[MA] [House Rules] A New Approach to Dual Weapons and Sword and Shield.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by aesir23

RyanW, why wouldn't you receive the same bonus after parrying with a medium shield or cloak?

To be honest, I haven't put a lot of thought into it. I was mainly thinking about bare hand or parrying dagger defense and added buckler in because rapier and buckler is so iconic. I might actually drop buckler, and limit it to weapons with a crossguard (and bare hands).

[aesir23]

Originally Posted by RyanW

To be honest, I haven't put a lot of thought into it. I was mainly thinking about bare hand or parrying dagger defense and added buckler in because rapier and buckler is so iconic. I might actually drop buckler, and limit it to weapons with a crossguard (and bare hands).

A crossguard helps for this sort of thing, but unless you're talking blade grabs* (which would be better handled as an actual grapple), there's no reasons bare hands would be better than bucklers.

And if you're allowing it for bare hands at all, you should allow it for cloak as well. Most cloak techniques are just bare-handed parries with a cloak wrapped around as extra protection.

Personally, I'd allow it for any off-hand weapon or shield. Take a look at the technique in this video at around 3:05 for an example of why.

*Blade grabs are another topic entirely, they're really effective and much safer than people think--many longsword manuals teach them. But no rapier manuals I know of do (I think it's Agrippa who said, "it's a miserable way to defend yourself") and I don't know why. Maybe it's easier to cut yourself grabbing a narrower blade, or maybe it's just unfashionable.