Stupid Question about Fencing [MA]

[Humabout]

I suppose I should direct this at anyone with any experience or knowledge about sport fencing. How would you model a disengage off of a riposte? A disengage seems to either fall as a deceptive attack or a feint of a sort, though I'm not sure I could call it an AoA or a two-second attack, since fencing attacks are executed so quickly. Any thoughts?

[vicky_molokh]

Stupid counter-question: What does it actually DO?

[mlangsdorf]

A disengage is a fencing movement where you circle the tip of your blade under your opponent's hand guard as your opponent moves his blade to horizontally to parry your blade. The idea is to negate the parry by avoiding blade contact.

Normally, I'd consider a disengage a Deceptive Attack, but DA isn't legal for Riposte. However, it's not necessarily the case that a fencing riposte is a GURPS Riposte: my experience was that it wasn't any harder to defend before launch a riposte than to defend when I wasn't intending to launch a riposte. I'd treat a GURPS Riposte as a bind or envelopment: a more devastating followup that takes more effort to set up.

If you don't assume that a fencing riposte is a GURPS Riposte, then the sequence is simple: fighter A attacks on his turn and is parried by fighter B. Fighter B then declares he is "riposting with a disengage" as his attack on his turn, and makes an Attack with a Deceptive modifier.

[Humabout]

I had thought of the disengage as a DA, also and had run into the same predicament. I never really thought that a fencing riposte isn't a Riposte, though. I'm not 100% sold on the idea, but it's another avenue.

My experience with riposte was that the idea was to counterattack before my opponent had recovered sufficiently from his lunge to defend himself. That struck me as fitting the idea of a Riposte pretty solidly, although now that I think about it, that might fall under Counterattack, as well.

So might the sequence be Fencer A parries Fencer B one turn and then launches into a Deceptive Counterattack?

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by Humabout

So might the sequence be Fencer A parries Fencer B one turn and then launches into a Deceptive Counterattack?

I'm not a fencer, so I'm not sure my opinion counts for much, but that sounds like exactly like what was described. Fencer A parries, and launches an attack that 1: begins before Fencer B has recovered from his attack (Counterattack), and 2: follows an attack path designed to make it difficult to parry (Deceptive Attack.)

The element of water works in the exact same way in Hsing-I.

[Braun]

I know this probably will not help the issue, but here is a tactical wheel for fencing....

http://www.lindajdunn.com/fencing/TacticalWheel.html

[Anaraxes]

I'm not sure the disengage even requires a DA. It's just one of the things you do to make it harder for the target to parry you; almost routine. Maybe you have an especially tricky disengage and riposte, or maybe not.

"Disengage off of a riposte" to me means the other guy riposted. So this is just the Attack on turn two. (Turn one is Attack - Riposte.)

[vicky_molokh]

I still don't get the probabilistic effect of a Disengage and the prerequisites for performing one.

And the fact that RW riposte and counterattack, 3e riposte and counterattack, and 4e riposte and counterattack are different doesn't help at all.

Sorry for being useless. :(