Feint combat maneuver with margin of success of zero (foe fails)

[kirbwarrior]

Originally Posted by Flowergarden

Rarely seen riposte. Most of the time it require AoD or evaluate (to reduce defense penalty), require parry (I would say yes to block and dodge ripostes, but it's not RAW) reduce only one defense fully (and if enemy attacks with unbalanced weapon it's kinda bad). And other big problem... No deceptive attack for some reason (I still probably would let to use both, but I don't know, because it's rare in our games.

It's interesting how different games can be in small details

I do still also rarely see Riposte. Both are generally reserved for duels since otherwise there's far too much going on to look at even regular rules for determining actions (why Attack when you can Ready to drop a metal gate on someone?). And it's very important because Duels are plagued by defensive bonuses so it comes down to a game of "how do I hit more often than I can crit?".

As for lowering only one defense, I find both as a player and GM that enemies with high defenses either only have one high defense (their primary weapon skill usually) or have so much DX (and possibly HT) that it becomes quickly obvious this fight was a bad idea and 'playing by the game's rules' is how you lose.

I definitely would not let Deceptive Attack and Riposte stack. I remember someone on these forums doing the math years ago and it was clear that once you hit something like 22 skill that you can undermine defenses real fast if you know how to properly stack them. And I like giving my players a chance at living XD Riposte lets you essentially trade DA in for Targeted Attacks and other optional penalties so you can make sure your hit definitely brings your foe down if it hits.

On the other hand, I'd actually recommend making the change so that players will try doing these, then undoing the houserule once they like DA and Riposte so they get used to how they work and you can point out how it's too strong and you made a silly houserule ;)