critical parry worked in RQIII (and in RQIII, a special parry means the pParrying object takes no damage)...

Cheers,

Nick Middleton

[frogspawner]

Isn't the new BRP rule that normal parries block all damage too?