Combat Issues

[Loz]

Ok so...

I evade, and can't attack on my next CA.

I can't parry because I have no means to do so

What can I do when next my CA comes around

I'm assuming I can high tail it away, but what other combat options are open to me? Grip?

It depends on the foe you're facing.

If its an archer, then distance spares you a need to attack and you can use your CA to move. If you're in close combat, why can't you parry? And even if you're lacking a shield or even a weapon, you could defend with Unarmed, aiming to knock the incoming blow away, or perhaps trip your opponent. If you win, you gain a CM - you can overextend the opponent, trip, grip or do something else. If you crit you can blind or pin weapon. Not being able to attack doesn't leave you helpless. It might narrow your options, and using Unarmed might be risky, but there are alternatives.

 

[PhilHibbs]

If you're in close combat, why can't you parry? And even if you're lacking a shield or even a weapon, you could defend with Unarmed, aiming to knock the incoming blow away, or perhaps trip your opponent.

What size would you say an unarmed parry is? I just checked and I can't find anything. Knuckledusters are 'S'. I'd think that a bare fist or arm is is one step lower than 'S', so you can take half damage to the parrying arm from daggers - there's a decent chance that you could knock someone's hand aside and just take a nick from the blade. If you can get a crit then you can upgrade it with an Enhance Parry CM and take half damage from a battleaxe.

 

[Loz]

Unarmed parry would be Medium, if you take into account the full length of an arm or leg. You'd assume that in making an unarmed parry you're taking full advantage of momentum, leverage, reach and stance to (try to) minimise the damage you'd take.

 

[Grimolde]

Thanks for the advice Loz

 

[PhilHibbs]

Unarmed parry would be Medium, if you take into account the full length of an arm or leg. You'd assume that in making an unarmed parry you're taking full advantage of momentum, leverage, reach and stance to (try to) minimise the damage you'd take.

I think that's quite silly, being able to parry almost any sword with your bare hands. Am I being ignorant here? I think my players would mutiny if I had an NPC knock a sword aside like that.

 

[Grimolde]

Unarmed parry would be Medium, if you take into account the full length of an arm or leg. You'd assume that in making an unarmed parry you're taking full advantage of momentum, leverage, reach and stance to (try to) minimise the damage you'd take.

I think that's quite silly, being able to parry almost any sword with your bare hands. Am I being ignorant here? I think my players would mutiny if I had an NPC knock a sword aside like that.

Have to say I'm having difficulty imagining it as well. Perhaps a Hard -40% difficulty would alleviate the issue a bit.

It's why I ask myself if not being able to attack after evading is going to make my players grimace. In reality, I'm pretty sure you'd be able to get a few slaps in if unarmed and facing a bladed opponent.

 

[DamonJynx]

I thought unarmed parries would be small (the same size as unarmed attacks). Glad you clarified that Loz.

I also thought, that to parry with natural weapons (I'm assuming unarmed attacks would qualify) they had to be "formidable". I understand that if the parrying location is armoured, it would probably count as formidable, but what if it's unarmoured? I'm sure I read somewhere there is a penalty for parrying with natural weapons that aren't formidable, but I can't find it now. Anyone know where it is?

One last thing, where is the damage listed for unarmed attacks for medium humanoids, or what is it?

 

[Loz]

Unarmed damage is 1D3.

Trying to defend yourself against a sword with your hands is certainly risky but not unreasonable or silly. I was in Sweden a couple of weeks ago and Pete gave me a brief combat lesson. One of the techniques he demonstrated was gripping your opponent's blade and knocking the blade away with hands, arm, wrist and so on.

You're most at risk if you fail your roll. If you succeed then you'll take damage and if you're armoured on the limb that helps mitigate some of that. However, if you defend yourself and the attacker misses you gain a CM and that can be a huge advantage. It might be worth the risk. As I've said though, this is a risky alternative to just standing and taking a blow. The question Grimolde posed was what use was it to Evade and lose an attacking combat action: this is just one of the options. You might not use it for obvious reasons, but it is an option.

 

[Grimolde]

So if you Evade you cannot attack on your next CA - but you can parry or try something else

I'm going with something like:

If you do not have a weapon you can parry with your bare hands using the 'Unarmed' skill at Hard -40% and the defender takes half damage rounded up.

