Parrying natural weapons in RQG

[Psullie]

So my hero is attacked by a ghoul, three attacks all on the same SR, two claws and a bite. My hero decides to parry all three with his sword. On a successful strike and successful parry the Attacker (ghoul) rolls damage and the Defender only takes damage if the attacking damage exceeds the weapons HP. But the attackers weapon is not damaged - this this case the ghouls claw or head.

The ghoul could take damage in a failed attack versus a successful parry, but only 1 HP if the parry damage rolled exceeds the claws HP. More if its a special parry etc,

Does this seem right to you? Should the ghoul take more damage from parried attacks? How do you handle these types of combats?

[HreshtIronBorne]

Well, if you special against a miss I believe you do full damage over AP. Which has led to many a sword exploding before my Humakti. Crits lay waste to opposing armaments. 

[Ian Absentia]

I hear you, but I remind myself that the rolls by the rules are abstractions of the in-game reality.  "Parrying" doesn't necessarily mean weapon-to-weapon contact to prevent a blow, but may also be interpreted as intimidating an opponent into pulling that blow that may have landed.  I'm picturing how cats fight, for instance -- head back, ears down, paws batting the air in each other's faces and at each other's paws, not necessarily a lot of contact.

The contact your hero's sword made with the ghoul's claw may have been a successful parry, but is incidental in all but the rarer circumstances.  Maybe it was the flat of the blade that made contact, maybe contact was only glancing, maybe it was just a defending sword point that caused the ghoul to back away at the last moment.

!i!

[Bill the barbarian]

57 minutes ago, Psullie said:

So my hero is attacked by a ghoul, three attacks all on the same SR, two claws and a bite. My hero decides to parry all three with his sword. On a successful strike and successful parry the Attacker (ghoul) rolls damage and the Defender only takes damage if the attacking damage exceeds the weapons HP. But the attackers weapon is not damaged - this this case the ghouls claw or head.

The ghoul could take damage in a failed attack versus a successful parry, but only 1 HP if the parry damage rolled exceeds the claws HP. More if its a special parry etc,

Does this seem right to you? Should the ghoul take more damage from parried attacks? How do you handle these types of combats?

Sorry Psullie it has been a great day for posts at BRP central and for the second day in a row I have run out of thanx clicks way to soon, This topic deserves one and I was going to get around to starting it sooner of later but there you are.

Why do I recall a successful impaling or thrusting parry driving back an unintelligent animal after an unsuccessful attack as  well as doing damage if the weapon’s (usually a claw, mouth or arm/fist/paw) rolled damage beats the Armour Points (a minimum 3 AP for a bare human arm already listed in the RAW or armour (barding or natural) plus the three AP bare human arms got ) of the failed attacker’s weapon AP by the difference in the numbers,

Now this in confusing because I have no eloquence. so what i mean is a dog attacks a human and the fails the roll but the human uses a dagger to parry the attack and succeeds and rolls a—awwww too bad 1 which becomes a three (1D4+2 for a dagger). A natural weapon has a min of 3 APs for this purpose only and  the dog has no barding but one point of fur for a total of 4 APs for this purpose only.... The dog warily retreats the near miss and thinks about it’s future, for a bit...at a distance.... If a roll of 3 or 4 been rolled (add the 2 for 5 or 6) then the dog would have taken 1 or 2 points of damage to the weapon (its head) and fallen back to think about just how angry it really is, all whilst licking it’s wound.

Was this a home rule based off some existing RQ 2 of 3 rule? Or did it exist somewhere in some form ?

 

 

Edited November 27, 2019 by Bill the barbarian

[Psullie]

20 hours ago, Ian Absentia said:

I hear you, but I remind myself that the rolls by the rules are abstractions of the in-game reality.  "Parrying" doesn't necessarily mean weapon-to-weapon contact to prevent a blow, but may also be interpreted as intimidating an opponent into pulling that blow that may have landed.  I'm picturing how cats fight, for instance -- head back, ears down, paws batting the air in each other's faces and at each other's paws, not necessarily a lot of contact.

The contact your hero's sword made with the ghoul's claw may have been a successful parry, but is incidental in all but the rarer circumstances.  Maybe it was the flat of the blade that made contact, maybe contact was only glancing, maybe it was just a defending sword point that caused the ghoul to back away at the last moment.

!i!

this makes a lot of sense and easy to play, the Special parries would be those rare occurrences where your were able to turn a parry into an attack. 

[Psullie]

20 hours ago, Bill the barbarian said:

Was this a home rule based off some existing RQ 2 of 3 rule? Or did it exist somewhere in some form ?

cheers Bill

I did go back to 2 & 3 and didn't see anything, doesn't mean its not there though. I like to keep it simple and just say the parking natural weapons just keeps the attacker from connecting

[Bill the barbarian]

35 minutes ago, Psullie said:

cheers Bill

I did go back to 2 & 3 and didn't see anything, doesn't mean its not there though. I like to keep it simple and just say the parking natural weapons just keeps the attacker from connecting

Yes but remember that parrying may do damage to a weapon that fails it attacks and the rolled weapon damage is greater than the weapons AP (or HP now) if that weapon be a body part... damage will be taken to the attacking natural weapon. This seems to be true for all of the other RQs.. I think only RQ 3 brought in the body part parrying got a temp 3 APs to overcome. Probably so that  a fist could block 100% of a non bonused fist attack. The rules do not have this so I guess one could parry with an arm but automatically take damage to that limb...?

