Re: Feint combat maneuver with margin of success of zero (foe fails)
 

Eh, yes and no. The stacking of DA and Riposte basically just makes differences in skill more pronounced. With peer opponents, you basically just drop your defense and the foe's to the same level. Consider the case of skill 22, and tack on CR, a Small Shield, and a Fencing Retreat, for Parry 19. If dropping down to skill 14 via DA (which actually gives a lower overall hit probability than 16 in this situation, but it also gives the foe less room to work with for their Riposte), that's Parry 15. If you drop Parry to 14 to impose a -1 to the attacker's Parry, then when you use skill 14 to attack on your own turn, your foe is also at Parry 14. If your foe had skill 20, then them dropping their attack to 14 would give you Parry 16, while you dropping down to 14 gives them Parry 14. If you combine this with Riposte, you can impose a further -1 relative to what you could in the Peer case (total -3 rather than -2). If they had skill 18, this would be a base -4 to defense and you could get it a further -2 compared to the Peer case (total -6 rather than -4). And so forth.

Of course, this all assumes the foe attacks first. If you attack first, they can do a Riposte, and you'll be at a disadvantage to try to counter with your own Riposte, as you're starting from a lower defense (but if your skill is higher, you can slowly build up to being at the advantage). This can result in both sides using Evaluate and not attacking, so you may need to figure out some way to resolve lulls in combat.

Re: Feint combat maneuver with margin of success of zero (foe fails)
 

Something I've doen to improve Feints - because as they stand they are inferior to Deceptive Attack - is to instead use the Margin of Victory, that is the MoS of the Feint plus their foe's MoF. As an equation this looks like Margin of Feint - Margin of Defense = , capped at 0 (the 'capped at - means the defender cannot get a bonus to their defense from this*).

As bonus you will never have a MoV of 0.


* I did do once allowing for the defender's to get a defense bonus on a bad feint versus a good anti-feint roll, but it made for Players once again never wanting to Feint to avoid that.


Now I also allow a 'failed' Feint roll to still succeed if the defender has an even worse margin. Frex:

Feinting PC has a Rapier skill of 15 and they roll a 16 for -1 Margin, the defender has a DX of 12 and they roll a 15 for a -3 Margin; (-1) - (-3) = 2, giving the defender a -2 penalty to their defenses against the Feinting PC's next attack.

As a bonus knowing that they can still succeed even on a 'failed' roll has made Feints a bit more popular among PCs with skills below 16.

Re: Feint combat maneuver with margin of success of zero (foe fails)
 

It is indeed. But another solution is this: Add some benefit to a feint in addition to "MoS* = AD penalty inflicted on foe". Do that, and success on a feint will at least yield that benefit, even if the GM handles MoS 0 as a big fat zero AD penalty.

*MoS or MoV, that is; feints are a little tricky in using both.

There are tons of ideas out there, and some in this thread, as plenty of players feel feints aren't worth the trouble. I'll point to my sole contribution in this area, noted here:

Whether or not your Feint succeeded (i.e., resulted in a defense penalty for the target), as long as your roll succeeded (even by 0), treat the action as a turn of Evaluate.

The concept: Whether or not successful as a feint, the action offers the feinter a chance to observe the foe's movements, test the foe's reactions, and maybe even leave the feinter in a better position for the next action. An Evaluate action, in effect, if not an automatic one (gotta have made that skill roll).

Which means: After a Feint, the usual AD penalty (if any) applies to the foe – and the feinter, if his roll succeeded, gets to claim a +1 TH bonus for Evaluate when making the subsequent attack. (Or the subsequent Feint, if the feinter is dissatisfied with the completed Feint yielding low or no AD penalty and wants to try again.)

So that's one idea for making Feint more appealing, even when MoS/MoV yields no sweet AD penalty. (It also helps remind players that Evaluate exists. : )

Tossing it out here for tinkerers to play with.

Re: Feint combat maneuver with margin of success of zero (foe fails)
 

This is basically changing a Feint from being a special case that is like a Quick Contest, to just being a Quick Contest. And while I was hesitant about it at first (as noted earlier in the thread), I think this is both a way to give Feints a leg up as well as something that simplifies matters a bit.

As for victory against a Feint attempt giving a defense bonus, a lesser version might be appropriate for a duelist or similar. Riffing off t-bone's suggestion, maybe have every MoV 3 count as a free Evaluate against the Feinting character - the character gave away too much, allowing the defender to spot holes in their defenses (as well as clue them in on future deceptive attacks and the like). It's a benefit to reward a character who does a good job at resisting the Feint, but not such a large one as to make the players no longer willing to use that option. If it does make them hesitant, consider locking it behind a Perk - such a Perk would be appropriate for dedicated duelists and others who have opted to invest in the Feint Technique, but the bulk of foes wouldn't have it.

I like it. It does make Evaluate a bit less valuable (sure, it's automatic rather than relying on a roll, but most characters who are going to be using Feint are likely to have sufficient skill to make the roll fairly reliable), but it also means you aren't completely discarding a previous Feint to try a new one.