rules on parry question

[Mugen]

18 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

(...) but just basing it on which SR the parry happens on seems artificial to me.

Especially if SR are not a measure of time but only an abstract value used to determine turn order.

21 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

I think in previous editions you couldn't attack and parry with the same 1H weapon, but could with a 2H weapon.

That was in RQ3, but an errata changed things a bit and allowed a character with a single 1H weapon to attack and parry with it in the same round.

Fighting with 2 weapons allowed you to attack once with each, or parry once with each, for a total of 2 attacks or 2 parries.

[Kloster]

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

I do feel that there should be some down side to attacking and parrying with the same weapon - other than the risk that you break your only weapon -

Agreed.

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

but just basing it on which SR the parry happens on seems artificial to me.

Yes, it is artificial. But I have no better idea.

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

I think in previous editions you couldn't attack and parry with the same 1H weapon, but could with a 2H weapon.

In RQ3 without errata, that was the case. The errata changed that to the prohibition in the same SR.

1 hour ago, PhilHibbs said:

Fencing is too artificial to extrapolate from, clearly people do attack and parry with fencing swords. Also sometimes nothing happens for 15 seconds or more - no attacks, no parries, but I've seen it done several times within a second so the same SR rule clearly doesn't apply to fencing, but like I said, it's a sport not a fight.

I think the problem extrapolating from fencing (like I do) is not that it is a sport, but that the weapons are too different from RQ ones.

[radmonger]

A small change  is to say that all but the first use of a given skill in a round get a penalty, rather than all but the first parry.

So sword + shield is penalty-free, as is 2H sword and dodge, or sword + dagger. With two identical weapons, you need the specialist low-base skill of offhand [weapon]. With a single one, you need the new specialist skill of '[weapon] parry'.

 

 

Edited July 4 by radmonger

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, radmonger said:

A small change  is to say that all but the first use of a given skill in a round get a penalty, rather than all but the first parry.

So sword + shield is penalty-free, as is 2H sword and dodge, or sword + dagger. With two identical weapons, you need the specialist low-base skill of offhand [weapon]. With a single one, you need the new specialist skill of '[weapon] parry'.

I like most of that but I'm okay with attack and parry being the same skill. In fact I'd rather they had gone further and used the Pete & Loz variant where you get a skill in a weapon style (e.g. "Broadsword & shield"), but that would have made my character creation spreadsheet more difficult so I guess I should be thankful they didn't.

[radmonger]

Not sure I explained what I meant properly; attack and parry do remain the same skill. 

I suspect most 2H weapon styles are reasonably described with 2 skills; [weapon] and dodge. Fpor example, with a 2H sword, in any given round you are either:

• attacking while clearing out space into which you can move to evade blows.
• using your weapon to parry, but attacking with a kick, headbutt or maybe spell.

But maybe some styles of combat would require either learning a secondary weapon skill, or just accepting the penalty for using the same skill twice.

 

 

[PhilHibbs]

3 hours ago, radmonger said:

Not sure I explained what I meant properly; attack and parry do remain the same skill. 

...so are you suggesting that you can opt to develop a separate parry skill, in order to be able to attack and parry in the same round without penalty?

[radmonger]

23 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

...so are you suggesting that you can opt to develop a separate parry skill, in order to be able to attack and parry in the same round without penalty?

Yes, I guess the best way to look at it is you could develop weapon, secondary [weapon] and perhaps even tertiary [weapon] as separate skills. The latter would let you attack and parry twice without penalty, at the small cost of spending a lot of skill points you could have used elsewhere.

Basically if you are going to require two skills to use two different weapons, you also need two skills to use two of the same weapon.

[Jens]

If you really want to penalize single weapon users, just make the second action with the same weapon in a round take the -20% penalty, rather than the second parry. So if they attack first, the attack is at full skill and the parry at -20%; if they parry first, vice versa. A second parry would then be at -40%, etc. This is not the intention of RAW, but as always your RuneQuest rules may vary.

RQ:G was a purposeful simplification of the RQ3 rules, removing separate parry skills as well as the inability to parry and attack with the same weapon in the same SR. This harkens back to the original RQ2 intent for SRs as only a sequencing system, not an action point system- attacking and parrying takes a full round with multiple probes, ripostes, etc.; the SR just determines who strikes first in the round. In a sequencing system, it doesn't make sense to say "you can't attack and parry on the same SR"- you can determine order with DEX, or just assume you both lunge at the same moment, if you happen to have the same SR.

Edited July 4 by Jens

[PhilHibbs]

10 hours ago, Jens said:

If you really want to penalize single weapon users, just make the second action with the same weapon in a round take the -20% penalty, rather than the second parry. So if they attack first, the attack is at full skill and the parry at -20%; if they parry first, vice versa. A second parry would then be at -40%, etc. This is not the intention of RAW, but as always your RuneQuest rules may vary.

That appears to rest on the assumption that the cumulative parry penalty is because you're using the same item or skill to parry - it isn't, it applies to all defensive actions such as dodge or other-weapon parries. Shield parry followed by dodge followed by sword parry are at -0%, -20%, -40%, whereas main hand weapon attack followed by offhand weapon attack are both at no penalty.

I'm not insisting on symmetry - it is nice sometimes but not compulsory in all things.