Hello, I am not really a master of rules so I have a question for you. Can I use my talent Parry after someone have used Parry improved to and 3 threats to make an attack against me?

Thanks

2 hours ago, Rosco74 said:

Hello, I am not really a master of rules so I have a question for you. Can I use my talent Parry after someone have used Parry improved to and 3 threats to make an attack against me?

Thanks

Yes you can.

No you cannot. Parry has an Out of Turn activator. So it cannot be used on your own turn.

Edit: If you play some slight mental gymnastics, it can be argued that OoT actions can be used on your turn. So it may be subject to the GM's approval in that case.

Quote

When the character suffers a hit from a Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber combat check, after damage is calculated (but before soak is applied, so immediately after step 3 of Perform a Combat Check, page 210), the character may take a Parry incidental. He suffers 3 strain and reduces the damage dealt by that hit by a number equal to 2 plus his ranks in Parry. This talent may only be used once per hit and when the character is wielding a Lightsaber or Melee weapon.

In the official text, there are some points both for and against. I don't think they really thought through the possibility of using Parry/Reflect against Improved Parry/Reflect, but legally, you cannot use Parry on Improved Parry with a strict reading of the rules. You didn't suffer a hit from a [type] combat check , and it doesn't happen directly after step 3 of Perform a Combat Check.

That said, I would strongly consider allowing it. I think it is in the spirit of the rules and is not a stretch to think they just missed it.

To play the other side, though, one could certainly make a case that it was through a flaw in your attack that left you open to an attack (the Despair or Threat) that you took the hit, and thus you are unable to Parry the strike.

I agree with the others regarding it not being possible. The reason is that the damage from Improved Parry isn’t from a separate attack by the defender. Rather, the defender’s Parry is knocking your own weapon back into you so that you end up injuring yourself.

1 hour ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The reason is that the damage from Improved Parry isn’t from a separate attack by the defender. Rather, the defender’s Parry is knocking your own weapon back into you so that you end up injuring yourself.

No, it's the defender hitting you with their own weapon. Official text for Improved Parry:

Quote

When the character suffers a hit from a Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber combat check and uses the Parry incidental to reduce the damage from that hit, after the attack is resolved, the character may spend Despair or 3 Threat to automatically hit the attacker once with a wielded Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber weapon. This hit deals the weapon’s base damage plus any damage from applicable talents or abilities. This talent may not be used if the original attack incapacitates the character

1 hour ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

No, it's the defender hitting you with their own weapon. Official text for Improved Parry:

Then what is happening is a riposte

M

22 hours ago, kaosoe said:

No you cannot. Parry has an Out of Turn activator. So it cannot be used on your own turn.

Edit: If you play some slight mental gymnastics, it can be argued that OoT actions can be used on your turn. So it may be subject to the GM's approval in that case.

Sorry to break it to you, but the FFG writers who create those talents disagree with your assessment, and they probably know the rules better than any of the yokels that post on these forums.

During the F&D Beta, Sam Stewart and another chap whose name escapes me posted on twitter about an exchange in their game where a sequence of defender using Parry then Improved Parry of an attack, and the attacker responding with Parry to the hit, even citing that Improved Parry was triggered twice, and it wound up being something like five activations of Parry from both attacker and defender in that one exchange. I'm presuming these were some fairly high XP builds done as a sort of in-house "stress test" of the new talents, as generating that many threats/despairs on a single check is pretty unlikely on the lower end of the XP spectrum.

47 minutes ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

Sorry to break it to you, but the FFG writers who create those talents disagree with your assessment, and they probably know the rules better than any of the yokels that post on these forums.

During the F&D Beta, Sam Stewart and another chap whose name escapes me posted on twitter about an exchange in their game where a sequence of defender using Parry then Improved Parry of an attack, and the attacker responding with Parry to the hit, even citing that Improved Parry was triggered twice, and it wound up being something like five activations of Parry from both attacker and defender in that one exchange. I'm presuming these were some fairly high XP builds done as a sort of in-house "stress test" of the new talents, as generating that many threats/despairs on a single check is pretty unlikely on the lower end of the XP spectrum.

