Re: (TFT) On the Subject of Armor...

[ErolB1@aol.com]

In a message dated 9/25/2006 4:29:37 PM Central Daylight Time, 
lifeisfun@aol.com writes:


> My other peev is the ineffectiveness of a block or parry.  I think it would 
> make battles a whole lot more interesting if creatures and players alike 
> could roll to parry instead of hitting for damage in a given round.  The minimal 
> dex minus or stopping of an additional hit or two is not the way I envision 
> battle between skilled combatants who parry or block with shields.  If 
> someone carries a shield, I'd think that it should be a parry style weapon as well 
> as a bashing weapon.  In real combat, I see a shield as the first defense, 
> not as an afterthought... oh you stop an additional two points this round.  
> Bah.  

The ineffectiveness of parrying, by the book, is something I don't care for 
either. OTOH giving every attack a parry has great game-slowing potential. My 
own compromise is to allow characters to roll to parry if they give up their 
next attack to do so, plus giving 2 attacks per turn (with the intent that one 
will be used to parry) with my modified version of the Fencing talent. My aim 
is to mostly keep fights between a highly skilled character and a poor 
combatant short & simple, with increased complexity from my house rules going into 
fights between two highly capable combatants. (And I make a point that the roll 
to "parry" is an abstraction for blocking a blow, or ducking it, or making a 
feint that forces your opponent to abort his attack, whichever is the most 
useful at any given moment.) 

I also took care to ensure that if a character has a shield, and parries, 
then it's optimal to use the shield to parry, rather than his weapon. 


> 
> And parrying, I think they missed the boat on that one entirely.  Two 
> weapons characters should have an advantage if they are trained in the Florentine 
> style of fighting.  The parry and stab or even the parry and riposte with a 
> single sword is extremely effective against a figure with only one weapon.  

Here I did *not* want to give two weapon use a big advantage; I did not want 
to make Florentine style the One True Style in my campaign that was obviously 
superior to all the other possible styles. I wanted characters to be able to 
use different styles (one weapon, two weapon, weapon & shield) and to be able 
to debate, in game, the relative effectiveness of those styles. To that end, I 
wanted rules where powergaming *players* would debate the relative 
effectiveness of taking two weapons, vs sword & buckler vs a single weapon held in either 
a one or two handed grip. 

Erol K. Bayburt
Evil Genius for a Better Tomorrow
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