Interesting. But do you still want to call it riposte if it differs from the official maneouvre...
I thought about calling if
Flashing Riposte to play off the
Flashing Blade bonus attack (maybe with a special bonus for a
Flashing Blade Riposte?), but didn't do it in the end. Just wondered about calling it
Counterstrike instead.
Will probably change the name in the next draft. I'm not that happy with the first version, since.
(a) There should be a requirement for the DW to have a readied melee weapon and be able to see its attacker to use (whatever I call it).
(b) I don't like the official
Riposte only working when the DW's attacker misses. A riposte is a form of parry-counterattack. The fencer's blade is trying to deflect their opponent's blade with their own and then strike their opponent in a single motion. As written, an AC 18 Battle Master in full plate is way more likely to Riposte than if it were naked with AC 10. That makes no sense.
I would prefer if Riposting gives a creature a "Riposte AC" it uses against the riposted attack if that's higher than its actual AC. So in the above scenario, if a combatant had Riposte AC 15 then the riposted attack would need to hit AC 18 if they're plate mail (AC 18) or AC 15 if they're naked (AC 10).
The Riposte AC could be a fixed number based on proficiency and ability scores, but I would prefer it to be being equal to the attack roll of the defender's melee weapon. For example, a bronze dragon warrior with AC 18 and +6 to hit would roll 1d20+6 for its riposte melee attack, for an attack roll and riposte AC from 7 to 26. So if the opponent rolled 21, they would hit the dragon warrior's AC 18, but if the bronze rolled 22 or higher on their 1d20+6 roll the riposted attack would be parried successfully and miss. The bronze dragon warrior will hit the opponent with their own melee attack if they beat its AC as normal.
If BOTH opponents are using riposte, whichever rolls higher and beats the target's AC will score a hit. If both roll the same to hit number then they hit each other simultaneously, target AC permitting.
Hmm… maybe instead of missing, a successful riposte reduces the damage of the attacker's melee weapon by the dragon warrior's own damage roll? That would mean that if a DW parried, say an elephant's 4d10+6 gore, they would likely only deflect part of the damage.
I also wondered about putting a Recharge on Riposte that gets higher as the DW's rank increases (i.e. 5-6 for CR 3, 4-6 for CR 4, automatic for CR 5) but decided that seems overly complicated even for me.
Finally, I mentioned fancying
Flashing Blade being better than a regular longsword attack with Riposte, and am wondering about adding the equivalent of a "superiority dice" rather than a straight bonus like in Parry.
If the Dragon Warrior adds 1d4 to the attack roll with
Flashing Blade, that'd give Bronze an 8 to 30 range (1d20+6+1d4) and Gold a 9 to 31 (1d20+7+1d4). The average of those rolls is 19 and 20, so its riposting AC would be better than its natural AC (Bronze 18, Silver 19, Gold 20) less than half the time.
Hmm, I like most of the above, so will write up a few new drafts of "Riposte" when I can find the time and inspiration.
Incidentally, I've used that attack roll=AC idea for parries and ripostes in multiple unpublished homebrews and some of the 3E monster conversions on this forum. For example, the
Seven Sword Reaper has a Scythe Parry ability that allows it to use its attack roll to parry melee and ranged weapons. It's not something I've just made up.
