Hi all.

Tresmegistus in this forum (link), and some of my players, brought up the “problem” (if problem it is...) that the parry value doesn't increase throughout the hero's life.

I think the combat mechanic is good as is, but if someone want to address this perceived problem (like some players of mine), keeping the Stances, Combat Advantages dices etc, I concocted this system of mine.
Since it's a bit of wall of text, I'll break it down in three posts: the rules-as-proposed; consequences; comparison with the rules-as-written.
Beware: not a native speaker, so bear with me

The Rules-as-proposed.

For ranged attacks, keep the rules as written (target number= 12+Parry).
In melee, substitute the Parry value (Wits+modifiers) with a Weapon Skill roll. Let's call it Defense Roll. This Defense Roll must exceed the opponents attack roll (the old Mekton/Cyberpunk used something along this lines, maybe some Pendragon and Runequest iteration too, but I have lost my books). Put the other way, the Defense Roll is the target number the attacker need to match.
Don't add Wits, but add Parry bonus from Virtues, Shield, etc.

Example: a Barding Warden (Swords skill 3), is attacked in melee by an Uruk. The hero roll 2,3,4 and 8. His Defense Roll result is 17, or 12 if Weary.
With a buckler he will add +1, with a Shield +2, with the Swordmaster virtue and a sword he will add +2, etc.

How does the stance system work with Defense Roll?
If the hero is in Forward stance, he roll 1 more dice to attack, and 1 less dice to defend.
In Defensive stance, the hero roll 1 less dice to attack and 1 more to defend.
In Open stance, no modifier.

And the Adversaries? -edited for clarity-
The TN to hit the foe with ranged attack is: 12+Parry
The TN to hit the foe with melee attack is: 9+Parry
(explanation: now the Stance modify the attack roll of the Heroes. No need to modify the foe's Target Number)

Alternatively, the LM can look at the creature's Weapon Skill and calculate the average Defense Roll to use as parry value in melee (the average results of WS rolls are reported below).
Beware: many foes got favored Weapon Skills, and this make for some hefty Defense Rolls. Hill Trolls Chieftains and the like becomes very hard to hit.

Part II. Consequences and considerations about this system: some are fairly obvious, some less so.

1: since the Defense Roll is a test, the hero can use Combat Advantages dices or Hope to defend himself. This increase the survival of the heroes, but the expenditure of Hope is greater, too. And being Weary matters. This suit me fine, since my players complained to having no real defensive options beside “rolling with the blow”.

2: in Forward stance you roll one more dice, so you are more likely to get great or exceptional successes. And in Defensive stance the opposite. It makes sense to me that the more aggressive attitude yeld more damage.

3: highly skilled heroes are hard to hit in melee, but are fair game for ranged attack: call it “Boromir effect” if you want.

4: the sword called shot, Disarm, become far more powerful.
If it is deemed too powerful, it can be ruled that, while you have your Shield, your Defense Roll is still based on your best Weapon Skill (ie, you have not to defend with your knife skill).

5: Woodcrafty (Woodmen blessing) and Small Folk (Hobbit virtue) have to be adapted. My proposal: in ranged combat it works as is, while in melee let you reroll the Feat Dice on the Defense Roll and keep the better result. A G rune in the Defense Roll beat a foe's Sauron Rune.

6: hero vs hero combat is possible. Most LM don't feel it's really needed, but it's here.

Part III: Comparison with the rules-as-written.

How good is the Defense Roll compared to the rules-as-written?
I made some calculations: here are the average Defense Roll, rounding fractions up and not accounting for G or Sauron runes (sorry, classical studies make for a poor mathematician).

Dices rolled: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7*

Average roll: 9 13 16 20 23 27 30

If Weary: 8 11 13 16 18 21 23

*You can roll 7 dices if you got Weapon Skill 6 +1 bonus dice from Defensive Stance.

Weapon Skill 1 = a Defense Roll comparable to having Wits... ehm, zero.
Weapon Skill 2 = a Defense Roll comparable to having Wits 4, or Wits 2 if Weary.
Weapon Skill 3 -----------------------------------------> Wits 7, or Wits 4 if Weary.
Weapon Skill 4 -----------------------------------------> Wits 11, or Wits 7 if Weary.
Weapon Skill 5 -----------------------------------------> Wits 14, or Wits 9 if Weary.
Weapon Skill 6 -----------------------------------------> Wits 18, or Wits 12 if Weary.

