Deceptive Attack vs Sacrificial Parry

[Plane]

I think B369-70 "your foe suffers a -1 penalty on his active defences against this attack" probably assumes the foe will by making the active defence roll.

Should the penalty also apply if an ally makes a parry for you?

I was just thinking if you were trying to stab a SM+100 creature, if you took -100 in skill to get -50 to their active defences, if the penalties ALSO applied to allies of your target making sacrificial parries, you'd probably make it impossible to intercede, even if that creature was SM0 and you'd never be able to inflict such huge penalties if attacking them.

If Deceptive Attack penalties don't apply to allies, this could be a huge reason for cooperative team combat and defending for each other, to neutralize deceptive attack penalties against each other.

In that case I think the only way to penalize Sacrificial Parry would be to feint against the teammate you think is going to sacrificial parry instead of feinting at your actual target?

[Aldric]

Well... with those numbers I have no problems saying the minion has no penalty on his sacrificial parry... what's that btw ? I know sacrificial dodge, but not parry.

With dodge, if you succeed, you're hit by the attack instead of the person you defended, so it's not that good as a defensive strategy, unless you're very resistant to damage and the original target wasn't. Parry ? No idea.

About your idea of using feint on the teammate, what teammate ? maybe there is more than one, and are they really going to protect your intended target ?
Not sure it would work very well, and in the end, the intended target of your attack would have no penalty to his defenses at this point, so it might not even need help from a teammate.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by Aldric

Well... with those numbers I have no problems saying the minion has no penalty on his sacrificial parry...

It's probably less of a big deal if the bonus to hit giant things is limited to +4 as Kromm suggested years ago, but that still allows you to add a -2 to defend via Deceptive Attack, but I don't know if it should be any harder to parry for the small minion.

Originally Posted by Aldric

what's that btw ? I know sacrificial dodge, but not parry.

page 7 of gurps power-ups 2, prior to that I think if you did all-out defense: double, if you did a sacrificial dodge successfully then you could do a parry as if it were aimed at you, since now it is.

Originally Posted by Aldric

About your idea of using feint on the teammate, what teammate ? maybe there is more than one, and are they really going to protect your intended target ?

Yeah assume it's a necromancer with a bunch of skeletons he's told to leap in front of attacks aimed at him.

Originally Posted by Aldric

Not sure it would work very well, and in the end, the intended target of your attack would have no penalty to his defenses at this point, so it might not even need help from a teammate.

If you could mass-feint a group I guess you could feint him as well, or do a deceptive attack.

[Expy]

A really handy tip for finding past discussions for this kind of thing is to use google, preface your search with 'site:forums.sjgames.com' then keywords like sacrificial and deceptive. 4E has been out for a very long time now, other users love debating this stuff and tearing it to pieces and Kromm will chime in every now and then from his cloud castle to clear up misunderstandings and misinterpretations of his holy book. I've only found one or two things over the years that I've needed to clear up and haven't been in the archives.
This thread was on the second page of google: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=94448
And this one, which is closely related: http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?p=2173994

[Plane]

Both answer it perfectly, thanks!

2012:

Originally Posted by Kromm

Deceptive Attack and Feint are always vs. a single target only. They are set up in a way that – based on observing one foe and how he reacts, holds his weapon, stands, moves, and so on – they come in too fast, at too weird an angle, with too unusual a timing, etc. for him to defend properly. Shield-Wall Training doesn't change anything in that regard. And note that covering an ally who has left himself open is one of the benefits of a shield wall . . . tricky fighting is a lot less effective against a row of guys with interlocked shields.

It's a bit hard to get my head around how "too fast" can be specific to one person and not all foes though. If Barry Allen is using super-speed Deceptive Attack (-20 to skill, -10 to defend) to uppercut Joker, I don't know that Penguin could necessarily do much about that using his umbrella.

DA function is easier to understand as angle/timing. General speed (which everyone might have trouble with) might work better if we just applied automatic Speed/Range penalties (perhaps halved?) to defend against attackers with high basic speeds.

To avoid that getting out of hand (and a weird situation of 2 speedsters unable to hit each other) it could be based on DIFFERENCE in basic speeds, so against a Basic Speed guy of 5, to get the -1 penalty you'd need a Basic Speed of 8, whereas to get -1 to active defenses (based on -2 penalty) you'd need a Basic Speed of 10?

That or, if to get penalties to active defences you must pay with DX penalties (and speedsters just have crazy-high DX to afford it) then maybe "blinding speed" deceptive attacks could be done that have the side-benefit of affecting ALL defences against the attack (not just the target's) but in exchange have an inferior ratio of something like -3 or -4 to skill per -1?