Quote:
Originally Posted by Canuck Lad
Wouldn't that be inherent in their attack without a penalty?
ie: It's harder to defend against the expert swordsmith because his attack is so clever and well placed, and because he understands the motion of the blade so well. What you describe I don't consider the same thing.
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An expert swordsman is going to strike where - and
when - you are most vulnerable. Striking where you are most vulnerable requires difficult positioning, while striking when you are most vulnerable means timing things just so. In either case, an attack penalty is appropriate - for the former, this is due to constraining how the character can attack, while for the latter it's a case where a miss could be interpreted as the character
not attacking, as no opening presented itself.
Having Deceptive Attacks be retroactive - that is, imposing a -1 to defense for every 2 points by which you were under your target number - could do some of what you're looking for, but isn't very realistic and can make combat a bit more boring, as it removes some of the gambling nature from the contest.
As for only having the players roll, treating NPC's as always rolling a 12 might not be horrible. A foe with Broadsword-12 could instead be interpreted as one who imposes a +0 to defense and a +4 to attack (he never makes deceptive attacks, and the characters can get away with giving him up to a +2 to Parry), while one with Broadsword-18 would impose a -3 to defense and -2 to attack (he always makes -6 deceptive attacks, and the characters must always impose a -1 to his Parry to hit him).