Parry conflict rule (Core book p.84 and p.85-86)
- Thread starter Khamulcalle
- Start date
duncan_disorderly
Mongoose
Verderer said:
Evade in MRQ is not just a sidestep, or ducking under / leaping over the blow that a Dodge in previous editions might have been, it is dropping to the floor, or diving out of the way - this is why you can not attack on your next CA if you choose to evade, so it would seem fair to me to say that once you have commited to an evade, you can not subsequently cancel it.
(If you are prepared to parry and your opponent does not make a credible attack, you don't actually need to move your weapon/shield to interpose it. If you are leaping out of the way, you can't afford to wait to see how close the blow is coming...)
So I'd say when an opponent is attacking you
1) If you want to evade, you must declare before the attack(*)
Once you've chosen to evade, you can't cancel & regain the CA
If you choose to evade, you can't attack with your next CA
2) If you want to parry, you are assumed to chose this option before the attack
You can choose not to parry once the attack is rolled to save the CA
If you choose not to parry, you can't change your mind when damage &/or location are rolled!
(* although in practice I might not be strict in enforcing this rule)
This just leaves the question of a pre-declared Parry. If you elect not to attack on your CA, but save your action to allow a parry before your next action, can you instead use it to evade? - Conversly if you save it to evade a (potential) attack, do you automatically lose the ability to attack on your next CA, even if the attack never materialises?
I'd say that you reserve the action for "Defensive action", and can elect to parry or evade when (or if) the attack is delared. If you are not attacked at all then you never use the action, so are free to choose any action on your next CA.
This seems to me to fit the spirit/intention of the RAW
wrt skill over 100% reducing the attack chance - I don't see that this has any great relevance. The dice roll is unaltered. If the attack would hit if not parried and would miss if parried then that will happen whether the parry is pre-declared or chosen after the fact. If the parry has a material effect on the result then the CA must be expended.
I'm thinking, I don't have a problem with that. I'm not running the game in order to make my players feel disempowered. In a cinematic fight, you will see people parry and dodge against the same opponent. In a RuneQuest fight, you won't, unless the player realises that they made a poor choice at first and change their mind. If the decision is before the fact, then there is only one sensible choice, depending on the situation. It may be that Tim with his tiny shield will be better of evading the Great Troll's tree trunk, but Bob with his tower shield will be better off parrying the guy with a shortsword, but whatever the factors are, if you are deciding up front and you are rational then you will pick the same thing every time. To me, that's a bit dull.RosenMcStern said:
Also, I can make the same decisions for their opponents, so it's fair.
Deleriad
Mongoose
duncan_disorderly said:
This looks pretty much identical to my understanding and certainly is close to how I run it. I know the book is silent on whether or not you can cancel an Evade and regain the CA. I would go with no cancelling however you could say that you can cancel an Evade but you still lose the CA.
Pre-declared parry. aka "Adopt a Defensive Stance." The way I play it is any parry you take while in a defensive stance follows all the usual rules of parrying, including the ability to cancel the parry without spending a CA. I play that the CA is spent in adopting a stance then you can have one parry which doesn't cost you a CA. Naturally if you don't use this ability before your next turn it has been wasted.
Pre-declared Evade. As it can't be cancelled then once you decide to act you go through with it. It is perfectly possible though that you might not get around to using it.
A house rule of mine: if you have adopted a defensive stance then evade before parrying then I play that you have have lost the stance and the CA you spent on it.
Skill over 100. I play that a parry skill over 100 reduces opponent's attack chance even if you decide not to parry after seeing the results of an attack. Essentially the higher skill is able to put the opponent in a position where they simply can't make a decent attack. This is one of the ways in which higher skill effectively equates to more CAs.
As Rosen stated, some of the seeming oddness comes from allowing parry cancellations which was a late change to playtesting. Parry cancellations essentially makes the game more survivable but tends to mean that parry CMs are few and far between.
sdavies2720
Mongoose
Um, I'm not sure I'm looking at the same rules: As I read them, you can only cancel your parry if the opponent misses. If they hit but don't critical, you don't get a choice any more. So that's a fundamentally different read of the rules.duncan_disorderly said:
I don't see situation c coming up with either a or b. a: "I asked you if you wanted to parry before rolling, you chose not to" b: " I asked you if you wanted to parry and I told you the level of success"
Steve
sdavies2720 said:
I agree Steve. The parry can only be cancelled on a miss because the actual scenario is;
- A) The troll takes a swing at you with his club. Do you take any defensive action?
B) I'll parry if he hits.
A) He hits you. Roll your parry.
Then the attack is resolved. Or
A) The troll takes a swing at you with his club. Do you take any defensive action?
B) I'll parry if he hits.
A) He misses you. Do you want to try for a defensive CM?
Depending on the answer B either rolls or saves his CA.
If he chose to Evade the troll's swing, he must complete the action with all the relevant penalties, as he is diving out of the way as the troll starts swinging. You can't cancel an Evade (IMHO).
