D&D 3E/3.5 Is there a Parry in 3.5?

[Ascii King]

I'm an old 2nd Edition gamer and i've just recently tried out 3E. I got into a dispute because I wanted my character to parry an attack being made against his partner. They told me that what I had done was to step in front of the weapon and take the damage myself. This clearly wasn't my intention. They however had never heard of the parry.

In 2nd Edition, you could block someones attack with your weapon if you made a successful attack against them. In effect, you are attacking their sword with your sword so that their sword can't hit it's target. Is there anything like this in 3E?

 

[Aust Diamondew]

In the rules you can take an aid another action in combat. You must be adjacent to the ally you are trying to aid and the opponent he is attacking/attacked by. You make an attack roll AC 10 if you succeed your ally either gets +2 to armor class or +2 to attacks.

Another option you have is to take a ready action and sunder/disarm your opponents weapon before he can hit your ally.

One thing I let my players do in my games is put themselves in the way of an opponents attack if they take a ready action to do so. Obviously this is NOT what you wanted to do.

But as far as actual parrying goes theres nothing in the rules (considering you don't make parry roles against attacks on your self this makes sense) AC and HP are meant to represent, rolling with the blows/dodging/parrying attacks.

 

[drunkmoogle]

Welcome to the boards.

In 3.X, combat is abstract; it is assumed you spend your entire turn parrying and defending yourself (hence Dexterity to AC). The closest thing to parrying in 3.X is Fight Defensively, which gives you a -4 penalty to Attack rolls for the round and +2 AC for the round. There's also Combat Expertise.

 

[Ascii King]

Not what I wanted to hear.

Thanks for the help, though it isn't what I wanted to hear. I did see the Aid Another option in the PHB. It just seems odd to me that you can't parry a blow. In Revenge of the Jedi, Darth Vader didn't use Aid Another to block the shot that Luke took at the Emporer. He parried it. So, with the D20 rules there would be no way I could recreate that move? All I could do is to give the Emporer a +2 bonus to his AC.

 

[drunkmoogle]

/House Rule

Well, IIRC NWN had opposed attack rolls if you sacrificed all of your attacks for the round. In addition of having to overcome your AC, the opponent had to overcome your attack roll. If you win by more than ten, you get a free attack at your highest bonus. You may only parry a number of attacks equal to the amount you "sacrificed," and can only parry melee attacks that have you as a target.

I'm not sure whether it was NWN or RttToEE which had Parry as a skill.

 

[Jeff Wilder]

In Revenge of the Jedi, Darth Vader didn't use Aid Another to block the shot that Luke took at the Emporer. He parried it.

How do you know that what Darth's "player" did wasn't Aid Another?


Jeff

 

[Ascii King]

I'm sorry, but I don't know what NWN or RttTOEE is.

I found this link to what looks like a house rule about parrying. It's the closest thing to 2nd Ed. I could find. Still, I was hping it wasn't just a house rule.

Drunkmoogle, did you get your name from that little creature in the online comic done by that high school kid? What was the name of that comic? It was really good.

 

[Silveras]

Thanks for the help, though it isn't what I wanted to hear. I did see the Aid Another option in the PHB. It just seems odd to me that you can't parry a blow. In Revenge of the Jedi, Darth Vader didn't use Aid Another to block the shot that Luke took at the Emporer. He parried it. So, with the D20 rules there would be no way I could recreate that move? All I could do is to give the Emporer a +2 bonus to his AC.

I think you're getting a little too hung up on the name of the action compared to how you imagine it.

3rd Edition, as has been noted, is abstract. Part of the DM's job is to present the generic game actions in the context of the adventure. A Player may say "I parry the attack", but it is up to the DM to decide how that is handled. In the example you mentioned, a Star Wars D20 game version of that scene might very well *be* an Aid Another action.

For what it is worth, there are a couple of feats in the Seafarer's Handbook from Fantasy Flight Games that actually do allow you to more closely duplicate the Parry maneuver from older versions of the game.

 

[Ascii King]

Jeff, the Emporer would never be so foolish as to trust his life to a simple +2 bonus to AC. He knew that vader would block the shot.

 

[Ascii King]

I think you're getting a little too hung up on the name of the action compared to how you imagine it.

You might be right. I just wanted to block the shot. In 2E you just had more control over it than a +2 bonus, that's all. I didn't want to actually step in and take the blade in the face.

oops... Here is the link I mentioned I found. It has an excellent adaptation of the parry for 3E. http://www.enworld.org/forums/showpost.php?p=1740100&postcount=13

And to Diamondew, in 2E you could make a parry against an attack on yourself, but you had to sacrifice an attack to do so.