Heroes with Weapon Skill 1 or 2 become, on average, weaker with the Defense Roll system.
Heroes with WS 3 become, on average, slightly stronger.
Heroes with WS 4+ are stronger.

Good topic and great food for thought.

FWIW, I do agree that the Parry score should be one that could use some improvement over the characters career; but I am a bit on the fence with that; cuz I like the idea of the game not have a power curve to it like so many other games, and I like that the combats are still very deadly even four years after a campaign began.


That being said - if anything, it's the one thing that deserves a second look as to whether or not there should be any improvements.

However, I would shy away from additional rolls or opposed roll checks etc. Adding more roles just complicates the system and I'd like for it to stay as easy and clear of rolls and clutter as possible.

If anything, Parry should improve simply by allowing the score to improve. How, and how much is open for discussion. But Experience points is the most obvious game mechanic for such things.

I don't see a problem - they can always increase their favoured Wits score by spending an Experience point and choosing a Mastery (your basic scores are supposed to reflect your basic attributes as a beginning adventurer). If you start introducing new rules for weapons to parry etc., this might unbalance the game.....


Robin S.

Hi Robin,

only Hobbits and Wildmen get to use favored Wits as parry.
For all other peoples, parry = Wits, not favored Wits.

Hey there Corvo, welcome to the boards.

This subject has come up a couple of times and I also found it to be a little bit odd that you could not increase your parry score.
However, it was pointed out to me that as a characters Combat Skill dice increase, it becomes as easy for him to hit in Defensive stance as for a novice character to hit in Forward stance. Thus, in typically abstract TOR fashion, parrying does increase with experience(sort of).

However, if your players need something more defined(and less abstract), yours is as good a House Ruling as I have seen.

Hi SirKickley,

thank you for your comments. If you don't mind, I will address some of them. Not to confute you, but to explain my reasoning.

I understand your concerns about adding dice rolls. I'm wary too to add steps to the combat resolution, so increasing parry somewhat with xp was my first idea. After some tinkering, however, I realized that the players can add dice bonus/ spend hope on dice rolls, thus making the defensive part of the combat more active and exciting. Hence my choice.

About the risk of “power creep”... well, I hail from the GURPS/WFRP school, so I'm surely biased, but an active defense is far from “safe”, on the contrary every combat becomes dangerous. In my experience is static defense that can get out of hand (like old D&D, where some combat were simply pointless). But again, I'm biased

Thank you, Halbarad.

I wrote these house rules in response to Tresmegistus post: he was searching for a way to increase parry, but looked like every solution was at odds with the stance system (a great feature of the game).

BTW, while waiting for validation at the forum, I playtested the rules (as written, as house-ruled, etc). I got some fun observing the different “cultures” of the players at play:
-those of D&D lineage favored Forward stance (at first).
-those of WFRP pedigree favored Defensive stance.
-those of MERP heritage don't increased weapon skills.
-munchkins of any color worked in pairs: the shield-bearer in Defensive stance protecting his fellowship focus in Forward stance. Oh well...

Hehe, those are some nice observations at the end Corvo. My players are quite a mixed bag as well. We have only actually played one session so far due to current circumstances, but.....
I found that the player who favours D20(Conan & Slaine) definitely favours Forward Stance.
The players who were mostly into MRQ/BRP (Elric/Hawkmoon) commenced in Open Stance and our resident WFRPer started off in Rearward. Coincidence?

I'm a big fan of WFRP myself(1st and 2nd Ed) and I would always be inclined to commence combats on the ' careful' side.

This has probably been suggested somewhere on the boards, but a very simple thing to do, would be to add a Mastery like this:

Thwarting
You have become an expert at avoiding your opponents' attacks.

Raise your Parry rating by one.

Funny about the players of varying backgrounds and their choice of Stances. In TOR, the players in my group that favor Forward stance, also prefer to go without armor. They would rather be aggressive and take the risk of a Piercing blow, than to take the risk of becoming Weary!

Which we've discussed to death in the "is armor too encumbering" for what it's worth.

My players tend to agree by the way with your players' logic. Only one PC bothers to wear armor; and he's a beorning that is less affected by it, and has the Reward to make his armor less encumbering.

This is exactly what I meant by suggesting that it be done via Experience Points, though I didn't specifically spell out a Virtue to take. But yes I agree that the best, most streamlined and most synergistic way to facilitate this increase is to do it via a Virtue and spent Experience Points.

Hi JamesRBrown

Your proposal is simple, clean and balanced.
It only grates on me that, in such way, offensive and defensive ability are completely unrelated (one increase through Weapon skill, the other through Wisdom).

