Agressive Parry and Targeted Attack

[TheOneRonin]

If you improve the Targeted Attack technique, can that reduce the penalty to hit said limb when performing an Aggressive Parry?

For example, say a character has TA Karate Punch/Arm improved to max, so he is only at a -1 to hit his opponent's arm. If performs an aggressive parry against his opponent's punch and chooses to target the arm, does he suffer only a -1 to hit (courtesy of his improved TA Technique) or is he still at a -2 because the "Parry" doesn't count as a "Punch" and therefore cannot benefit from the TA Technique?

There is some dissension in my group on how those two techniques interact, if at all.

Any advice?

[Tomsdad]

I don't see why not, the attack against the target location is explicitly separate roll from the parry*, and uses the same base skills and location penalties as would apply normally to an attack (and would be reduced by the TA:location technique).

Given the damage is low and the benefit is limited to half the location penalty it's not really going to over power your game,


*otherwise I'd use the rules for using techniques together (you still could if you wanted to tone it down).

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

An Aggressive Parry isn't a Punch, so Targeted Attack for Punch wouldn't affect it.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

An Aggressive Parry isn't a Punch, so Targeted Attack for Punch wouldn't affect it.

Good point, would you allow TA: (Karate aggressive parry/Arm)?

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

An Aggressive Parry isn't a Punch, so Targeted Attack for Punch wouldn't affect it.

To be fair, a punch isn't always a "punch".

Martial Arts says to treat an elbow strike to a target in front of you as a punch.

In the training I've done, aggressive parries to limbs are usually done with a hammer fist or elbows.

So would TA Karate Hammer Fist/Arm work, or how about TA Karate Elbow{Punch}/Arm?

Or would you have to set it up like Tomsdad suggested?

Or was the intent that the strike component of the "Aggressive Parry" technique be something that you just cannot mitigate with Targeted Attack?

[Otaku]

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

Or was the intent that the strike component of the "Aggressive Parry" technique be something that you just cannot mitigate with Targeted Attack?

At the risk of getting in way over my head as I don't own the reference books myself (and have only read exerts)... isn't an Aggressive Parry essentially a Targeted Attack to begin with? That doesn't completely nullify the question, but the answer might help put it into perspective for at least me. ^^'

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by Tomsdad

Good point, would you allow TA: (Karate aggressive parry/Arm)?

I might - it's so niche it doesn't seem like it's worth the points.

Originally Posted by TheOneRonin

So would TA Karate Hammer Fist/Arm work, or how about TA Karate Elbow{Punch}/Arm?

No, and no.

Your examples notwithstanding, Aggressive Parry covers all arm-based damaging parry attempts that are primarily parries. That includes direct strikes vs. incoming strikes (unless done as a Stop Hit), hard parries with a hand, wrist, forearm, or elbow, interceptions with an elbow or forearm, and a myriad of variations on those methods. Just because you can justify technique X as something used for aggressively damaging an incoming strike while parrying it doesn't mean it's the same as the strike used when not parrying. TA is quite narrow. If you want it to be larger, take a look at the approach used for costing the "Peerless" Power-Ups in Pyramid 3/61.