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

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by kirbwarrior

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.

Eh, yes and no. The stacking of DA and Riposte basically just makes differences in skill more pronounced. With peer opponents, you basically just drop your defense and the foe's to the same level. Consider the case of skill 22, and tack on CR, a Small Shield, and a Fencing Retreat, for Parry 19. If dropping down to skill 14 via DA (which actually gives a lower overall hit probability than 16 in this situation, but it also gives the foe less room to work with for their Riposte), that's Parry 15. If you drop Parry to 14 to impose a -1 to the attacker's Parry, then when you use skill 14 to attack on your own turn, your foe is also at Parry 14. If your foe had skill 20, then them dropping their attack to 14 would give you Parry 16, while you dropping down to 14 gives them Parry 14. If you combine this with Riposte, you can impose a further -1 relative to what you could in the Peer case (total -3 rather than -2). If they had skill 18, this would be a base -4 to defense and you could get it a further -2 compared to the Peer case (total -6 rather than -4). And so forth.

Of course, this all assumes the foe attacks first. If you attack first, they can do a Riposte, and you'll be at a disadvantage to try to counter with your own Riposte, as you're starting from a lower defense (but if your skill is higher, you can slowly build up to being at the advantage). This can result in both sides using Evaluate and not attacking, so you may need to figure out some way to resolve lulls in combat.