Skills: Parry Missile Weapons

[Phantasm]

Is there ever a time when you'd roll against the Parry Missile Weapons skill itself instead of a Parry based off it?

I ask because one of my Jedi players in my SW game asked me that, and I honestly could not come up with a scenario.

[Mailanka]

I think there was a thread somewhere in here where Kromm proposes changing it to a technique applied to the defense roll of a particular weapon. Because Parry Missile Weapon as a skill has so many flaws to it. First of all, you need to buy a separate skill that, as you point out, is only ever used to formulate a parry (even shield skill can be used as an attack). Without that skill, you cannot parry missile weapons. With it, you can. Which brings us to the second weirdness: Your ability to parry missile weapons is not dependent on your actual weapon skill. If you have no skill at all with a staff, for example, and someone tries to hit you and you parry with the staff, you'll have a miserable parry skill. But if you have a Parry Missile 30, and you use that same staff, with which you could never parry a melee attack, to parry the missile attack, you'll be just dandy.

So I find it a weird skill.

[GodBeastX]

Agree with the above. I think it should have been a weapon technique, that would also let people TRY to parry a missile weapon (How else do you learn?)

[the_matrix_walker]

Check it out...

Originally Posted by Peter V. Dell'Orto

I think the default is way too generous. Looking at PMW, the skill, it's DX/Hard and you parry at 3+1/2 Skill, with a +4 for big thrown weapons (normally a -1 to Parry, so a relative 5 point plus), +2 to small ones (normally a -2, so a net +4), and -2 for low-tech missiles. So it's not really fair to say parrying a missile is -2. It's -2 from a DX/Hard skill that greatly improved your ability to parry ranged attacks. Parrying a low-tech missile seems pretty clearly to be 4 points harder than parrying a small thrown weapons, for a -6 to Parry. Add in 1 point for allowing you to parry them at all (since there is normally no default at all), and it's more like this:

Parry at -6
-1 allows you to parry missiles
So it defaults to Parry-7 (must specialize by weapon skill)

It would take 8 points to buy it off (a Hard technique), but anyone could try it at Parry-7. The skill might still be worth it, if you intend to parry a lot of missiles with a variety of objects.

I'm not sure how enthusiastic people will be about that kind of default and cost, but there it is - it's what seems fair based on what it's replacing and the rules that come with that skill.

[smurf]

My understanding it was a cinematic skill for a fantasy setting or a bit of fun for anything beyond that.

However, the SW LS is pretty much out there in the world of cinematic.

So the Jedi dude is going to have a high dex because they are that hero type that need to bounce, roll, climb and do LS stuff.

PMW with a LS does not suffer any thing about weight restrictions because the LS tends to burn most things.

Now with say a dex 14 (low for a jedi IMO) the basic formula = 10. Add in CR and maybe a few (3) levels of EP then the jedi can swat stuff at 14 or less plus any bonuses with the size. Oh and all out defence trick that boosts it up to 16 etc.

Things you could do to make it a bit snazzier:

Precognition to help with the parrying.
Compartmentalised mind to maybe parry with a LS in each hand.

Technique/Hard:
Bounce laser (pre req Precognition PMW) Cannot exceed PMW, if you parry at 5 less than technique then you can bounce the shot back at the shooter (distance = to the PMW skill), anything else means they are randomly deflected check to see if it hits anyone.

Technique/Hard
Deflect laser (pre req Bounce Laser)
Cannot exceed Bounce Laser. This allows you to bounce a laser shot around a corner and hit someone else. Calculate the speed range template for the penalty to pull this shot off. If if you miss but within Bounce laser skill it bounces harmlessly away. However if it exceeds the skill (BL) or fails by more than 10 you take the hit.

Team effort could have you bouncing lasers around corridors with other jedis ha.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by tbrock1031

Is there ever a time when you'd roll against the Parry Missile Weapons skill itself instead of a Parry based off it?

Per-Based roll to see that some supposed "master" is actually using a trick of some kind to parry missiles? Yeah, it's not really very likely to ever be rolled.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

Per-Based roll to see that some supposed "master" is actually using a trick of some kind to parry missiles? Yeah, it's not really very likely to ever be rolled.

If your GM allows you to use the skill - at a penalty - to redirect an attack, I could see PMW being used for the subsequent attack roll. So, if you're on horseback with pursuers hot on your trail and someone in front of you lobs an arrow, you can roll against a penalized Parry to prevent it from hitting you, then roll against PMW to hit one of your pursuers. Similar would be used for Jedi deflecting blaster bolts.

All that said, yeah, PMW should really be a (cinematic) Technique.

[Phantasm]

Originally Posted by Varyon

If your GM allows you to use the skill - at a penalty - to redirect an attack, I could see PMW being used for the subsequent attack roll. So, if you're on horseback with pursuers hot on your trail and someone in front of you lobs an arrow, you can roll against a penalized Parry to prevent it from hitting you, then roll against PMW to hit one of your pursuers. Similar would be used for Jedi deflecting blaster bolts.

All that said, yeah, PMW should really be a (cinematic) Technique.

Hmm.... I'll have to think about this particular option.

How would this interact with Precognitive Parry?

[dataweaver]

I’m on board for the “make it a (cinematic) Technique”, with the caveat that I feel that most or all cinematic techniques ought to have an enabling trait such as Trained By a Master or an Extra Option Perk, and that they can’t even be attempted at default until the enabling trait is acquired.

And as a general rule: if a skill is so narrow that there’s really only one use for it, it should probably be a Technique instead. Parry Missile Weapons certainly fits this; but so does Fast Draw, which IMHO ought to be a technique defaulting to Guns.

[Rocket Man]

Originally Posted by GodBeastX

(How else do you learn?)

Have people hit you in the head and call you "Grasshopper" a lot?