Adjudicating fumbled parries

[thwill]

Looking at the BRP "Melee Weapon Parry Fumble Table" p194 the result for 76-78 is "Wide open; foe automatically hits with normal hit."

How does this work? The rules are fairly clear that a character only has to roll to parry/dodge attacks that actually succeed -- thus if you are rolling on this table you have already been hit for at least a "normal hit".

Thanks, Tom

[jkeown]

You've been struck with a hit.

You parry. You fumble. This table can convert that normal hit to a special or critical hit. That's the key. Look at the other results. Dropped weapon, Lose a round. Fall down? 76-85 is the best result on the table. Hope that this is the result you get. All the others suck much harder.

[thwill]

So it's just a 'no-result', seems pretty pointless ;-)

[frogspawner]

But if it was intended to be "no result" it would have been at 01-03 instead. Surely that means it's an error.

[thwill]

My feeling is that it is an error as well.

I wondered if it was a 'leftover' from someone thinking that a parry had to be declared before the to-hit roll. This would make sense in some ways, but I don't recall any BRP game (or any RPG for that matter) where this is the case.

[NickMiddleton]

Looking at the BRP "Melee Weapon Parry Fumble Table" p194 the result for 76-78 is "Wide open; foe automatically hits with normal hit."

How does this work? The rules are fairly clear that a character only has to roll to parry/dodge attacks that actually succeed -- thus if you are rolling on this table you have already been hit for at least a "normal hit".

That sounds wrong to me. Every version of BRP I've ever played you have to declare whether you are Parrying, Dodging or just hoping the attacker will miss BEFORE they roll their attack (but after they have declared that they ARE going to attack you).

The problem I think is the word 'successful' - a BRP character doesn't have to designate who they will Parry against at the start of the round, they can wait until someone attacks them; but they can't wait until they know if the attack has hit them and THEN make a defensive roll, they have to commit to a defensive action (if any) as soon as they know the attack is coming.

At which point of course, the fumble entry makes sense - even if the attack missed, the Parry fumble means they do hit.

Another alternative is that the result applies to the NEXT attack against the character who fumbled.

Cheers,

Nick

[thwill]

Every version of BRP I've ever played you have to declare whether you are Parrying, Dodging or just hoping the attacker will miss BEFORE they roll their attack (but after they have declared that they ARE going to attack you).

That was a surprise to me, as I don't ever recall having played it like that. I checked the d100 systems I had at hand:

Call Of Cthulhu 5th Edition: agrees with you wrt Parry stating that "At the beginning of the round, the defender states which potential attacker he intends to parry, before anyone attacks." However CoC 5 doesn't allow multiple parries - where the existence of such a rule could be more difficult to apply. It is not prescriptive about when Dodges need to be declared.

GORE: Seems to suggest that a Parry or Dodge only has to be declared after a successful attack.

[NickMiddleton]

That was a surprise to me, as I don't ever recall having played it like that. I checked the d100 systems I had at hand:

Call Of Cthulhu 5th Edition: agrees with you wrt Parry stating that "At the beginning of the round, the defender states which potential attacker he intends to parry, before anyone attacks." However CoC 5 doesn't allow multiple parries - where the existence of such a rule could be more difficult to apply. It is not prescriptive about when Dodges need to be declared.

RQII & III and Elric! / Stormbringer 5 were the ones I had to hand. Note it's pretty crucial it works that way in RQII/III because you ONLY get 2 combat actions a round: If you Parry two separate attacks before your attack strike rank arrives, you simply CANNOT attack that round.

GORE: Seems to suggest that a Parry or Dodge only has to be declared after a successful attack.

GORE is based on MRQ, and MRQ tied itself in some rather odd knots with combat trying to be different, so GORE does NOT AFAICR work the same way as most BRP games do.

Cheers,

Nick

Edited February 2, 2009 by NickMiddleton

[frogspawner]

To me, it seems a bit too harsh to give fumbles on Parry/Dodge. Something bad is about to happen anyway (i.e. getting hit).

[soltakss]

We normally play that you declare a parry/dodge in response to opponents' declarations but you only roll it if it is necessary. So, if someone hits then you roll the parry, if someone misses and you use riposte/disarming/swordbreaking rules then you can roll a parry. If you fumble your parry or dodge then something bad should happen.

This particular fumble is important if you are facing a number of opponents - one of the other attacks automatically hits. I'd hold it off and let the next attack in the same melee hit as you are not in a position to defend yourself properly. I'd also allow you to use a combat action to get rid of the fumble effect so that you can start again from scratch.

[Nightshade]

I'd put bets this is an artifact of mechanics evolution; in RQ you had to declare parries before knowing whether there was a hit, so this fumble could actually make a missing attack hit you. I suspect Jason simply didn't notice the effect when he went over to the "parry only on hits" idea, since the parry fumbles are an optional rule as I recall (and even if they're not, its one entry on a table).