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.

[TheOneRonin]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

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



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.

Thanks for the clarification, Peter. It's always helpful to get the author's intent on stuff like this.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

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

That's what I was thinking originally when I suggested just allowing it as is, since you'd have already spent the points on the TA tec (and probably the aggressive parry tec as well)

Maybe just have it as 1pt perk for allowing TA: (Karate punch arm) to be used on the attack portion of an aggressive parry. And have that perk only availability to styles that truly made the most use of aggressive parries. Thus further narrowing an already narrow field.

Or alternatively have the default on the parry be one lower if you're going to use a TA on the attack roll (which is the same as an extra 1 point cost to remove, and makes the point that your concentrating more on the damaging bit than the avoiding damage bit of the tec).

However as I said initially from a game balance perspective this doesn't really seem to worth that much both in terms of points and time, since the benefit is maxing out at halving the location pen on a not very damaging attack. (and one that arm and hand guards will largely negate).

But ultimately I do take you point that TA's are a narrow range of attacks not conceptionally suited to being adapted to other uses

EDIT: actually the more I think about it I'd probably just do the 1pt perk thing, as it is basically a form of 'Technique adaptation'