Joseph Bloch proposes a parrying system for his OSRIC game: Parrying Rules for (A)D&D .
When I started to play, I used The Dark Eye. There, everybody had an attack roll and a parry roll. And when you gained a level, you could increase your attack or your parry bonus. Third edition D&D also has an optinal rule that replaces the base 10 in AC with a d20 roll. The net effect is that fights take longer. And that’s something I’d want to avoid. What is good for a simulation is not necessarily good for a game.
So why parry at all? Sometimes a weak party member is attacked and just wants to survive. So how can we make this into a difficult choice without drawing out combat? I propose this simple alternative: *Adjacent alllies can pass along AC*.
#RPG
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Have you tried this?
– The Recursion King 2009-09-02 09:20 UTC
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No I have not. My regular games are all D&D 3.5 – I get to play classic D&D versions for the occasional one-shot. 😄
– Alex Schroeder 2009-09-02 12:10 UTC
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This has some benefits, in that characters are gaining an advantage from having somebody helping to defend them, but I do not know if I would really call it “parrying”, as it is not an action taken by the individual to better defend themselves. Generally speaking, AD&D takes the right course in having a character give up something similar but less directly related to gain a bonus to defence [i.e. his attacks], but giving up all of his attacks for an often negligible bonus is probably too disproportionate an exchange. As things stand in AD&D a character gives up attacks with a second weapon to gain a shield bonus to AC, and that should probably be the model followed when offering further “parries”. For example:
Short Sword: Give up an attack to gain +1 AC against one opponent this round Long Sword: Give up an attack to gain +1 AC against two opponents this round Great Sword: Give up an attack to gain +1 AC against three opponents this round
This obviously mirrors the way small, medium and large shields work in AD&D, but to be honest piling on AC is rarely a good solution in the AD&D paradigm, so I prefer giving up attacks in exchange for a saving throw.
– Matthew James Stanham 2009-09-02 14:36 UTC