Subsequent parries RQG

[Rob Darvall]

I am probably reading this wrongly but "subsequent parries" p200 seems to leave a fighter with just 5 parries/fight. Or is that just my brain on painkillers?

[RosenMcStern]

It is "per round", not per fight. The counter resets at the start of each round.

[PhilHibbs]

1 hour ago, Rob Darvall said:

I am probably reading this wrongly but "subsequent parries" p200 seems to leave a fighter with just 5 parries/fight. Or is that just my brain on painkillers?

Where does the number 5 come from? Are you assuming 100% initial skill, so 100, 80, 60, 40, 20? Skill can be higher than 100, although it can only start a little higher than that with the right combinations. And Rosen is right that it's per melee round, so 5 parries in 12 seconds is quite busy!

[Rob Darvall]

Per melee round. Thanks Phillip. And Rosen.

Edited August 30, 2018 by Rob Darvall

[Zozotroll]

PhilHibbs I bet I have made 5 parrys in 12 seconds back when I was young enough to fence.  But that was swishypoking, not manly broadswords.

 

 And yes very busy.  If you are making that many parrys you are probably not winning.

[womble]

I've made 5 parries in 12 seconds when line fighting, parrying with shield and sword. Didn't do much attacking though (that's for the guys with polearms to do from the second rank).

 

[g33k]

1 hour ago, Zozotroll said:

...  But that was swishypoking, not manly broadswords.

Broadswords only seem manly 'til you've met a Great Troll with a maul !

 

[soltakss]

2 hours ago, g33k said:

Broadswords only seem manly 'til you've met a Great Troll with a maul !

Or someone with an Irish Flail (Wrecking Ball on the end of a 10 foot chain)

[DreadDomain]

5 hours ago, womble said:

I've made 5 parries in 12 seconds when line fighting, parrying with shield and sword. Didn't do much attacking though (that's for the guys with polearms to do from the second rank).

 

Are you implying you have ar least 100% in parry 😊. Just kidding, in any case, I quite like the parry rule in RQG. Of course one could wonder why your penalties resets every 12 seconds but it is a good enough representation of how parry should work. The number of parries one can make in 12 seconds is credible. What is not credible is that a professional soldier (or gladiator) can only attack once in 12 seconds. It really does not deliver a visceral, blow by blow experience as it claims to do. But that is another story.

[Zozotroll]

No game will ever do that.  By the time you pick up the dice and drop them, several blows will have gone back and forth.  And no potential pain either.  There are a goodly number of people on here who have swung various implements at real people and gotten whacked back.  I would not be surprised if every last one of them doesnt have a story of how they got hurt to one degree or another.

 

For me RQ has always been a good compromise between my experience with getting hit with sticks, and something that is playable.  I dont want to spend all evening resolving one small fight.

[Mugen]

6 hours ago, Zozotroll said:

No game will ever do that.

Well, there are lots of games with turn duration lower than 12 seconds. 6 is quite common, and you can often do more than 1 attack per turn in those games. Some even have 1 second turns (GURPS).

Note that it would not be difficult to consider RQG turns to be 6 or 3 seconds long instead of 12, as it's an abstract measure of time. You'd certainly have to lower movement rates, though...

Edited August 31, 2018 by Mugen

[womble]

9 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

Are you implying you have ar least 100% in parry 😊. Just kidding, in any case, I quite like the parry rule in RQG. Of course one could wonder why your penalties resets every 12 seconds but it is a good enough representation of how parry should work. The number of parries one can make in 12 seconds is credible. What is not credible is that a professional soldier (or gladiator) can only attack once in 12 seconds. It really does not deliver a visceral, blow by blow experience as it claims to do. But that is another story.

