my new rules for combat: Parrying rules

[dm_scorpio]

The following rules are ones I'm planning on implimenting in my next campaign. if anyone has any constructive feedback, i'd like to hear it. I would like to hear any balance issues you see. An important note is that Monks don't exist in this campaign world.


Armor will give Damage Reduction and Damage Conversion as described in Unearthed Arcana. Shields do not grant a bonus to Defense or Damage Reduction/Conversion. Details on shields is given below.

A character may give up an attack of opportunity to attempt to parry an attack. If you wish to parry an attack, the decision must be made before your opponent’s attack roll. To successfully parry a blow, roll an attack roll. If your attack roll beats your opponent’s roll, you have successfully parried the blow. An unarmed character (or character using natural weapons) cannot parry against an armed opponent. Enhancement bonuses to weapons do *not* confer a bonus to parry attempts.

In the opposed rolls of the parry, light weapons receive a -4 penalty. Two-handed weapons gain +4 bonus. Small creatures suffer a -4 penalty on parries again medium creatures. Large creatures (including half-giants wielding large weapons) gain a +4 bonus on parry attempts.

If you attempt to parry and fail, the attack is automatically a hit, but does not threaten a critical unless it otherwise would.

A successful parry with a shield means that the shield is hit with the weapon and takes damage. Roll damage per normal for the weapon.

Touch attacks cannot be parried.

Total defense – You can defend yourself as a standard action. You get a +4 Dodge bonus to defense for 1 round. You also trade all your attacks for the round for parry attempts. You cannot make an attack of opportunity while in total defense. Parries work normally.

Carrying a shield allows you one free parry per non-magical point of shield bonus detailed in the PHB (for example, a large shield grants two parry attempts, but they must be made at +0/-5). If you are not proficient with the shield you are wielding, you take a -4 penalty on parry attempts. Enhancement bonuses confer a bonus on parry attempts with the shield.

Spells that grant shield bonuses to AC work normally, adding a bonus to Defense. Spells that grant armor bonuses grant Conversion and DR as per armor rules (exception: spells that grant a bonus to AC via force effects grant a bonus to Defense)

New feats:
DEFLECT BLOWS [GENERAL]
You can deflect incoming blows from an armed opponent even while you are unarmed.
Prerequisites: Dex 17, Improved Unarmed Strike or natural weapons
Benefit: You may parry blows even when unarmed.
Normal: Unarmed characters cannot parry against an unarmed foe.
Special: A fighter may select Deflect Blows as one of his fighter bonus feats.

SNATCH WEAPON [GENERAL]
You are adept at grabbing weapons out of your opponent’s hands
Prerequisites: Dex 19, Combat Expertise, Improved Disarm, Deflect Blows, Improved Unarmed Strike
Benefit: When using the Deflect Blows feat you may catch the weapon instead of just deflecting it. You then initiate a free disarm attempt.
You must have at least one hand free (holding nothing) to use this feat.
Special: A fighter may select Snatch Weapon as one of his fighter bonus feats.

 

[Plane Sailing]

What about monks? They are in big trouble if they can't parry weapons unarmed (although I can see how it could add realism - a reason for monks vs armed opponents to go for disarms or pick up a weapon themselves).

Combat Reflexes would become a brilliant, almost must-have feat under these rules (parrying while flatfooted, getting more parries off in a round).

What about parrying natural weapons with a weapon? How do you adjudicate parrying a wolfs bite with a sword? What about bigger creatures - can you parry a Dragons bite? Does the answer differ if you are parrying with a shield or with a sword? What about Huge or Colossal weapons that are being used to attack you?

I ought to add that I'm completely in favour of some kind of active parrying mechanic like this, and I do believe it has a precedent in 3e with the Mounted Combat feat that allows you to make a riding roll in order to negate an attack roll.

I think it might run more smoothly if you allow someone to decide whether or not to parry after the attacker has rolled (and ditch the "you're automatically hit if you fail to parry") but that is just a personal opinion, I guess it could work equally well either way.

Cheers

 

[Gustave Arcanus]

Monks attacking unarmed count as being armed, remember. How many movies and anime have we seen where a martial artist has caught a blade between their hands?

