Unarmed Parry?

GhostWolf69

Mongoose
Does it say anywhere that you have to be armed to use Parry with your DV?

DM: So the Nordheimer lets out a terrible cry and swings at you with his Great Axe.
PC: I Parry.
DM: Dude, your unarmed, with no shield...
PC: Can't find the rule that says that maters... I'll just stick my arm out and parry.
DM: There got to be a rule against this... *frantically flicks through book*

/wolf
 
Heh, picked up on that one did you? No, nowhere in the book does it expicitly state that you need a shield or anything else in order to parry.

BUT.... :roll:

It is insinuated in several places. The strongest is under the description for the large shield
a large shield may instead be strapped to the shoulder to allow for two weapons or a two handed weapon to be used, in which case the parry bonus is reduced to +0 due to the awkwardness involved, though it can still be used to parry in this case. Alternatively, it may be strapped to the back, in which case it may not be used to parry with but gives +2 DR against one opponent per round when the wearer is flanked.
Now the question is, why would they need that language if they didn't have a rule that said "you can only parry when holding a shield or one of the following weapons....."

My guess it that this was another playtest rule that was dropped, probably for the sake of simplicity, and never fully cleared up (like the refrences to rolling for your DV). So the way I see it you as DM have a few options.

Option the first: for simplicticy's sake let a character dodge or parry, whatever they want, regardless of what they are holding in their hands.

Option the second: for the sake of giving a nod towards realism, you may only parry if you are holding something (even an improvised weapon, like a stick) or have Improved Unarmed Strike. It's not good to bring your empty hands to a sword-fight.

Option the third: for lots of complexity that might possibly add another tatictal element to the game. You may only parry if you are holding a shiled or one of a list of weapons. So perhaps you can parry with an arming sword but not a warhammer, or you can parry with a bill but not a pike.


As for myself I am leaning towards option 2 but may just give up and go for option 1. It probably won't make that much difference in the long run (though it could be fun and dramatic to watch a player despreatly rip the leg off a chair just because he needs something to defend himself with).

Good luck.
 
Speaker-to-Dreamworlds said:
And if a player tried to argue with me I'd whack him with the book. :p

WORD! :p

I lean towards the second alternative as well.
Man, I read that part about the large shield 6 times and I still couldn't figure out what they were talking about... now it makes sort of sense.

Thanks.

I'm also inclinde to have my players actually rolling their DV. So instead of having Auto-10+ the roll a d20. Just to ad another excitement element to the game. And a good clean parry roll of 20 is allways a nice game event! :)

/wolf
 
One option if you want the players to roll their attacks, but don't want to increase the amount of rolling in the game is to adopt some or all of the "Players Roll All the Dice" optional rule from the new Unearthed Arcana. In this casse, the way that would work is that, along with rolling their attacks against DC10+opponent's DV, they'd roll their defences against DC10 + opponent's Attack Bonus.

It makes them feel empowered, or something. :p
 
Given the RPG's discussion of 'set aside', Id allow parrying with anything that could set-aside the opponent's attack. An unarmed character could parry unarmed attacks boxer-style, but I'd agree that Improved Unarmed Attack seems a reasonable prereq to parry armed attacks. I also have some trouble visualising a great axe being parried by a shortsword, that kind of case I'd go for a -4 to the parry. I think the Conan RPG pretty much requires a GM to think on his feet like this, a "you can't do it as it's not in the rules" or a "well, I guess the rules allow it..." approach seems entirely inimimcal to the spirit of the game as presented by Ian & Paul.

BTW, talking of this I'm planning to allow Fate Points to be used to get automatic best-result on d20 rolls (eg to-hit or to-confirm rolls). It should allow low-level PCs to have a chance vs higher level enemies.
 
Speaker-to-Dreamworlds said:
One option if you want the players to roll their attacks, but don't want to increase the amount of rolling in the game is to adopt some or all of the "Players Roll All the Dice" optional rule from the new Unearthed Arcana. In this casse, the way that would work is that, along with rolling their attacks against DC10+opponent's DV, they'd roll their defences against DC10 + opponent's Attack Bonus.

It makes them feel empowered, or something. :p

I've tested this in my CoC d20 game : it really improve player concentration and accelerate combat resolution. It also means less work from the GM. On a side note, it should be DC 12 + Attack bonuses (according to my calculations) or DC 11 + Attack bonuses (according to Unearthed Arcana IIRC).
 
Speaker-to-Dreamworlds said:
One option if you want the players to roll their attacks, but don't want to increase the amount of rolling in the game is to adopt some or all of the "Players Roll All the Dice" optional rule from the new Unearthed Arcana. In this casse, the way that would work is that, along with rolling their attacks against DC10+opponent's DV, they'd roll their defences against DC10 + opponent's Attack Bonus.

