3 vorpal poison knockout vs Parry

Haku · Post by **Haku** » Wed Sep 16, 2009 11:11 pm

I guess I'm still confused as to why a master warrior is able to parry a vorpal attack, and a KO attack, but just not when they're strung together?

General Maximus · Post by **General Maximus** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:47 am

If the 4th level assasin only allowed for a certian KO, I would have no problem that parry could not stop it. It would be just like the old sleep effect. But it also can be parried with any damage call in the game which gives it versility and therefore additional power.

In my opinion, if you can KO anybody and than turn around and do a 30 vorpal magic attack, that is just way to powerful for a 4th level ability. You should have the verisitly and have many ways for people to defend against it, or have a straight attack with very few defenses. Not both. It is broken than.

Post by **GM-Mike** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:08 am

I guess I'm still confused as to why a master warrior is able to parry a vorpal attack, and a KO attack, but just not when they're strung together?

This is what is being said. You can parry a 3 vorpal knockout. This would cost you a life point and, as per the rule, would make the call 0 vorpal knockout because parry reduces the number to 0. Since vorpal bypasses armor, the 0 vorpal knockout would knock you out because 0 is equal to your armor value.

In order to do a 30 vorpal magic, you would have to be allowed to use a weapon (which there is precedence for), you would have to charge for 90 seconds uninterrupted, you would have to hold the weapon up like you were charging a big magic attack, and you wouldn't be able to move afterwards. This attack would be parryable and resisted through resist magic. I think I might have even less sympathy for someone falling victim to this attack...

cole45 · Post by **cole45** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:12 am

what mike SAID.

please keep in mind, that this might change in the off season. the GMs just don't like to make ad hoc rules id season unless it's an emergency, which this really isn't.

General Maximus · Post by **General Maximus** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:33 am

It's about rule balance. Right now the way the rules are written up vorpal KO can not be parried. When Eric and I went through the rules this concept never crossed our minds because it was played at that time you can parry any KO. But allowing 4th level assasin to be able only to be countered by resist sleep and than be able to do add the vorpal call to any other attack is to powerful and the skill become to unbalanced. I have always felt the skill was over powered to begin with and this makes it worse.

And you are right, if you get hit by a 30 magic vorpal you deserve what you get!

But I agree that any changes need to be done on the off season.

Post by **GM-Mike** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 9:38 am

Why don't you come back and play an assassin to show us it's overpowered. You know how we need that visual confirmation and Temple sucks at getting his skills off

General Maximus · Post by **General Maximus** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:01 am

Well, I might have to do this. But you know it is a PC killing skill

Can I wait around for 45 secs to kill a person. I might be able to do that

Zeira · Post by **Zeira** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 10:15 am

I just re-read parry and it says it reduces the call to zero, not reduces the number in the call to zero. Which I believe means it turns any call with a number in it to '0'. Vorpal and knockout are part of the call so they just become zero.

Just another way of reading it. Not trying to fan the flames or anything.

Post by **GM-Mike** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:43 pm

A Warrior may spend a life point to reduce the damage delivered from any single frontal melee attack that has a number in the call to 0. This includes knockout, crush, vorpal, poison, etc. In addition, they may also parry frontal disarm attacks.

It says it reduces the damage to 0. Of course Knockout doesn't do any damage. But yet the next statement says it includes Knockout so you must disregard how knockout normally works, thus allowing you to parry a knockout by spending a life point, thereby reducing its damage to zero even though its damage always was zero. As for the 3 vorpal knockout, many would say that that doesn't do damage either but parry clearly says it would reduce its damage to zero even though it may or not have ever done damage in the first place, so now you spent a life point to reduce the non-damaging damage to zero and your punk ass is still knocked out because nowhere in the description does it say the attack misses you, even though it's called avoid blow, and so if the attack didn't miss you, it must have hit you and since vorpal bypasses armor and knockout never needed to do damage in the first place, you gone.

Really, it couldn't be simpler.

Post by **GM_Chris** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 12:50 pm

Its funny that we sit and debate what the rules meant to the people who wrote the rules.

I wonder if God is frustrated as we sit around and debate what he really meant by things lik "Though shall not steal"

*Tried to pick a non controversal verse so people can get the humor*

Zeira · Post by **Zeira** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:20 pm

I like debate. I think we all do. Debate is how things like rule breaks or abuses get brought to light. The squeky wheel gets the grease.

Phinkis · Post by **Phinkis** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 1:48 pm

Here's another possibility that doesn't require the vorpal by the way. A warrior is attacked and beaten to the point that their armor and combat reflexes are gone. A rogue walks up and hits them with a 3 knockout. Same situation here, since the warrior currently doesn't have any armor... just figured I'd point that out.

Altearez · Post by **Altearez** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 2:04 pm

when i was pointing out words i was specifically talking about the word parry parry means to block an attack, and i figured this being a very simple word this would be a very simple skill........ this statement had nothing to do with the previous posts just clarifying my self.

I'm just being bitchy because i hate getting knocked out, it happened like three times last event, I like parry.

GM-Phil · Post by **GM-Phil** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 5:38 pm

Fortunately since the Rule clarification last year for "Wield Fist".. you cannot append Vorpal to an Empath Channel to do 30 magic vorpal.. you may only append vorpal to a call through wield fist that could originally have had the vorpla call appended to it.. and since a channel is a packet driven attack and not a melee attack it cannot be appended with Vorpal. This is right in the Rules Update section under "Clarification of Wield Fist 2008".

Woden · Post by **Woden** » Thu Sep 17, 2009 7:14 pm

As discussed in the last 9 page debate.. (I cant believe we're up to 3 pages on this one as well)
..
I see the problem as two fold.
1) As mentioned in the other debate, 'the function of greater or less then zero when factoring knock out'. When totalling KO do you have to equal? or exceed? the total number of armor when taking KO.
2) Samurai is a broken discipline.

Solution;
*Reword KO to avoid the <>Zero debate.
*Remove super-parry from Samurai.

Result; All damages are intuitive, Vorpal still has an effect, Parry still functions from the front, Assasins are still effective from behind.
(reworded to avoid comments like 'hit it from behind' and the like, but theres only so much you can do.)