Unarmed Parry Is Unarmed Block?

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by Otaku

Some weapons (or Unarmed Skills) have a bonus to parry, right?

The only weapon with a bonus is the Staff, but skills emphasizing footwork (Boxing, Karate, and the various Fencing skills) get a +3 when Retreating rather than a mere +1 and only suffer -2 per additional Parry rather than -4. Those skills are penalized by Encumbrance, however, so you typically can't manage them while wearing heavy armor.

Originally Posted by Otaku

I can also see treating both Block and Parry as the same Defense where margin of success determines which you use, barring special circumstances (such as where only Blocking helps).

This is extremely easy to implement. It's actually the way Block works right now (shield only takes damage if its DB made the difference between success and failure). For Parry, simply stating that a Parry that succeeds on the number (Margin of Success 0) means the weapon takes damage would work. So, you could easily just combine the two - the only serious change would be that currently Blocks are impossible to do more than once a second (Martial Arts introduces the optional rule of letting them be done more often, but at -5 per additional block in a second). I think MA has some rules for weapon weight influencing the penalty for multiple Parries that would be extremely appropriate here.