Hello fellow cromhedz!
I have a basick kwestion clarifying dodging melee blows WITHOUT weapons (defender’s unarmed), basically using the Defend reaction… To which skill do I remit to? And what’s the process?
Thanks!
Fighting unarmed trading blows is Melee + Agility.
If you have characters fighting unarmed in melee, then it is struggle following the normal rules.
If one of the participants has melee weapon, the range comes into play and the defender’s Difficulty is increased with 1 for each range difference (melee is Reach 1)
An Unarmed/Improvised Strike is the basic attack for a Melee or Ranged attack. It has a Reach of 1, and inflicts 2 CD § damage and includes the Improvised, Stun, and Thrown Qualities.
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“If one of the participants has melee weapon, the range comes into play and the defender’s Difficulty is increased with 1 for each range difference (melee is Reach 1)”
Thanks a lot!
Where in the book does it state this?
RC
It is inside the paragraphs on p.123 - Forms of Attack section in the Core Rulebook. Probably around the same page in the Player’s Guide.
You can defend against melee attacks using the Parry skill. It does not matter if the attacker and/or defender are unarmed. Unarmed counts as an improvised weapon and has specific qualities. Melee attacks use the Melee skill and if the unarmed character defends, it is a struggle Melee vs. Parry.
There is also the Pantherish Twist talent which lets you use Acrobatics instead of Parry to defend against a melee attack.
So, talents like Deflection, how would they work with an unarmed defender?
It works as normal. Being unarmed is basically the same thing as using an improvised weapon. Unarmed defenders can still do a Defend Reaction. I didn’t see anything in the rules that would prevent that.
Of course, if the character is truly unarmed, you would have to come up with an appropriate narrative how the character can parry a sword attack with their bare hands. Like martial arts or something.
If someone attack a fellow pc and you do the defend reaction and you succeed the target them would become you guy. Could you then do a second reaction to parry that?
The argument came up that yes, you can do multiple reactions for more doom, but in this instance can you do multiple reactions off the same trigger? I defend and then parry so no one is hit… does that work?
Thank you for your time!!
I believe this was covered, in a way, in the FAQs. The question there is if you take a Protect reaction and fail (so the attack goes against the ally you were trying to Protect), can the ally then try to Dodge or Parry. The answer there was no:
If a character attempts to Protect another character and fails the guard attempt (gets no successes on the parry attempt) can the original target of the attack make a dodge or parry attempt of their own?
(Asked by Daniel Williamson & answered by Nathan Dowdell in the G+ Community)
No. It’s an opposed test; if you lose an opposed test, nobody else gets to roll again for your part.
Given that you have to declare if you’re attempting a Reaction when the attack is declared, and before any dice are rolled, that naturally precludes "waiting to see if the Protecting character failed and then trying your own reaction."
This is, fundamentally, the same as asking if you can try and Parry an attack you failed to Dodge - it’s asking for two reactions to the same attack, one after the other. It’s incompatible with the rules for a Struggle.
So even though the situation you are asking is a little different I still think it follows this ruling, basically 1 reaction per attack. But I am just now learning the rules…so I could be wrong.
Just raise the difficulty I would say. Being entirely unarmed against an armed attacker is in the real world a shortcut to losing a hand just before you die unless you are considerably more skilled than your attacker…
I have an unrelated ‘dodgy’ question: where on the header of this forum is the ‘post new topic’ button?
It seems ‘dodgy’ i can reply to threads, but cannot post one of my own.
Sorry for the off-topic question, but this seemed like a good titled thread for it.
I agree, I would say that instead of parrying the blade, you have to block the arm of your opponent, thus bypassing their reach, so difficulty would be increased as if you were attacking with your reach 1 weapon.
I am also using Firefox, the new topic button is at the left of the circle. Have you tried from other browsers?
rschweik - are you a new forum member?
I just joined as well and believe there is a 24hr filter in place for new members to post, assume to keep the bots at bay. I had the same issue (no ability to post) but I do have it now.
Do you block all cookies and trackers? What if you use other browse?
Yeah, at this point, think I’d just message a Mod.