Parry skill
Kirill Romanov
I'm playing bard and can't understood, how skill "Parry" works... If I turn
it on and attack somebody with daggers, it means, that I'll be killed very
soon :) My Parry skill is 11, two daggers: dagger/dagger +1, I'm playing in
chapter 1...
Krom
cavebear
When you are attacked, you make a Parry roll on a d20 + your Parry
skill. This is compared to the attacker's attack roll. If your Parry
roll is equal to or greater than the attack roll, you successfully
defend the attack. If your Parry roll is 10 or more points above the
attack roll, you get a "riposte" attack in return.
>If I turn
>it on and attack somebody with daggers, it means, that I'll be killed very
>soon :) My Parry skill is 11, two daggers: dagger/dagger +1,
Parry only really seems useful if at very high ranks so you get the
riposte attacks frequently. Or, if you're not primarily a fighter and
use Parry to defend yourself long enough to run away or until your
henchman kills everyone. Parry is not an attack mode itself, it is
mostly defensive, so if your goal is to attack your enemies, don't use
Parry.
--
YAWNS (Yet Another neverWinter Nights fan Site)
http://home.attbi.com/~cavebear/
Dismantler
starting to experiment with master swordsmen types (I usually prefer the
brute force bastard sword approach): try using something better than
daggers, short swords, long swords, rapiers, etc.
Daggers are really small and I don't know whether that would affect parrying
ability, probably not.
It would in real life, not sure about within the game. Most likely it won't
help. It would make more sense though.
"cavebear" <a@b.c> wrote in message
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Phaenar
"Kirill Romanov" <kr...@rolemancer.com> wrote in message
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In the context of NWN, parry is an utterly useless skill. It might work
fine in PnP D&D where you have a whole party to keep an enemy mob occupied,
but in NWN you are basically one or two characters against a mob most of the
time. Think about it:
Given an enemy of roughly equal level, ability and skill to you, you have a
roughly 50% chance to parry. But you get only as many parries as your
attacks per round, which might be ok when you are one on one against
non-fighters but virtually useless when you are outnumbered or facing a
fighter -- all those extra attacks against you cannot be parried at all.
Also, parry is adversely affected by your armor check penalty.
Even a 20th level thief with boots of haste and 4 attacks per round is
helplessly outmatched by an enemy mob of three or more because you will
parry about 50% (2 attacks) and the rest will get through free.
Another problem with parry is it doesn't focus your offense (what little you
have) on a single enemy but spreads it out randomly, depending on who you
parry against.
There are pretty simple rules of thumb in D&D: the best defence is usually a
good offense; and focus on eliminating/disabling one enemy at a time as fast
as possible to most efficiently reduce the amount of damage being done to
you.
Parry might be fine for a tournament or dueling contest but in a typical mob
scrum it's useless.
>
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Michael Tree
"Phaenar" <pha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:J1Bu9.84612$Q3S....@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
>
> In the context of NWN, parry is an utterly useless skill. It might work
> fine in PnP D&D where you have a whole party to keep an enemy mob
occupied,
> but in NWN you are basically one or two characters against a mob most of
the
> time. Think about it:
The parry skill doesn't exist in PnP D&D. I'm completely mystified why the
designers of NWN added it. Something for fighters to put their skill points
into maybe, since virtually all of the PnP D&D fighter class skills don't
exist in NWN.
In PnP D&D, characters can fight defensively, which gives them a -4 penalty
to attack in return for a +2 bonus to AC (+3 if you have 5+ ranks of
Tumble).
> Given an enemy of roughly equal level, ability and skill to you, you have
a
> roughly 50% chance to parry. But you get only as many parries as your
> attacks per round, which might be ok when you are one on one against
> non-fighters but virtually useless when you are outnumbered or facing a
> fighter -- all those extra attacks against you cannot be parried at all.
A character with maxed-out parry skill has a better than 50% chance of
parrying a fighter of his level. Attack bonus maxes out at +1/level, while
skills max out at +3+(1/level). With the Improved Parry feat, the numbers
become even better. Magic items that affect attack bonus are more common
than parrying items, but the latter do exist and can cancel out the former's
bonuses.
Don't bother taking parry if it's not a class skill for you. It's worse
than useless.
If you plan on parrying a lot, take the Improved Parry feat.
Phaenar
"Michael Tree" <injig...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:EbGdnb5jtbU...@comcast.com...
>
> "Phaenar" <pha...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
> news:J1Bu9.84612$Q3S....@news01.bloor.is.net.cable.rogers.com...
> >
>
> > Given an enemy of roughly equal level, ability and skill to you, you
have
> a
> > roughly 50% chance to parry. But you get only as many parries as your
> > attacks per round, which might be ok when you are one on one against
> > non-fighters but virtually useless when you are outnumbered or facing a
> > fighter -- all those extra attacks against you cannot be parried at all.
>
> A character with maxed-out parry skill has a better than 50% chance of
> parrying a fighter of his level. Attack bonus maxes out at +1/level,
while
> skills max out at +3+(1/level). With the Improved Parry feat, the numbers
> become even better. Magic items that affect attack bonus are more common
> than parrying items, but the latter do exist and can cancel out the
former's
> bonuses.
These are all valid points; however, in practice the extra bonuses to parry
are pretty much offset by your enemy's attack bonuses, over and above their
standard attack adjustment. For example, high level warriors will probably
have magic weapon and strength bonuses that could add up to +5 or more above
their standard attack. Also, as a thief you might suffer a small (but not
insignificant in this case) armor check penalty depending on what type of
armor you are wearing.
>
> Don't bother taking parry if it's not a class skill for you. It's worse
> than useless.
>
> If you plan on parrying a lot, take the Improved Parry feat.
Definitely. If you are going to use the skill you need to maximize your
skill level, take all the associated feats, and maximize your dexterity
naturally and through items -- as well as ensure you don't have a serious
armor check penalty.
I created a high level, all parrying rogue using one of the trainers and
found myself pretty much cut to ribbons by most enemies despite having
enourmous ability with the skill. The main problem was the number of
parries I got was frequently less than the number of attacks per round
against me.
Against single enemies of any fighting ability I found it to be pretty
useless in stopping their attacks, and against enemies with less fighting
skill it was far more effective just to backstab and then attack them
normally rather than waste time parrying.
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