[Lordabdul]

21 hours ago, Psullie said:

Does this seem right to you? Should the ghoul take more damage from parried attacks? How do you handle these types of combats?

I was confused for a while about what you meant -- are you having problems with the mechanical details of how many points of damage are exchanged, or are you having problems with the underlying principle of a parry damaging the attacker?

If it's the former, I'm not sure if you want more or less points, or what the problem is.

If it's the latter, then yeah, it's all about the fact that the defender is parrying with a blade or pointy thing or hard thing. If the ghoul's claws get blocked by the flat of the blade, it's like punching a wall that's moving towards you, and that can hurt your hand. If the claws get parried by the edge of the blade, that can potentially hurt a lot more!

Also consider that some parrying techniques actually include attacking as part of the same movement (parry/riposte). Bruce Lee famously made this a pillar of Jeet Kune Do -- he isn't blocking your attacks as much as he's punching your incoming fists. I can totally imagine some bad ass like King Leonidas doing something similar, where he's deflecting attacks by kicking people back and powerfully striking their hands and weapons with his sword, all the while screaming stuff about Sparta.

Edited November 28, 2019 by lordabdul

[Akhôrahil]

On 11/27/2019 at 11:17 PM, Psullie said:

Does this seem right to you? Should the ghoul take more damage from parried attacks? How do you handle these types of combats?

I absolutely think so, but the rules are a bit unclear. For instance, does armor get into it? Things get weird either way.

[Psullie]

22 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I was confused for a while about what you meant -- are you having problems with the mechanical details of how many points of damage are exchanged, or are you having problems with the underlying principle of a parry damaging the attacker?

If it's the former, I'm not sure if you want more or less points, or what the problem is.

If it's the latter, then yeah, it's all about the fact that the defender is parrying with a blade or pointy thing or hard thing. If the ghoul's claws get blocked by the flat of the blade, it's like punching a wall that's moving towards you, and that can hurt your hand. If the claws get parried by the edge of the blade, that can potentially hurt a lot more!

It was the latter. For now I'll go with the 'parry doesn't necessarily mean contact' and creatures with natural weapons don't take damage when a successful attack is parried. Any reference on the A&P table to the Attackers Weapon takes damage will mean the receive body part. I'd allow armour for non-special parries as the parry don't have to be against the business end of the claw/fist etc.

thanks for all the replies

Edited November 29, 2019 by Psullie
hit send too early..

[Bill the barbarian]

7 minutes ago, Psullie said:

thanks for all the replies

Thanks for the  topic, this has been bothering me for a while..

[g33k]

We also have an issue of "how much realism" we want to model.

With swords, you're sometimes taught to parry with the flat:  you want to preserve the edge from getting notched; I could see the argument that catching a ghoul-arm with the flat of the blade -- just to guide the blow to being a miss -- isn't likely to damage the ghoul.  If it's a "natural weapon" I could see actually trying to override the training, because "parrying" with your edge does similar damage as a strike does; but consciously overriding your training is a good way to become too slow on a parry... so, maybe not.  😉

OTOH, maces &c don't really have this feature; nor spears  (and other pole-arms).

I might consider a special rule for parrying vs. unarmed / natural-weapon attacks.

I really wouldn't consider full damage, however, because a parry and a strike really are different...  One is self-defense and just aimed at not getting hit; there is no intent to optimize the impact, etc.  The other is aimed at doing damage, optimizing impact.  There's often some "snap" at the final moment, you're trying to get maximum momentum at the point of impact.

But again, the question becomes -- how much realism do we want to model???   Do we really want different rules for parrying manufactured weapons vs. parrying "natural" weapons?

[soltakss]

3 minutes ago, g33k said:

But again, the question becomes -- how much realism do we want to model???   Do we really want different rules for parrying manufactured weapons vs. parrying "natural" weapons?

Nowadays, I ask "What do I want to happen" and go from there.

[Bill the barbarian]

3 hours ago, g33k said:

With swords, you're sometimes taught to parry with the flat:  you want to preserve the edge from getting notched; I could see the argument that catching a ghoul-arm with the flat of the blade -- just to guide the blow to being a miss -- isn't likely to damage the ghoul.  If it's a "natural weapon" I could see actually trying to override the training, because "parrying" with your edge does similar damage as a strike does; but consciously overriding your training is a good way to become too slow on a parry... so, maybe not.  😉

 

This may be the reason limbs are given 3 ap temporarily for parrying in RQ 3

[Chekmx]

The rules for martial arts are:  Martial Arts also affects an adventurer’s ability to parry
with their fist or leg. A successful parry roll that is also less 
than the Martial Arts skill means that the user’s fist or leg 
blocks 6 points of damage and takes no damage from the 
attack, no matter what weapon is used. Damage over 6 points 
still reaches the defender.  I'm not sure if this the means that natural weapons cannot parry at all otherwise or use the body part hp.  In my game natural weapons cannot be used to parry.  You have to dodge.

