MA/TG: Performing a Beat (MA100) on a parry?
 

Greetings

I'm trying to get my head around using Beats (MA100) i.a. ST-based Feints correctly.


To begin with, I find the mechanics of Feints to be problematic sometimes: You perform a Feint, ideally you don't know how well it worked, and neither did the opponent. If the numbers are known, it's a cheat that the enemy may simply AoD, because he is likely to blow his defense.
But aside from that, once you've Feinted, the enemy has a turn to attack you or whatever. It sort of breaks the flow.

I find that even worse for Beats used on a succesful parry. You supposedly parry hard, to bring the opponent's arm or weapon out of line. But this is just a setup, your next action needs to be a Feint, where you just substitute DX with ST. So once again, the enemy has time to attack you, with the arm or weapon you've supposedly Beaten out of line.

Wouldn't it make more sense if this kind of Beat was a type of Parry?
MA already has Aggressive Parry, where something happens at once.
Judo parry allows you to Arm Lock immediately after without spending time to grapple the arm.
TG has Grabbing Parry.

Any good hacks from TG? That book has mechanics to cover a lot of stuff. A Beat is not a Grapple, but still...

Note that both Praying Mantis Kung Fu and Pak Hok lists using Beats initiated from parries to pull or knock enemy off balance.

What about:

Defensive Beat (H)
Def: prereq skill Parry-2
Prereq: Judo or Karate (maybe other unarmed skills?); cannot exceed prequisite Parry
If the parry is successfull, immediately roll a Quick Contest of ST-based unarmed combat skill versus the foe's ST- or DX-based unarmed combat skill. If the aggressor wins his MoS lowers alle the opponent's barehanded parries as a Feint would. The penalty lasts until the end of the next turn of the fighter who performed the Beat.
Might work for melee combat as well

Effectively this is a "free Feint" (although ST based) which is allowed because you perform a harder than normal parry (but probably spend extra points to buy off the penalty). Is that too good? Aggressive parry is already a free (but weaker) attack. Grabbing Parry is a free (but weaker) grapple etc.

Offensive Beats are just like normal Feints, you perform one instead of an attack. It just bugs me that you actively pound the enemy's arm or weapon away, then he attacks at no penalty. Then you attack and he has a parry penalty.
Maybe Offensive Beats ought to penalize the enemy's next attack?

Re: MA/TG: Performing a Beat (MA100) on a parry?
 

"Delayed Gratification" may be what you are looking for.

Re: MA/TG: Performing a Beat (MA100) on a parry?
 

That's in Pyramid #3/52, Low-Tech II.

Re: MA/TG: Performing a Beat (MA100) on a parry?
 

It's not a persistent grapple, but it's definitely controlling the other guy's weapon/shield with force. It's just a short sharp force instead of steady pressure.

The shorter book Fantastic Dungeon Grappling has two concepts that might serve here:

Shield/Weapon Bind: a grapple using the weapon that the foe can reduce control to zero by backing up out of range. So as long as foe is in range, you can lock blades, push with your shield, and otherwise "control" the foe. If they back up and decline engagement? They can do this.

Disarm. Attack the foe's weapon, roll "damage" (could be control, could be actual, they're on the same ST-based scale so who cares) and if the "damage" exceeds a certain threshold, foe's weapon is Unready. If it exceeds another threshold, it's knocked away.

Re: MA/TG: Performing a Beat (MA100) on a parry?
 

This will ALSO work.

Re: MA/TG: Performing a Beat (MA100) on a parry?
 

Defensive Feint: you're attacked, you Block or Parry, you Feint with whatever you used to Block/Parry but base it on ST, then apply the penalty to their next attack?

Might the martial arts beats you describe be grappling parries? Then you use the Beat to reduce their Dodge?

Re: MA/TG: Performing a Beat (MA100) on a parry?
 

unarmed Aggressive Parry (MA65) and Jam (MA74-5) do less damage than punch (thrust-1) and Kicking (thrust-0)

Jam takes the worse of -2 or -1/die
Aggressive Parry takes that plus an extra -1

For tech design we have Kromm establishing via Interdiction at http://forums.sjgames.com/showpost.p...9&postcount=15 that "Parry counts as low-damage attack (-1)" produces "normal damage at -2 or -1 per die, whichever is worse" which matches Jam.

The extra -1 damage for Aggressive Parry probably relates to how it tends to be a lot more useful since you can do multiple aggressive parries per round, whereas a Jam (derived from a Leg Parry) can only be done once per turn, and because the free attack you get is more accurate against the upper body.

The limited utility (only prevents low-line attacks) is an inherent aspect of Jam built in.

IMO since -2 to damage results from suffering -4 to ST in most early charts (you tend to get +1 per 2 ST) if we swapped Beat in for Punch on an Aggressive Parry, doing -4 to ST in the Quick Contest would be fairest.

Re: MA/TG: Performing a Beat (MA100) on a parry?
 

That makes applying -4 to ST in Ultraviolet's Defensive Beat sound fair. For that matter, call it a Parrying Beat and use any skill*.

Given that you can choose to apply your Feint to your opponents Attack or Defense (MA101). Would it be fair to make half apply to both? eg if you manage to succeed with a Parrying Beat, or a Feint, by 2, you can choose to reduce either their Attack or Defense by 2, or both by 1?

*I mean melee skill but the box on MA101: a Sex Appeal Parrying Ruse...? -4 to your skill vs targets Will based skill. Maybe Comedy Anime.

Re: MA/TG: Performing a Beat (MA100) on a parry?
 

I don't imagine there's anything wrong with combining the Defensive Feint concept with Beat or Ruse to produce a Defensive Beat or Defensive Ruse.

I don't even know why there should be a choice, feints don't tend to be very good so making the MoS apply both ways (so there's no dilemma of choice) would make feints better and also it seems more realistic that "I'm fooling the enemy about where I'll be" results in them having difficulty targeting you OR evading you.

Re: MA/TG: Performing a Beat (MA100) on a parry?
 

I see two ways of doing it.

1) Design a "Beating Parry" technique: A special type of parry, perhaps defaulting to parry-2 (to balance it with aggressive- og grabbing parry). If you make this kidn of parry, then before your next attack roll for effects of a ST-based Feint aka a Beat.

2) Design a offensive technique "Defensive Beat", which is an option after a succesful parry (not Aggressive, because the point is to push/pull not damage the opponent's arm). Default should be combat skill -5, to balance it with Spinning Attack (where you also get a 'free, instant Feint').

Off-hand I like #2 best, because you have the option of using Grabbing Parry to get CP while starting the Beat. Then again, #1 can default from either regular or Grabbing Parry.
But for #1 you decide already when performing the parry, that you're using a Beat. For #2 you don't have to decide until you next round of attacking. This is no different than allowing one to suddenly be doing an Arm Lock, even thoufgh you just performed a normal parry just the reound before, and in no way had to start to set it op.

Re: MA/TG: Performing a Beat (MA100) on a parry?
 

One thing I'm wondering now is if it should be a fixed -4, or maybe instead something like -40% so that it scales with ST levels the same way a "per die" penalty would.