Natural weapons and monks attacking unarmed getting parried by a weapon would take weapon damage if successful. Borrowing an idea from White Wolf, of course, and common sense. Add half Strength to the damage, full if a two-handed weapon.

And give size mods to the parry roll when the weapon size is different. So a longsword being used to parry a greatsword would be at a penalty of -4 (standard size differences). For the purposes, treat natural weapons as if they were the creature's size. So a Huge dragon's claw would put that longsword parry at -8. Not likely he'd be able to, but not impossible, either. Come on, we're heroes here, not accountants.

Of course, what's good for the goose is good for the gander. Said Huge dragon could also parry the longsword with his claw, at +8 no less.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

I'd like to see a mechanic like this!

Some random thoughts:

I'd use the standard grapple bonuses to adjudicate size differences. Also make it off weapon size rather than creature size. i.e. A halfling with a greatsword is at no bonus or penalty to parry an orc with a longsword... All the hard work is done for you and it should scale up correctly.

I wouldn't give any specific bonus for holding a weapon in 2 hands - if it's a 'normal' 2 handed weapon it already gets a size bonus.

I'd seriously consider giving a +4 bonus for using 2 weapons - would provide a decent boost for that style and seems fitting to me?

Possibly ignore the attack penalty from Expertise or Defensive Fighting when rolling the parry attempt. To me both of those would seem to help with parrying, rather than hindering it. Although it does make both options considerably stronger.

As far as unarmed goes, I'd allow people with proficiency with unarmed combat to use it for parrying. It isn't going to be optimal - fists are small weapons after all. Perhaps a feat for monks that lets them treat their unarmed attacks as medium weapons for parrying?

 

[dm_scorpio]

In response to the points already brought up:

from my original post: [

An important note is that Monks don't exist in this campaign world.

And as far as unarmed strike being unabled to be parried, that was a misprint on my part. It should've read "Unarmed characters cannot parry against an armed foe."

Yes, Combat Reflexes becomes an almost-must have. However, my players never take it unless they are a rnager or rogue with a 16+ dex, so in my particular group I don't see it as unbalancing. This is just my particular group, though.

Natural attacks can be parried/be used for parrying.

For the size modifiers for parrying, I had used the existing modifiers for sundering. Gustave, you're right about the modifiers for parrying natural attacks for creatures bigger than Large. I'll modify the rules to explicitly state that the size modifiers for sundering are used for weapons when parrying.

Originally I toyed with the idea of doing weapon damage for the weapons each time there was a successful parry. I did away with this because I didn't want to take away the thunder of Sundering. Also, I feared that weapons would break too often and thus end up costing too much money, especially for magical weapons.

As far as two-weapon fighting, I modified Two-weapon Defense to allow an extra parry attack with your off-hand weapon. I modified many feats, but in the interest of space and time I'll only post the changes if someone requests them.

My original post has Deflect Blows which allows unarmed characters to parry.

I'll add the rule that an unarmed character can parry against another unarmed character.


thanks for the thoughts guys!

 

[Jin]

This is how we do it...

DEFENSIVE ACTIONS

These are set up with similar prerequisites as feats, but anyone can use them once they have the prereqs.

DODGE
Prerequisite: Dodge, 15+ Dex, 10+ Ranks in Tumble, +10 Reflex Save

Benefit: Sacrifice a standard action during your next turn to make a reflex save or tumble check, the dodge, to avoid an attack. Defender must move 5' while using this action & could incur attacks of opportunity as a result. DC the attacker's attack roll.

Normal: You get whacked.

PARRY
Prerequisite: +3 BAB, 13+ Dex

Benefit: Sacrifice an attack during your next turn to make an opposed attack roll, the parry, to deflect an attack. DC the attacker's attack roll.

Normal: You get whacked.

ROLL WITH A BLOW
Prerequisite: 13+ Dex, 6+ Ranks in Tumble, +6 Reflex Save

Benefit: Sacrifice a move equivalent action during your next turn to make a reflex save or tumble check, the roll, to take half damage from an attack. Defender must move 5' while using this action and could incur attacks of opportunity as a result. DC the attacker's attack roll.

