Dueling

[Choinski, Burton]

|| Where does the parrying skill come in? When do you roll for it?

The act of beating back an attack is a parry.  If you mean the "Cape Parry"
skills, they simply add to the attacker's roll, like shield EL does, plus
the capes can snarl and delay the attacks, giving you a DCV add as well.

|| This is the next combatant's turn in the same phase, right? So the
|| events described in the previous two paragraphs happen twice
|| per phase,
|| in the order determined by the dice throws for that phase.

Yes.  Let's go through a sample in slow motion, with 3 combatents (A vs X
and Y -- musketeer stuff :)

A: AB+2, IB+2
X, Y: AB+1, IB+0

Order Rolls:
A 5+4 = 9
X 10+1 = 11
y 3+1 = 4

Order is thus: X, then A, then Y

X attacks A -- normal hit
    A makes parry roll and beats it back with a normal hit.  No
counterstrike

A attacks X -- shield hit
    X makes parry roll and counterstrikes with a Severe hit
        A makes parry roll and beats it back with a Sever hit.

Y attacks A -- Normal hit
    A makes a parry roll and only gets a shield hit -- Y actualy strikes A
for normal hit damage.

---- End of phase ----

In this 3 seconds of combat there would appear to be  4 strikes (3 main, one
counter strike).  As you beat the opponent out of position you open him up
for a better hit.

NOTE that this strike/counterstrike action doe snot apply against normal,
heavy weapons -- the heavy weapons can't move in fast enough to get a
strike, and the foils can't brush the heavier weapons aside.

|| This is impossible: The aggressor has to start of with a
|| shield hit, so
|| to counter-strike, the defender needs a severe hit. The
|| aggressor can't
|| beat that by two levels (unless he's invisible and strikes a
|| fatal :)).
|| So, the best he can do is beat back the counter-strike without any
|| damage done.

True.  I was thinking that triple actions
(strike-counterstrike-counterstrike) should be somewhat uncommon, but as you
pointed out  they are impossible.

Perhaps it should simple be compressed to:
   MISS: You miss. Duh.  Probably out of range.
   SHIELD HIT: You strike and are parried, but are too far back to be
counterstruck
   HIT or better: You hit if not beaten back.  The defender need only better
your hit level to counterstrike.  Thus, if you get a hit, you can be
counterstruck if the defender gets a severe or better.


|| Luckily, this doesn't happen, so I won't have to worry about
|| an infinite
|| number of events happening in the same 3 seconds. *sigh of
|| relief* :).
|| (This was going to be my original question, until I realised
|| it wouldn't
|| happen).

Even with my revised method, the best you can get is 3 strikes (strike for
hit, counter for severe, counter-counter for deadly)

|| This is a very interesting option, and could be used in
|| other cases as
|| well, such as the famous (in our group at least) "breaking
|| your magical
|| broadsword by striking a 4D10 deadly hit against a goblin" problem.

We limit damage to weapons to only the maximum inflicted (AHP+DTV), and only
check for weapon damage against "hard" targets (AV 2 or better)
     -- Burton

----------------------------------------
Burton Choinski
Principle Software Engineer, Quality Engineering
email: burton.choinski at matrixone.com

phone: 978-322-2135
fax  : 978-452-5764

MatrixOne, Inc.
Two Executive Drive
Chelmsford, Ma 01824
www.matrixone.com

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