 

[Da Boss]

Unarmed damage is 1D3.

Trying to defend yourself against a sword with your hands is certainly risky but not unreasonable or silly. I was in Sweden a couple of weeks ago and Pete gave me a brief combat lesson. One of the techniques he demonstrated was gripping your opponent's blade and knocking the blade away with hands, arm, wrist and so on.

but it is an option.

Is it someting you need skill / training to achieve though? A friend of mines over in China for 3 months INTENSE martial art training at present (I'll stick to golf for my exercise) so I'll ask him his thoughts :wink:

I wonder if the issue is that there is not a seperate Unarmed Combat Style. A unarmed combat specialist who was able to defend himself against swords spears whatever is certainly possible in both real life and cinema.

For those not happy with being able to Parry at no penalty (and medium size) - perhaps something like:

A Unarmed Parry is considered to be Small, this is adjusted by the level of the combatants skill - so a Parry by someone with 75+ Skill would be Medium and 100+ Large..........

just a thought (and yeah I know it probbaly shold effect all skills but it could be a nice thing to give unarmed fighters?)

 

[PhilHibbs]

I'm going with something like:

If you do not have a weapon you can parry with your bare hands using the 'Unarmed' skill at Hard -40% and the defender takes half damage rounded up.

Always half, regardless of the size of the attacking weapon? There needs to be some relation to weapon size, but it needs to scale with species - a duck can't parry as well as a human, who can't parry as well as a giant. How about this:

 SIZ  Weapon Size
 1-10 S
11-20 M
21-30 L
31+   H

That gives most humans the 'M' weapon size that Loz suggests.

 

[Loz]

I think that's quite silly, being able to parry almost any sword with your bare hands. Am I being ignorant here? I think my players would mutiny if I had an NPC knock a sword aside like that.

Okay, try this.

Phil's coming at Loz with his sword. Loz has just evaded meaning he can't attack. He's lost his sword and shield earlier in the combat. Phil looms down on him grinning evilly. He swings. He'll hit.

Loz throws up his arm and blocks the blow, but sustains 6 points of damage. His leather absorbs 2 taking him to zero in the arm. But he can now attack next action.

Had Loz NOT blocked with his arm and taken that 4 points, Phil would've connected and delivered a CM too. As Phil's known as 'The Head Hunter' we know he'll automatically Choose Location - Head. Loz isn't armoured there and that 6 points of damage would put him right out of the fight.

Instead, by taking the blow on his arm, Loz now has a CA he can use to retaliate. He launches a kick - a lucky, lucky crit. Phil attempts a parry and fails (doh!). Loz chooses Maximum Damage and Trip. Phil takes 3+1D4 damage to his family jewels (coz Loz is super-strong, and rolled Abdomen for his Hit Location), and loses his balance, falling flat on his arse. He's now down on the ground, his pills aching and at -20 until he can get up (and Loz at +20 to subsequent attacks).


All because Loz decided to take a blow to his arm...

This isn't being silly, its using a combination of options and Manoeuvres to regain advantage. Obviously I've put some lucky dice rolls into the example but, after some pretty intense combats run during my Winter King campaign at Pete's recently, we saw just these sorts of rolls and situations occurring, so my example isn't that far-fetched.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Phil's coming at Loz with his sword. Loz has just evaded meaning he can't attack. He's lost his sword and shield earlier in the combat. Phil looms down on him grinning evilly. He swings. He'll hit.

Loz throws up his arm and blocks the blow, but sustains 6 points of damage. His leather absorbs 2 taking him to zero in the arm. But he can now attack next action.

...This isn't being silly, its using a combination of options and Manoeuvres to regain advantage. Obviously I've put some lucky dice rolls into the example but, after some pretty intense combats run during my Winter King campaign at Pete's recently, we saw just these sorts of rolls and situations occurring, so my example isn't that far-fetched.

What I was describing as "silly" was classing an arm as a 'M' parrying weapon, which you could use to parry a sword and block all the damage. In your example, the arm is giving no damage-ignoring benefit so effectively has no size on the weapon chart for parrying purposes. Seems we were misunderstanding each other.

 

[Da Boss]

Phil's coming at Loz with his sword. Loz has just evaded meaning he can't attack. He's lost his sword and shield earlier in the combat. Phil looms down on him grinning evilly. He swings. He'll hit.