As I would be fighting defensively, making no attempt to attack, I'd have an 'extra' parry with my sword; I can't see any listed modifiers for fighting defensively, but as I read the subesequent parries rule, it applies per weapon:

 

Quote

 An adventurer may make a subsequent parry with a weapon they have already parried with. Any subsequent parry is at a cumulative –20% penalty for each additional parry...

so I wouldn't need the whole hundred to get meaningful parry chances on the second and third parries.  Or maybe I just lucked out and rolled >6 on the later ones

As kindof an aside, though, the rules about what you can do wrt attacks and parries seem to require a chunk of assumption. While two weapon fighting is specifically dealt with, the basic attack and parry sections don't specifically address how/whether you get to parry with a weapon while fighting with a shield, and it doesn't, as previous editions did, limit a 1-handed weapon to attack or parry only. Maybe there will be clarifications in the GM's guide.

 

 

[PhilHibbs]

2 hours ago, womble said:

...but as I read the subesequent parries rule, it applies per weapon:

I think this has been clarified to apply to all subsequent parries or dodges regardless of weapon. So your first parry is at full chance, if you dodge then that is at -20, then you parry with another weapon at -40.

[DreadDomain]

8 hours ago, Zozotroll said:

No game will ever do that.  By the time you pick up the dice and drop them, several blows will have gone back and forth.  And no potential pain either.  There are a goodly number of people on here who have swung various implements at real people and gotten whacked back.  I would not be surprised if every last one of them doesnt have a story of how they got hurt to one degree or another.

 

For me RQ has always been a good compromise between my experience with getting hit with sticks, and something that is playable.  I dont want to spend all evening resolving one small fight.

Unless I misunderstand what you mean, as Mugen points many many games use rounds that are shorter than 12 seconds (or at least provide for multiple attacks per round even without dual weapon fighting or super competency). One attack per 12 seconds really is a remnant of the 70's and is most likely the exception rather than the rule these days.

[PhilHibbs]

In Legend of the Five Rings, a combat round is "3 to 10 seconds". Most samurai swordsmen will get two attacks in that time depending on rank (level).

[womble]

2 hours ago, PhilHibbs said:

I think this has been clarified to apply to all subsequent parries or dodges regardless of weapon. So your first parry is at full chance, if you dodge then that is at -20, then you parry with another weapon at -40.

Fair enough, so long as there's some sort of bonus for electing to sacrifice your attack for defense. I would averr that (while you're never going to win on your own) you can defend a lot better if you're not even attempting to attack. The bonus for 'all out defense' should (IMO/E) greatly exceed any bonus for 'all out attack'.

[PhilHibbs]

16 minutes ago, womble said:

Fair enough, so long as there's some sort of bonus for electing to sacrifice your attack for defense. I would averr that (while you're never going to win on your own) you can defend a lot better if you're not even attempting to attack. The bonus for 'all out defense' should (IMO/E) greatly exceed any bonus for 'all out attack'.

As written, there is no such bonus. No reason not to houserule it though. I quite like the "full attack" and "full defend" rules in L5R, for instance. Maybe if you don't attack, you get an extra parry at full chance. So with 80% skill, you get 80, 80, 60, 40 etc.

[womble]

19 minutes ago, PhilHibbs said:

As written, there is no such bonus. No reason not to houserule it though. I quite like the "full attack" and "full defend" rules in L5R, for instance. Maybe if you don't attack, you get an extra parry at full chance. So with 80% skill, you get 80, 80, 60, 40 etc.

Aye. Didn't think I could've missed it.

I actually quite like the idea of having the parries for separate weapons decrease separately, but I think your first parry should have more chance of succeeding if your're not attacking than when you are...

[10baseT]

6 hours ago, Mugen said:

Note that it would not be difficult to consider RQG turns to be 6 or 3 seconds long instead of 12, as it's an abstract measure of time. You'd certainly have to lower movement rates, though.

I always thought about doing this since the combat rounds seem a bit too long for what one can do. My thought was to make the combat round 2 seconds long and keep all other mechanics the same, ie 12 SR in a round. For Movement i was going to make one's Movement equate to meters. A human has an 8 move so can move 8 meters in a combat round, x3 if they run. Now i'm not complaining mind you. I'm happy and play rules as written, but i have been kicking it around.

[10baseT]

4 minutes ago, womble said:

but I think your first parry should have more chance of succeeding if your're not attacking than when you are...