It makes them feel empowered, or something. :p

Nah, I won't go there. I want to roll some dice too!
To me, and my players, rolling opposed checks is allways fun cause it makes you feel that you are actually competing for something.

I have a die, you have a die we roll at the same time, my the best man win... you get the idea. Letting players roll their defensive will make them feel more part of defending themselves than just sitting there waiting for my roll to fall. They get a more active roll and as a result will feel more excited. I like that.

But I want to roll some dice too, so they won't be rolling them all.

Thanks for the tip though. Unearthed Arcana is still not released here yet, but I've had a few sneak peeks from a friend of mine who bought it online from the US, and it looks tasty! :)

/wolf
 
GhostWolf69 said:
Thanks for the tip though. Unearthed Arcana is still not released here yet, but I've had a few sneak peeks from a friend of mine who bought it online from the US, and it looks tasty! :)

/wolf

Hey Wolf, are you really in Sweden, because Unearthed Arcana is definitely available here.
 
Yokiboy said:
GhostWolf69 said:
Thanks for the tip though. Unearthed Arcana is still not released here yet, but I've had a few sneak peeks from a friend of mine who bought it online from the US, and it looks tasty! :)

/wolf

Hey Wolf, are you really in Sweden, because Unearthed Arcana is definitely available here.

Unfortunatley yes, I'm just checking the release date herew in Gothenburg at www.golem.se and it says "Release: 04-03-31". You can probably get it somewhere else in Sweden, but not here apparently.

/wolf

ps. nice to know I have another Swede "patner in crime" here too! 8)
 
In fact there are lots of rules in Unearthed Arcana which may be useful, one for all using 3d6 instead of d20 (with some necessary modifications), the use of generic classes, and, for those who play "standard" D&D campaigns, a welcome return to the old exponential experience point system, which discards the unwieldy CR system and allows planning encounters based only on experience points; I always wondered why they changed a system that worked so well!

Cheers
Antonio
 
A good fighter should be able to parry while unarmed. It's a basic concept in many martial arts: don't block the weapon if you can block the arm that swings it.

I'm not suggesting that everybody in the game world is a Hong Kong movie fighter on meth, but a skilled combatant can set aside an attack and be able to counterattack without having a weapon in hand. At the very least, anybody with Improved Unarmed Strike or a similar ability should be able to.
 
InsomNY said:
A good fighter should be able to parry while unarmed. It's a basic concept in many martial arts: don't block the weapon if you can block the arm that swings it.

I'm not suggesting that everybody in the game world is a Hong Kong movie fighter on meth, but a skilled combatant can set aside an attack and be able to counterattack without having a weapon in hand. At the very least, anybody with Improved Unarmed Strike or a similar ability should be able to.

If you call yourself a martial artist you probably have the Improved Unarmed Strike Feat. And if you have the Improved Unarmed Stirke Feat you are counted as "armed" and as such will be able to use parry. Ok in my book.

/wolf
 
I might let somebody try to parry an armed foe while unarmed, even if they do not have the Improved Unarmed Strike Feat. I probably would make it either a flat -4 penalty, or maybe make it a sliding scale based on the weapon size.
 
On a similar note, I was pondering altering the Parry rules based on the respective weapon sizes of the combatants. For example, parrying is not the best option when you are armed with a dagger and your opponent's packing a greatsword. With the different DV's for Dodge and Parry, I think this is now viable.
 
Johannixx said:
On a similar note, I was pondering altering the Parry rules based on the respective weapon sizes of the combatants. For example, parrying is not the best option when you are armed with a dagger and your opponent's packing a greatsword. With the different DV's for Dodge and Parry, I think this is now viable.

Perhaps some staggered setup, -2 / step of size difference? (I don't recall the Conan weapon list breakdown offhand, is it small, light, 2H?)
 
I miss the old Tiny/Small/Medium/Large setup, as I think there should be some differentiation between daggers and shortswords.

But yeah, a -2 per size category difference sounds pretty good. The bonus to parry for having a larger weapon than your opponent could represent the additional reach of a larger weapon that doesn't necessarily merit an increase in melee reach in the traditional sense.
 
The one thing I love about Howard's stories is the realism that he brings to man on man combat.

That being said this is a game and some exceptions have to be for rules purposes.

I don't beleive that a character without a weapon should be able to parry an opponent armed with a bladed weapon. An arm is not very good defense against a great sword. Though I would consider letting someone with improved unarmed strike parry an opponent armed with a bladed weapon though probably at a slight penalty like a -2.

The weapon size parry modifier while reasonable in real world situations is not reasonable in game terms in my oppinion. Their are already plenty of modifiers and charts for me to remember from the printed rules much less house rules charts no matter how reasonable or thought out they may be. :cry:
 
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