Loz throws up his arm and blocks the blow, but sustains 6 points of damage. His leather absorbs 2 taking him to zero in the arm. But he can now attack next action.

...This isn't being silly, its using a combination of options and Manoeuvres to regain advantage. Obviously I've put some lucky dice rolls into the example but, after some pretty intense combats run during my Winter King campaign at Pete's recently, we saw just these sorts of rolls and situations occurring, so my example isn't that far-fetched.

What I was describing as "silly" was classing an arm as a 'M' parrying weapon, which you could use to parry a sword and block all the damage. In your example, the arm is giving no damage-ignoring benefit so effectively has no size on the weapon chart for parrying purposes. Seems we were misunderstanding each other.

I saw that and I thought it seemed a bit effective as well as a default?

I agree with Loz that a sacrifical throwing one arm in the way makes sense - but isn't that supposed to be the defensive CM Redirect Blow (which always seemed a bit of a odd one)?

hence my ideas above - any thoughts on these?

 

[Grimolde]

I'm going with something like:

If you do not have a weapon you can parry with your bare hands using the 'Unarmed' skill at Hard -40% and the defender takes half damage rounded up.

Always half, regardless of the size of the attacking weapon? There needs to be some relation to weapon size, but it needs to scale with species - a duck can't parry as well as a human, who can't parry as well as a giant. How about this:

 SIZ  Weapon Size
 1-10 S
11-20 M
21-30 L
31+   H

That gives most humans the 'M' weapon size that Loz suggests.

Well the weapon size and damage is already built into the ruling. Bigger weapons will generally do more damage than smaller ones across the board.

The -40% is similarly applied. It's deducted off your unarmed skill whether your a duck, giant or a human warrior. It's all relative

 

[Deleriad]

I must admit that for humans I rate unarmed parries as Small and Touch though there is an argument for characters of SIZ 15+ counting as 1 category higher when used against other unarmed opponents.

As ever it depends on context and play style. An unarmed parry might not be capable of blocking any significant amount of damage from most weapons but at least it will stop the opponent from gaining a CM.

That said, remember that a combat style (and unarmed) is as much about getting out of the way of an attack by a mix of placement, deflection or ducking behind a pillar as it is about getting your arm in the way of a swinging mace.

Still, if a player wanted their character to make an unarmed parry against a troll with a club I would say sure but say that a successful parry means the parrying location automatically suffers the damage weapon CM if the opponent hits.

(While this was posted several other replies happened...)

 

[Loz]

What I was describing as "silly" was classing an arm as a 'M' parrying weapon, which you could use to parry a sword and block all the damage

.

Then perhaps I did misunderstand you.

Just cross-checked Monster Coliseum and both chimps and gorillas have Unarmed with size M for their weapon size. Given humans are primates too, size M for an arm or leg isn't unrealistic (certainly in RQ terms) and consistent with how I've treated other, similar creatures.

 

[Loz]

I agree with Loz that a sacrifical throwing one arm in the way makes sense - but isn't that supposed to be the defensive CM Redirect Blow (which always seemed a bit of a odd one)?

In my epic battle with Phil The Head Hunter, had my Unarmed parry been a crit (beating Phil's success, but still causing me damage) then one option would be to use my one CM to redirect Phil's blow away from my lightly armoured arm and onto my plate armoured chest.

 

[PhilHibbs]

Just cross-checked Monster Coliseum and both chimps and gorillas have Unarmed with size M for their weapon size. Given humans are primates too, size M for an arm or leg isn't unrealistic (certainly in RQ terms) and consistent with how I've treated other, similar creatures.

That's fine for offensive purposes, you need to know how big the attacking weapon is in order to determine if you can parry it effectively. But for effective size when parrying, it needs to have some kind of special case like the Military Flail.

 

[Da Boss]

Hmm but I presume that Gorillas are Medium in attack as well as defence wheras humans are small?

If you had generated a CM in the example as described then you would suffer no damage anyway if you were treating your arm as medium? Which is what is making people question this............ so no point in re-directing the blow as it does no damage?

Your example seemingly contrdicits that the arm is classified as medium as otherwise you would not have suffered the damage to the arm as you were the same size as the wepaon attacking you :?