But it's just me . Your proposal looks much in the same spirit of the rules-as-written, where it's Wits that dictate the defensive capability of a character.

Can you think of it this way...

Weapon Skill increases are purchased through Experience Points.
Wisdom Rank increases are purchased through Experience Points.

The Experience Points Cost Table on p. 171 of the Adventurer's Book shows that the costs are equivalent when buying a new level of Wisdom or a new level in a Weapon Skill (it will cost 6 Experience points to go from rank 2 to 3 in Wisdom or from weapon skill level 2 to 3).

To summarize, a Thwarting Mastery for defense would be obtained at the same cost as going from skill rank 2 to 3 in sword (thereby improving offense) and the increases would be purchased through the same source and in the same manner, both during a Fellowship phase.

The only limitations would be that weapon skills can can only be increased to 6 levels and Wisdom can only be increased to 6 ranks. Therefore, a Thwarting mastery only has the potential of increasing Parry by 6 (and the player would have to only purchase the mastery every time, ignoring all other possibilities). For every level of weapon skill, you increase an attack roll result by up to 6 more. The way I have written it then, it is a 1 point increase to Parry to a 1-6 point increase in attack roll result. One may consider giving Thwarting a bigger bonus to Parry to be more 'balanced.'

Yes, I was thinking about it.

+1 to Parry don't looks much “sexy”, especially compared to +1d6 Weapon Skill.
But a greater bonus (+2 or +3) to Parry is too much compared to other Virtues: Swordmaster gives +2/+3 only in Defensive stance; Durin's Way gives +3 only underground; Reinforced Shield gives +1; etc.
Sadly, I think +1 Parry is balanced.

Again, my preference is for an active defense. Because heroes can use Hope/Bonus dices on an active defense... And because there are too many cool, engaging, flavorful Virtues to spend a character's Wisdom on a boring +1 defense!

[/nitpick mode on]: characters start with Wisdom 1, so they gain a maximum of 5 Virtues in their whole life [/nitpick mode off]

To be frank - it doesn't have to be sexy. As I said before the game's mechanics appears to not support a real big power up-curve.

The game does not seem to follow a typical major increase in character power level and now suddenly you have to only fight creatures that are higher challenge rating etc.

Instead it's more subtle shift and the creatures that are threatening and dangerous are always threatening and dangerous as it should be in M-e.

I think a +1 Parry for a virtue is acceptable since anyone can benefit from it. Like it was said before, by way of this virtue and weapons increasing in their skill level, it affords a character the means of fighting in a more defensive stance which makes them harder to hit, yet still have the same chance of hitting their targets due to their increase in offensive ability.

Sadly if you're playing a character with Wits as the lowest tiered ability stat, your parry score is quite paltry, so I understand frustrations. But it's all about balance meeting flavor - so far I think they did a great job of finding the sweet spot blend of the two.

Yes, you are right. The potential would only be +5 to Parry, not +6.

+1 Parry wouldn't be any less 'boring' than the +1 Damage rating you could get from Dour-handed though. I don't know, some of my players (and even me) would be very likely to choose a Mastery that gave +1 Parry. It wouldn't be dependent on stance or Culture (as SirKicley just nicely pointed out) and that one extra point of rating may stop a good many blows from landing.

Your argument about flavorful Virtue choices also affects the decision on whether to spend Experience points on Wisdom increases or Weapon skill increases (which is a tough one for my combat-anxious players, because the Virtues are 'flavorful' as you say).

I really like the idea of a Mastery. Why didn't I think of that?

On the subject of 'sexy' and 'flavourful', I think that the Cultural Virtues fit this notion better than the Masteries(which are not culture specific).

Not sure about the name, but the concept of Thwart fits in really well with the RAW.

@JamesRBrown, @SirKlickley: just to err on the safe side...

I got the doubt that my use of the word “sadly” sounded snarky or dismissive. On the contrary, I think JamesRBrown's first assessment was spot on: +1 Parry is a perfectly balanced Virtue.

Such Virtue is not my cup of tea, for the reasons stated, but fit nicely the spirit of the rules.

Superfluous post, I hope

First of all, everyone is entitled to an opinion and no idea is bad, as far as I am concerned. The more ideas put out, the better chance of a great idea emerging. Keep them coming!

I did not feel you were being snarky or dismissive. You did sound a bit disappointed in the RAW, however, because there seems to be very little one can do within them in order to fix the issue at hand - as you see it. Therefore, you need to invent new mechanics (active defense) to get a desirable result.

