Defensive Imbuements and Feints

[chandley]

or Ruses, or Beats: Can you lower the effective skill someone can roll against to activate their Imbuement defensively by using a Feint or similar defense reducing attack?

Defensive Use is (Imbument Skill/2) +3, +1 for Combat Reflexes. It does not appear to get a bonus for a shield however, so despite the combat reflexes boost, I was leaning towards no for Feinting.

There a ruling on this I cant find using search? Thoughts?

[Kuroshima]

Originally Posted by chandley

or Ruses, or Beats: Can you lower the effective skill someone can roll against to activate their Imbuement defensively by using a Feint or similar defense reducing attack?

Defensive Use is (Imbument Skill/2) +3, +1 for Combat Reflexes. It does not appear to get a bonus for a shield however, so despite the combat reflexes boost, I was leaning towards no for Feinting.

There a ruling on this I cant find using search? Thoughts?

I'm not speaking on any official capacity here. This is only my understanding of the rules, and then my house rules:

By default, defensive use of Imbuement Skills, same as blocking spells, is unpenalized by things that penalize active defenses.

However, I personally make any penalties to parry apply to defensive use of weapon Imbuement Skills, and general defense penalties apply to any reactive use of Imbuements. In the case of armor and shield imbuements (See Perfect Defense, in Pyramid #3/4: Magic on the Battlefield), that last until the beginning of your next turn, if you fail the roll by a penalty due to feints, ruses, deceptive attacks, etc. the skills still work, but not in time to protect you against that attack (they work on subsequent attacks that happen before their duration ends).

[chandley]

Thanks Kuroshima, the blocking spells thing is a good parallel.