Kind of like defensive fighting... i like the sound of that.

[RosenMcStern]

5 minutes ago, 10baseT said:

I always thought about doing this since the combat rounds seem a bit too long for what one can do. My thought was to make the combat round 2 seconds long and keep all other mechanics the same, ie 12 SR in a round.

You will mess up missile fire an magic in this way. Two arrows out in 2 seconds is a bit too much. Weird as it can sound, the SR system has been around for a long time and its subcomponents are  quite integrated. It is not easy to houserule one of its parts without breaking the others.

[10baseT]

6 minutes ago, RosenMcStern said:

You will mess up missile fire an magic in this way. Two arrows out in 2 seconds is a bit too much

You're right... i havent thought about it too deeply. It was just something i kicked around in my head. I like the SR mechanics, the round just seems a bit long... i guess i was thinking too much on GURPS which i like they way they do missile fire (but then again, i'm playing RQ and not GURPS and i'm very happy with RQ).

[Atgxtg]

22 minutes ago, RosenMcStern said:

You will mess up missile fire an magic in this way. Two arrows out in 2 seconds is a bit too much. Weird as it can sound, the SR system has been around for a long time and its subcomponents are  quite integrated. It is not easy to houserule one of its parts without breaking the others.

Thats kinda a thing with RQ in general. Everything is so integrated that changes can start a domino effect of unintended consequences. 

14 minutes ago, 10baseT said:

You're right... i havent thought about it too deeply. It was just something i kicked around in my head. I like the SR mechanics, the round just seems a bit long... i guess i was thinking too much on GURPS which i like they way they do missile fire (but then again, i'm playing RQ and not GURPS and i'm very happy with RQ).

 

You could alter the length of the round, but increase the time it takes to reload arrows and such. That would keep the rate of fire down to a reasonable level, but it will certianly change the dynamic between melee and missle combatants. Those will melee weapons would probably get an attack on rounds where the archers are reloading. Not that that's actually wrong-melee weapons are quicker. But there would be a bunch of other effects. 

 

If I were going to try and change the duration of a melee round, I'd probably go to six seconds first and double the reload time to 10SR and the casting time to 2SR/MP and see how that playtests before anything more radical. But overall I'd expect a big shift towards melee and away from missles and magic. 

[Zozotroll]

4 hours ago, DreadDomain said:

Unless I misunderstand what you mean, as Mugen points many many games use rounds that are shorter than 12 seconds (or at least provide for multiple attacks per round even without dual weapon fighting or super competency). One attack per 12 seconds really is a remnant of the 70's and is most likely the exception rather than the rule these days.

I play cyberpunk which uses 2.5 second turns.  But that is not really my point.

 

On the range I can just about empty my .357 in 3 seconds.  At the game table I cannot roll the dice six times and read them in less than a minute or two.  No crack, no recoil.  I got the middle knuckle on my left hand broken on a successful parry.  Hit me right in the middle of the shield ad the shock cracked my knuckle.  Dude was 6'5" and 350 LB.  Like fighting a dark troll.  No tabletop game is ever going to capture the really feeling of any of those things.It is always going to be an abstraction o matter what you turn length.That doesnt mean it isnt fun, or something I like to do a lot.  Look at how  much time I spend here blathering away about it.  But I am never going to confuse a RQ melee round of whatever length with getting knocked to the ground by a near monster with a huge ax.

[PhilHibbs]

39 minutes ago, Atgxtg said:

If I were going to try and change the duration of a melee round, I'd probably go to six seconds first and double the reload time to 10SR and the casting time to 2SR/MP and see how that playtests before anything more radical. But overall I'd expect a big shift towards melee and away from missles and magic. 

To maintain the current balance with missile, you'd have to adjust the chances of dealing damage. If you are essentially multiplying the number of attack rolls by 6, you need to reduce the chance of ending up with a hit by a similar factor. Statistics is tricky, it isn't just "multiply this by 6, therefore divide that by 6". The results of a simple multiply/divide will end up different at different skill levels. The whole attack/parry mechanic would need to be redesigned.