[Bill the barbarian]

25 minutes ago, Chekmx said:

The rules for martial arts are:  Martial Arts also affects an adventurer’s ability to parry

This is RQ Gs martial arts, yes?

[Chekmx]

 

8 minutes ago, Bill the barbarian said:

This is RQ Gs martial arts, yes?

Yes

[gochie]

Perhaps house-rule that special parries deal normal weapon damage (no STR mod) to the attacking limb.

[Lordabdul]

6 hours ago, Chekmx said:

The rules for martial arts are

Funny, I hadn't noticed there were martial arts rules in RQG (we're supposed to use swords and spears, no? ). I'm not sure I like the unarmed combat skills...

On 12/1/2019 at 2:21 PM, g33k said:

With swords, you're sometimes taught to parry with the flat

One house rule I can think of, which would also be nicer on unarmed/natural attack PCs and NPCs, would be that the parrying weapon only deals 1 point of damage on a successful parry. Only when you do get a critical, or even maybe special parry, do you get in a situation where your character saw an opportunity and turned the sword to land a strike, and there you get an actual damage roll.

[Chekmx]

Quote

Funny, I hadn't noticed there were martial arts rules in RQG (we're supposed to use swords and spears, no? ).  

Not if you are a Morokanth

[Kloster]

There are rules for Martial Arts in RQ since RQIII box. And the current rules are the same that in that old box (as far as I remember). I also remember that martial arts school exists in Kralorela and in the Lunar empire. Morokanth and shapeshifters, especially Telmori are also (for me) likely to have developped advanced unarmed combat.

18 hours ago, lordabdul said:

I'm not sure I like the unarmed combat skills...

This is (for me again) one of the points where the single skill instead of attack/parry skills is the weakest. Otherwise, they are correct, except we still don't have a rule for non lethal damage.

On 12/5/2019 at 10:23 AM, Chekmx said:

I'm not sure if this the means that natural weapons cannot parry at all otherwise or use the body part hp. 

In RQ (and in real life), you can parry with your hands. The 'only problem' is that damage goes directly to the hand. There were school of Italian medieval fencing where you diverted your opponent sword with your hand (on the flat of the sword of course). I think this kind of school of fencing can be described ruleswise as martial arts that can only parry (the attack was done with a sword).

 

[Akhôrahil]

1 hour ago, Kloster said:

In RQ (and in real life), you can parry with your hands. The 'only problem' is that damage goes directly to the hand. There were school of Italian medieval fencing where you diverted your opponent sword with your hand (on the flat of the sword of course). I think this kind of school of fencing can be described ruleswise as martial arts that can only parry (the attack was done with a sword).

And of course, you parry (well, more like block) with your hands all the time in unarmed fighting.

[Chekmx]

1 hour ago, Kloster said:

In RQ (and in real life), you can parry with your hands. The 'only problem' is that damage goes directly to the hand. There were school of Italian medieval fencing where you diverted your opponent sword with your hand (on the flat of the sword of course). I think this kind of school of fencing can be described ruleswise as martial arts that can only parry (the attack was done with a sword).

Yes I am tempted to adopt this approach now.  Though I expect in most cases my players will still choose to dodge but I can imagine certain circumstances were sacrificing a limb to save a head or chest might be an option.

[Kloster]

3 hours ago, Chekmx said:

Yes I am tempted to adopt this approach now.  Though I expect in most cases my players will still choose to dodge but I can imagine certain circumstances were sacrificing a limb to save a head or chest might be an option.

Yes, especially if you get your Martial Arts roll and thus have 6 free Armor Points on the parrying limb (in addition to the real armor you wear, of course).

[Lordabdul]

4 hours ago, Kloster said:

This is (for me again) one of the points where the single skill instead of attack/parry skills is the weakest. Otherwise, they are correct, except we still don't have a rule for non lethal damage.

The reason I don't like the rules at first glance is that there are too many skills for unarmed combat: if you wanted a martial artist or other unarmed fighter, you'd have to maintain and improve 3 skills (Fist, Kick, Grapple) when other fighters only have 1 skill to maintain. Doesn't seem fair to me (I'd rather it be all in a "Brawling" skill). But I guess in RuneQuest you just don't fight without weapons  

(for the record though I very much dislike having separate attack/parry skills)

22 minutes ago, Kloster said:

if you get your Martial Arts roll and thus have 6 free Armor Points on the parrying limb

Yeah the way I read that rule was that it's not really that you suddenly get armor on your hands, but that you're good enough that you deflect 6 points of damage away, so kinda like that italian technique that was mentioned. If you want to get fancy, you can increase that amount if you get a special/critical success. The fact that the rules mention "different schools of martial arts" makes me wonder if we'll see optional unarmed combat rules in a supplement in the future... That said, I wouldn't go into too much detail for martial arts fighters in RQ... if I wanted a game of cool martial art fighting, I would use GURPS Martial Arts (for crunchy rules) or Feng-Shui (for lighter rules). RQ is for impaling people with spears.

Edited December 6, 2019 by lordabdul