Reordering Parries

[Kromm]

I don't think starting the Parry penalties somewhere else makes much sense. The order of attacks is the order of attacks, and positioning yourself to deflect one necessarily takes you slightly out of position to deflect the next. That's fairly realistic, and it's gamist and unrealistic to half-heartedly parry people on all sides and then magically snap into the perfect position against the attacker who worries you most. You probably wouldn't even be thinking about this if you were attempting three or four parries in a second; you'd be reacting reflexively to fists and weapons coming at you.

If it's really important that you parry a specific foe's attack, you'd likely keep your weapon on him and not distract yourself using it to ward off other attackers. You would make dodges against those other fighters, or even trust your armor to turn their blows.

[VariousRen]

Originally Posted by Kromm

I don't think starting the Parry penalties somewhere else makes much sense. The order of attacks is the order of attacks, and positioning yourself to deflect one necessarily takes you slightly out of position to deflect the next. That's fairly realistic, and it's gamist and unrealistic to half-heartedly parry people on all sides and then magically snap into the perfect position against the attacker who worries you most. You probably wouldn't even be thinking about this if you were attempting three or four parries in a second; you'd be reacting reflexively to fists and weapons coming at you.

If it's really important that you parry a specific foe's attack, you'd likely keep your weapon on him and not distract yourself using it to ward off other attackers. You would make dodges against those other fighters, or even trust your armor to turn their blows.

What strikes me as strange though is that the order of attacks in this case is purely a result of the initiative being order the way it is and waiting to reach the break point of "It's my turn, all my penalties go away". If the warrior is forced to AOD(Parry) every turn, the strangeness going on here becomes more apparent. The skeletons and knight just alternate attacks, but depending on if the knight or the skeleton starts, the combat is far more survivable for the defender.

Knight goes first and is defended, skeletons go next and most of their attacks are parried away even with lowered parry. Skeletons go first and are dodged instead of parried (dodge is probably ~8), defender is grabbed by the skeletons and eventually dragged down and killed in a grapple. Or the defender parries the skeletons and has to rely on a dodge to avoid the knight's attacks, because his parry is so low that it is useless now. Also note that it is beneficial here to be slower instead of faster, which seems like an unintended effect.

What would be the problem with allowing the defender to state "I am using my first parry to defend against the knight when he attacks, so I'll start my other parries at -2"? If the knight doesn't attack the defender loses his best parry for no benefit, which seems like a reasonable trade.

EDIT: And how would this break down if everyone involved has the exact same speed? Now there is no way to say "This attack went first, so it's unpenalized", and the order that the characters and DM say things take place matters a lot.