Unarmed Parry Is Unarmed Block?

[Terwin]

Originally Posted by Varyon

A more simplistic version of my system would be to just tweak Parry as meaning "makes the attack glance off or redirects it," meaning no damage to the interposing object, and Block as meaning "interposing a solid chunk of matter," meaning the "shield" takes the damage. Parry would be Skill/2+3 (unarmed Parries against Swing attacks would just be Skill/2 unless the character has DR 4+ or so on the hand/arm), Block would be Skill/2+4. This basically works out to "You can get a +1 to your defense, but success means your weapon gets hit instead of you."

I would expect that blocking a thrust would have a substantial penalty unless you are blocking with something that has an unbroken blocking surface with at least a 6" diameter.

I would expect at least a 12" diameter before a block provides better thrust protection than a parry.

Also, one big mechanical difference between a block and a parry is that a block is expected to be done using the off-hand and thus does not suffer the -4 DX off-hand penalty that an off-hand parry would experience.