Can you Parry a Bear?

[Snaps]

Simple situation:

You are facing a grizzly bear. It takes a swipe at you with its massive claws. If you character is armed with a typical longsword, can he parry this attack?

[Kalzazz]

No problem (if he makes parry check), he has a good shot at hurting the bear pretty severely to

[Culture20]

I'm guessing the bear is putting more weight into the paw than the sword weighs. Look up the rules for parries and weapon breakage.

Regarding damaging the bear: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=112914

[Nereidalbel]

You'll hurt the bear, but, you'll also need to check the weapon breakage rules.

[hige]

Parrying Heavy Weapons (p. B376) states:
"The same is true for unarmed attacks from high-ST creatures.
For the purpose of these rules, treat a punch, kick, bite, etc.
as a weapon with an effective weight of 1/10 the attacker’s ST."

So, for the character have ST10 and broadsword (3 lb.),
unarmed attack more than ST 90: Risk to break weapon.
unarmed attack more than ST 200: Cannot parry.

And see http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=87090&page=4[/QUOTE] #32 - #35.

If use BL/20 instead of ST/10,
then,
unarmed attack more than ST 30: Risk to break weapon.
unarmed attack more than ST 45: Cannot parry.
(for the character have ST10 and broadsword (3 lb.))

[sjard]

A grizzly bear, according to page B.456 has a ST of 19, so his claws (swing attack) have an effective weight of 1.9 lbs. So by that, yes, you could parry a bear claw swipe with a longsword with a weight of 4 lbs.

The bear would most likely take damage from the parry however.

[whswhs]

Is it a hand held bear, a thrown bear, or fired from a bear cannon?

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Is it a hand held bear, a thrown bear, or fired from a bear cannon?

Or, even worse...

[DouglasCole]

Originally Posted by Snaps

Simple situation:

You are facing a grizzly bear. It takes a swipe at you with its massive claws. If you character is armed with a typical longsword, can he parry this attack?

I will note that The Broken Blade in Pyr 3/87 was written to deal with this question.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by DouglasCole

I will note that The Broken Blade in Pyr 3/87 was written to deal with this question.

And has the "making skill count" allows you trade off penalties to increase your breakage threshold

So a Grizzly Bear with ST19, Blunt claws and Brawling +3

is going to be doing 2d-1 +2 + 2 = 2d+3 (or I guess 3d) on a strike

A long sword is MinST11 for a Defence Breakage Threshold of 11

so yeah it's touch and go when parrying