Personally, I like the RAW, but I also see lots of room for expansion (which may be by design; there are two other core sets to be released in the future after all). Keep making suggestions and coming up with new ideas. Additional mechanics and rules expansion/clarifications are likely things that Francesco and co. are working on.

Back to the main topic: I had another small idea to improve defense with experience. Remember Combat advantages? What if the application of a Combat advantage could be widened to include an option for defense? For example, what if the result of the Battle roll alternately allowed a bonus to Parry? The RAW says, "Based on the quality of the result, every successful Battle roll grants a hero a number of bonus Success dice to use in Combat. Each ordinary success grants one Success die, a great success grants two dice, while an extraordinary success grants three dice."

The expanded rules could say, "Based on the quality of the result, every successful Battle roll grants a hero a number of bonus Success dice to use for rolls or for Parry bonuses in Combat. Each ordinary success grants one Success die, a great success grants two dice, while an extraordinary success grants three dice."

An explanation of how Success dice are used for Parry bonuses will be needed. But, simply, when a hero is attacked, he may roll a Success dice and add the result as a Parry bonus to his defense. Players will still need to describe how they use their Battle skill tactics to gain the defense bonus, but obviously, a player with more ranks in Battle through experience, is going to be better at gaining Combat advantages, thereby, being more skilled at defending himself.

That seems simple enough.

I assume one can opt to initiate the use of said dice after he learns that a foe "hit him" with his attack....?

This option also helps those who don't want to spend a coveted Virtue on a static +1 bonus to Parry.


But between them both, a character and player who are concerned with protection above all else (guardian) will find themselves much better off in that regards - but not ridiculously so (unbalancing)

Yes, that was my intention. A player would use an extra Success die for a Parry bonus to try and stop a "hit" from actually landing.

I chose the word 'Thwart' because it seemed to capture the idea of taking some kind of action (an active defense). By definition it means to stop or to hinder someone from accomplishing something; to frustrate and foil. In this case, a hero could be a master at stopping and foiling attacks. This could be done through blocking with a weapon, shield, quick reflexes, or all three. 'Thwart' describes the result, which is an unsuccessful attack against a hero, and a frustrated enemy.

I say this just to let you know what I was thinking when I gave it that name. There could be a better one, though, so feel free to make suggestions!

And thanks for saying it fits really well with the RAW. That is important to me when I'm creating things like this. I love the game as is, and the more I read through it, the stronger that feeling gets. So, any suggestions from me like Thwart are birthed out of a desire to expand and enhance the game without straying too far from the designer's intentions concerning core mechanics, etc.

I saw such idea proposed on rpg.net, I think.
Playtested it, too, and found it nice. Since a pc got 3 bonus dices at most, but only 1 in most cases, in our (limited) experience it was not too powerful.

Have I said how much I like this game?
This is one of the few games that I can play RAW... still, there is room for some house ruling.

Now, some other food for thought.
Premise: I don't want to tone down the game's lethality. Me and my players love it.
But my playtesters are already abusing the Defensive stance.
Their reasoning is the following: Weapon Skill 3 is already enough to hit most opponents, even in Defensive Stance. If they happen to roll a Piercing Blow but the total is too low to hit, they can spend some Hope.
On the contrary, they cannot spend Hope to save their skins from the opponent's blows. So the general rule is becoming “stick to Defensive stance” save for Called Shots.

To put the other way: with Hope you can amend for any starting deficiency of your character... but the Parry. As a consequence, an high Parry is becoming a critical factor in the starting character choice, and the Wits 2 backgrounds looks like “lacking some love”

But a whole lot of bad things happen when the Hope is getting spent like Kim Kardashian's money at a plastic surgery faire.

Since you only get a couple points back a game, it's a very needed and rare commodity that needs to be spent cautiously and shrewdly lest you suffer long-enduring penalties and misery.

True. And fun.

On the other hand, even getting killed by a troll is a pretty long-enduring penalty.

Meh, character death is frustrating for sure - but very temporary - make a new PC and move on.

Having to endure game after game in Misery and without a Hope pool to help you with is a long arduous and painstaking endeavor and a very slow process to replenish.

Not-seriously: most of my players hail from WFRP. They are used to being miserable
Seriously: combat is not so frequent in my games, but usually perceived as very dangerous.

Note: I just edited the first post of the thread to make the “system-as-proposed” a bit more readable.