*shrug* I stand corrected. Not that I really cared much about my assessment. However, this brings up a larger point that the rules could stand to be just a little bit clearer that Out Of Turn incidentals can be performed on the characters own turn. As it is currently worded, it's a bit ambiguous (Which is why I said it should be up to the GM's call). If the authors did not intend for it to be ambiguous than the wording should reflect that.

4 hours ago, Donovan Morningfire said:

they probably know the rules better than any of the yokels that post on these forums.

How can you say that with a straight face considering some of the ridiculous replies in the dev questions thread.

41 minutes ago, Stan Fresh said:

How can you say that with a straight face considering some of the ridiculous replies in the dev questions thread.

Easy, I just look at the forum community such as it is and the completely asinine presumptions that get made about how the rules should or shouldn't work. Especially the presumptions that rely on extremely literal interpretations of the rules text.

5 hours ago, kaosoe said:

*shrug* I stand corrected. Not that I really cared much about my assessment. However, this brings up a larger point that the rules could stand to be just a little bit clearer that Out Of Turn incidentals can be performed on the characters own turn. As it is currently worded, it's a bit ambiguous (Which is why I said it should be up to the GM's call). If the authors did not intend for it to be ambiguous than the wording should reflect that.

I think you may be taking an overly literal reading of Out-of-Turn. I believe that it is not saying "you can only do this out-of-turn" but that it is saying "this can be done out-of-turn."

Some talents (Dodge, for example) only make sense to be done out-of-turn (leaving aside potential edge-cases), but others, such as Intimidating, are useful on your turn, and even have prescribed uses on your turn. In this case, Intimidating can downgrade the difficulty of a dice pool. Out-of-Turn, it can upgrade the difficulty of an opponent's check. If the "Out-of-Turn" label was supposed to be only out-of-turn, the label would not make sense for it. Intense Presence is another example, where it is useful on your turn and there is no mechanical reason as to why you can't use it on your turn. You can argue technicalities of simply using it before your first maneuver/action or after your last maneuver/action, but that only accentuates my point.

Ok thanks for all your replies, I didn't know this would be a hot subject hehe, but this just confirm me that this rule point was ambigous 🙂

Ok now I'm doubly confused. Parry states that it is in response to a hit on a combat check. And the text makes improved parry a riposte...so how...even narratively..can you use parry against improved parry?

53 minutes ago, Luahk said:

Ok now I'm doubly confused. Parry states that it is in response to a hit on a combat check. And the text makes improved parry a riposte...so how...even narratively..can you use parry against improved parry?

Like this.

Sorry, I just had to.

9 hours ago, Luahk said:

Ok now I'm doubly confused. Parry states that it is in response to a hit on a combat check. And the text makes improved parry a riposte...so how...even narratively..can you use parry against improved parry?

Mechanically it works - the original attack triggers Impoved Parry, which generates another hit which triggers Parry (and with Peerless Interception the Jedi Signature Ability it could trigger Improved Parry).

Narratively it's easy to describe and work into the action: exchange of a number of strikes, with some being completely parried, maybe some partially, taking into account of any of the combatants Wound Threshold was exceeded. A combat check isn't a single strike (unless you really want to narrate it that way) but covers all sorts of things you want to add into it - multiple strikes, dodges, parries, ripostes, feints whatever. Skill Checks during combat as the core books says can cover up to a minute in time (though specifically with combat checks that's probably not a good fit) - a round of 'action' covers moving somewhere/manipulating something/retrieving something and doing something interesting (whether a barrage of lightsaber attacks and dodges, parries, feints, etc or hacking into a computer or activating and operating a piece of machinery).

