[CONAN] Riposte Broken?

[Supplement Four]

With the Riposte maneuver, a character with a BAB +4 or greater gets an AoO on his foe if his enemy throws an attack that is less than half your character's Parry AC.

So, if I'm reading that correctly, the more skilled a character is at parrying blows directed at him, the more likely it is that his foe will gain a freebie AoO against him. Why? Because the higher the character's AC, the more chances there are for his attacker to roll less than half.

Consider a character, Jenn, with a Parry AC 18 and anther character, Albib, with a Parry AC 12.

An AoO is scored against Jenn on an attack roll total of 1-8 (because attack = AC means a hit). But with Albib, who is less skilled at defending himself by parrying blows, has an AoO against him on an attack roll of 1-5.

Jenn has a 40% chance of being the victim of a freebie AoO by his foe, but Albib has only a 30% chance.

Doesn't that seem ass-backwards?

Note that part of this problem, but not all of it, can be diminished if the optional Active Defense rule is used.

 

[Jeraa]

You are reading it wrong, I believe. (No book at the moment, so just going by what you said in your post.) Your applying the AoO on the defender, not the attacker as you should be. If the attacker throws an attack less that is less then half the defenders Parry AC, the defender gets a free AoO on the attacker.

Jenn has a parry of 18. If she is being attacked, and the attacker rolls an attack that is 8 or less, the Jenn gets a free attack of opportunity on whoever attacked him.

Albib, with a parry of 12, only gets a free AoO if the person attacking him gets a 5 or less on the attack against Albib.

Jenn, being better at parrying, is more likely to get a free attack of opportunity on his attacker.

 

[Supplement Four]

I am reading it wrong. The higher the skill, the more likely the defender will get his Riposte, the better for the defender.

I'm an idiot, and I swallowed a bug.