Normal: You get whacked.

FEATS

We also made a few feats to go along with this new style.

IMPROVED PARRY [FIGHTER]
Prerequisite: +4 BAB, Expertise, Dex 15+

Benefit: You can use up one of your Attacks of Opportunity for the current round to make a parry attempt. Any parry attempts count against the maximum number of Attacks of Opportunity you can make in a round.

Normal: You sacrifice an attack during your next action to make a parry attempt.

REPOST [FIGHTER]
Prerequisite: +7 BAB, Combat Reflexes, Expertise, Dex 15+

Benefit: You can make an immediate Attack of Opportunity against someone whom you have successfully used the parry defensive action against. Any repost attempts count against the maximum number of Attacks of Opportunity you can make in a round.

Normal: You don't get to make an AoO after a sucessful parry.

 

[DanMcS]

And as far as unarmed strike being unabled to be parried, that was a misprint on my part. It should've read "Unarmed characters cannot parry against an armed foe."

My original post has Deflect Blows which allows unarmed characters to parry.

I'll add the rule that an unarmed character can parry against another unarmed character.

You're adding some complications you don't need, here. In particular, an unarmed character with Improved Unarmed Strike is considered to be armed. Deflect Blows provides no benefit, as it has a prereq of IUS.

 

[RuminDange]

Actually they did a whole write up in Dragon #301 detailing a feat chain for parry. This was in the one about Swashbucklers,
I've been using these feats for a while IMC and it does add a level of complexity to the game since more rolls are required. Also you have to do some tweaking on these since your parry attempt uses AOO at full bonus for each parry. Of course I'm running an epic campaign at the moment, and with Improved Combat Reflexes (unlimited number of AOO), I've had BBEG's parrying everything the party could do in melee.

Basically, you have the following feats:

Parry -Dex:13+, Int:13+, Expertise - Able to parry one attack using an AOO
Armored Fencer (Heavy) -Dex:13+, Int:13+, Expertise, Armored Fencer(Medium), All Armor Proficencies, Parry – able to parry while wearing Heavy armor
Armored Fencer (Medium) - Dex:13+, Int:13+, Armor Pro:Light and Medium, Expertise, Parry – able to parry while wearing medium armor
Crushing Defense - Str:13+, Dex:13+, Int:13+, Expertise, Parry,Power Attack, Improved Sunder, BAB:4+ - On a successful parry you do damage to the opponent’s weapon as if you attempted to sunder it.
Expert Parry - Dex:13+,Int:13+, Combat Reflexes, Expertise, Improved Parry, Parry – Able to parry any number of attacks from any number of opponents limited by your number of AOO
Guarded Defense - Dex:13+, Int:13+, Expertise, Improved Disarm, Parry, BAB:4+ - Opponents no longer get an automatic disarm attempt when you successfully parry them
Improved Parry - Dex:13+,Int:13+,Combat Reflexes, Expertise, Parry – able to parry up to your AOO in attacks no more than one attack from each opponent
Incredible Parry - Dex:13+,Int:13+,Expertise,Parry,BAB:6+ - able to parry a weapon one size greater than normal (may be taken more than once)
Protective Parry - Dex:13+,Int:13+,Expertise,Parry – Able to parry attacks on those nearby you
Steel Skin - Dex:13+,Int:13+,Expertise,Improved Unarmed Strike, Parry,BAB:4+ - able to parry with your bare hands.

Standard stuff that I remember off the top of my head:
Attempting to parry gives the opponent an automatic disarm attempt.
You may only parry a weapon up to 3 sizes larger than your own.
You may not parry ranged attacks.

One of the changes I've made is for each parry beyond your Dexterity Modifier in a round you suffer a -2 cumulative even if you have Improved Combat Reflexes.

That is it in a nutshell. There is more detail in Dragon, hope that helps.

RD

 

[dm_scorpio]

Jin, I gotta admit, I like your idea much better as implimentation. thanks

 

[evolved]

also in the dragon mag you forgot the off-hand light weapons give a +4 to the parry attempt when used to parry

also that house rule about -2 to parries beyond dex mod since combat reflexes is based off dex does that mean it only comes into play at epic levels?