[Varyon]

Originally Posted by khorboth

It looks pretty balanced, but doesn't quite fit. low-powered or low-damage attacks are completely negated by the parry. Having some damage break through is a sign that the enemy is powerful.

In settings where this occurs, "powerful" can mean physically strong, highly skilled, or a combination of the two. Typically, any of those three in possession of the defender will allow him to avoid the blowthrough effect. For strength, we've got the issue that any strike that will normally overwhelm the character's ST-limit to Parrying (something like BL lbs IIRC) will most likely break his weapon, which usually isn't the case with these. We could allow mlangsdorf's suggestion to forgo the defense bonus in order to prevent the weapon from breaking in the Parry. Things don't work quite as well with the skill case - while the +2 is good for reducing defense penalties, the mechanics just don't feel quite right here.

The important thing, however, is that the effect is often more on the attacker's side than the defender's. My suggestion, then, is for a new Enhancement, Overwhelming Attack. Irresistible Attack is +300% and means the attack cannot be Blocked, Dodged, or Parried. Going off the cost of Enhanced Defense, Block is worth +50% of that, Dodge +150%, and Parry +100% - thus, something that cannot be Blocked or Parried is arguably worth +150%. Overwhelming Attack can be Blocked or Parried, but if it is some fraction of the damage gets through anyway - multiply +150% by this fraction to determine the actual cost of Overwhelming Attack (typically, you'd use half damage, thus +75%). Cosmic Block/Parry or similar avoid the attack normally - boost base cost to +200% if this isn't the case.

Overwhelming Attack is also available for attacks that can't normally be Blocked or Parried, such as typical Ranged attacks. In that case, it has a base cost (100% of damage gets through) of only +50%, and applies against Blocks and Parries that have been enhanced by things like Cosmic (Defensive), Parry Missile Weapons, Precognitive Parry, and so forth to actually work. Use this same base cost if you also give the attack Blockable (in which case it can be Blocked and/or Parried without enhancement, but any such attempt still lets damage through, as do enhanced defences).

To successfully defend against an Overwhelming Attack, you need to either Dodge (which is unaffected) or have a Cosmic Block/Parry. To do so against a Cosmic Overwhelming Attack, I'd say that's worth a further +25% or so, making your Cosmic, Defensive be +75% instead of just +50%.

Now we've got a method of having an Innate Attack or similar that has this effect, but how do we allow characters to use it without such a trait? Well, here we'd want to call on the mechanics I came up with for an alternative to Imbuements, found here (which was apparently so amazing it left everyone dumbfounded, as there were plenty of views but no replies). There, with appropriate facilitating traits (TbaM/WM and a Perk would be likely for Overwhelming Attack, although you could replace the former with a high ST score, like Barbarians do for some traits in DF) and the spending of 1 FP per attack, the character gets the effect, but suffers a penalty of -1 per +10% (or fraction thereof) of Enhancement. You can adjust the FP cost to change difficulty - 0 FP is -1 per +5%, 2 FP is -1 per +20%, 3 FP is -1 per +30%, and so forth. You can buy the ability up as a Hard Technique, but can only negate half the penalty (round up - a -5 penalty can be bought down to -2). So, for the typical half-damage Overwhelming Attack +75% Enhancement, with 0 FP you can attack at -15, with 1 FP at -8, with 2 FP -4, with 3 FP -3, with 4 FP -2, or with 8 FP -1. A typical heavy brawler might buy the Technique to Default+4 and spend 1 FP on a Telegraphic Attack to strike at unmodified skill.

For the defender, technically Cosmic Parry (or similar) is -10 to skill with 0 FP, but that means -15 to hit (enough to impose a -7 to all defenses) is negated by -5 to Parry, which is hardly fair. Instead (as I just recently edited the linked thread to note), a character can either use his own level with Overwhelming Attack or a generic Cosmic Active Defense Technique. Optionally, adjust the penalty both for attack and defense by the relative ST of the characters involved. Compared to the "base" -15 to skill, a 20% (x1.2) difference is +2 (+2 for the stronger character, -2 for the weaker), 50% (x1.5) is +4, 100% (x2) is +5, 150% (x2.5) is +6, and 300% (x4) is +7. These are minimum values - against a character with ST 10, ST 9-11 is +0, ST 12-14 is +2, ST 15-19 is +4, ST 20-24 is +5, ST 25-39 is +6, and ST 40+ is +7. Multiply the nominal bonus by the fraction of damage that gets through on a successful defense, rounding normally. Adjust the actual skill based on the penalty (before Technique) actually suffered. This bonus is added on after any bonuses from Technique, but can't give a net bonus.


As an example, we have Brawny McMusclehead up against Speedy Swashbuckler. Both know (or this is a campaign where no Enabling Traits are needed for Overwhelming Attack) Overwhelming Attack, with Brawny having put [5] in the Technique for a +4 and Speedy having not invested anything into the Technique. Brawny has ST 20, Speedy has ST 12. Brawny will generally go for 50% damage, which is -8 to skill, becoming -4 thanks to the points he's invested in his Technique. With a greater than 50% difference in ST, that would normally give Brawny a +4 to skill, Speedy a -4, but those become +2 instead. Brawny goes Telegraphic, for a net +2 to hit (but in all cases Speedy gets a +2 to defend). If Speedy opts to Parry normally, he takes half damage on any success. If he instead opts to use Overwhelming Attack for his Parry (to negate Brawny's use of it), he's at a total of -10 to skill - -8 for the 50% Overwhelming Attack, -2 for the difference in ST - which translates to a -5 to defend. If he wants to avoid all damage, he'll likely be better off with a Dodge. If for some reason he wanted to use Overwhelming Attack against Brawny, he would attack at -10 for that same 50% (-8 for Overwhelming Attack, -2 for difference in ST). Brawny could either Parry normally and take half damage on a success, or he could use Overwhelming Attack to negate Speedy's - and he would do so at only -1 to Parry (-8 for Overwhelming Attack, +4 for his Technique, +2 for difference in ST).