Armed Parries against unarmed attacks.

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

I think the rule should be something more like:

• Hurting Yourself (B. 379) applies when an unarmed attack is successfully parried or blocked by any weapon or shield with DR+HP>3 (in other words basically anything); unless the parry was made by exactly one or zero (in which case it's a non-contact parry). EDIT: Actually, I'm not even sure this is right. Most unarmed strikes against a parrying surface aren't going to be full force anyway. Maybe Hurting Yourself should apply if you only made your attack by some margin, or if the parry critically succeeds or something.
• The Agressive Parry technique (Martial Arts p. whatever) applies to armed parries just as it does to unarmed parries. If a weapon would normally become unready on either an attack or parry it does so in this case as well. You may do reduced damage (as per Defensive Attack (Martial Arts p. something-or-other)) to keep your weapon ready if it would have been unreadied as an attack.

I never considered using the Hurting Yourself rules in this case. It makes sense though. I'm fully behind the Agressive Parry technique being used for armed as well as unarmed parries, though it might make sense to make the armed version a little easier.

Another thought, on the subject of 0U Parry / ST‡ weapons getting to parry and damage (and thus violate the implicit restrictions on these weapons' use). A parry isn't a full swing, but more often a sort of "jab" with the haft or pole. As such, perhaps even an Aggressive Parry with these unbalanced weapons should inflict thrust-based crushing damage instead of the normal damage type. This could apply to balanced weapons too, though swords would still inflict cutting rather than crushing.