EDIT

This is sorta inherent in this system but I'm pretty sure the design of the system was not to take Talent names too literally because Parry often (most of the time) doesn't actually function like a parry where you knock someones attack aside because it would totally negate any damage instead of just reducing it. This also wanders into the fuzzyness of Hit Point Systems and what excactly is Strain and Wounds - it's just an abstraction not designed to literally model the real world but to give some sense of exertion and damage and a 'resource' to fiddle with (i.e., taking enough Wounds to be at your threshold doesn't impair you in any way, so this system's abstraction means you're perfectly functional until you drop).

3 hours ago, Jedi Ronin said:

This is sorta inherent in this system but I'm pretty sure the design of the system was not to take Talent names too literally.

Pretty much this. Having had the opportunity to speak with the guys that designed the system, in addition to remarks made regarding Genesys and talents in that line of products, the intent was very much that names of things like talents and specializations shouldn't be viewed as a straightjacket, but instead as a convenient handle for something so that everyone at the table knows what's being talked about.

Shame they didn't quite do the same for the Force power Control upgrades though.

You can only Parry/Reflect a hit from a check, and Improved Parry/Reflect hits you making a check.

Parry: "When the character suffers a hit from a Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber combat check"

Improved Parry: "the character may spend [Despair] or [3 Threat] to automatically hit the attacker once with a wielded Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber weapon"

No check, no Parry/Reflect.

8 hours ago, Stan Fresh said:

You can only Parry/Reflect a hit from a check, and Improved Parry/Reflect hits you making a check.

Parry: "When the character suffers a hit from a Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber combat check"

Improved Parry: "the character may spend [Despair] or [3 Threat] to automatically hit the attacker once with a wielded Brawl, Melee, or Lightsaber weapon"

No check, no Parry/Reflect.

That’s a strict literal interpretation that as Donovan Morningfire mentions above is not how the devs themselves play it (they also mentioned this on an Order 66 podcast as I recall).

I think you’re reading in terms/concepts (like a hit generated by a check vs a hit not generated by a check) that were not intended and are not found elsewhere in the rules, only implied in a particular strict grammatical interpretation of one text.
Even if one wants to use strict grammatical interpretation one could still interpret that text above as “check” simply meaning that the source of the attack must fit something those skills cover (e.g., not a “hit” from Bind or other Force power but a hit from a type - melee or ranged - of weapon).

GMs are always free to run it how they wish.

38 minutes ago, Jedi Ronin said:

That’s a strict literal interpretation that as Donovan Morningfire mentions above is not how the devs themselves play it (they also mentioned this on an Order 66 podcast as I recall).

I think you’re reading in terms/concepts (like a hit generated by a check vs a hit not generated by a check) that were not intended and are not found elsewhere in the rules, only implied in a particular strict grammatical interpretation of one text.
Even if one wants to use strict grammatical interpretation one could still interpret that text above as “check” simply meaning that the source of the attack must fit something those skills cover (e.g., not a “hit” from Bind or other Force power but a hit from a type - melee or ranged - of weapon).

GMs are always free to run it how they wish.

While it can certainly be interesting to know how the writers play the game, they're no less prone to ad hoc rulings or misremembering or unexamined assumptions than anyone else.

And I don't think looking at the words that are right there on the page is particularly strict or literal. I'd argue that ignoring obvious sentences like the ones I quoted is far more removed from the rules than just taking them at face value.

If you want to be that strict in your interpretation, Improved Parry/Reflect only works as part of a combat check because it requires Threat or Despair as a result of the check. So, technically, it is a hit from a combat check.

On 5/2/2020 at 1:28 AM, Stan Fresh said:

While it can certainly be interesting to know how the writers play the game, they're no less prone to ad hoc rulings or misremembering or unexamined assumptions than anyone else.

And I don't think looking at the words that are right there on the page is particularly strict or literal. I'd argue that ignoring obvious sentences like the ones I quoted is far more removed from the rules than just taking them at face value.

Yeah, it’s a reasonable interpretation. As far as plain words on the page, interpreting it as “you’re blocking these kinds of attacks” is the simplest plain interpretation (which the devs themselves use). This is what I meant by reading in terms and concepts. They thought they were communicating a simple concept and others are reading more complexity into it - which is why I referred to it as literal/strict.