Maybe I'm having a moment of delusion, but I could swear I've seen somewhere rules saying that you cannot parry attacks made by Massive (and bigger) creatures, like Hive Tyrant... Is there such a thing?

If not, would you allow it, SM being super-humans and all?

Don't have exact examples of this, but generally anything can be parried, unless the attack description says the attack can't be parried.

Skie said:

I do know that you get a bonus to hit massive creatures, and I have not found anything that says you can not parry them, but I think this might be a creature specific situation. Full attacks can not be dodged, or parried regardless of size and it is possible that some massive creatures would only do full attacks.

Skie said:

Thinking realistically, no. Of course, as a player I vehemently avoid being in Close Combat with something that has the potential of slicing through a Baneblade.

Prospero_Cade said:

I think I found the problem right here.

KommissarK said:

I tend to do it on a case by case basis, even if the rules don't explicitly call out that something is non-parry-able. Keeping the whole 'hulking' size of SMs in PA in mind, if it makes no sense that you could parry something, I make it unable to be parried.

Nimon said:

Could you elaborate on this? What do you mean by 'full attack'?

Aside from Hordes, there isn't any rules stating you can't dodge/parry attacks from "big" creatures. Would seem unreasonable to be able to parry a attack from a titan though, don't you think? But that's where common sense comes into play.

Charmander said:

Appologize, it is called ALL OUT ATTACK not full attack, all out attack takes a full round, +20 ws no dodge or parry allowed. It is on the GM screen under combat actions, I am sure its in core book somewhere in combat.

Nimon said:

This is misleading. All Out Attack only prevents the attacker from using Dodge or Parry, not the defender. Space Marines do have the Killing Strike talent that allows them to spend a Fate Point to make their All Out Attack(s) unable to be parried or dodged for a turn, but this is not the norm for All Out Attack.

Nimon said:

The All Out Attack can be parried. What the no dodge or parry bit means is that when you use it, you can't dodge or parry till next round.

Bilateralrope said:

You are right, I had been doing it both ways you can not dodge or parry and opponet can not either. So far it has worked out for players and elite npcs, but next session I will do it as RAW and see the differance.

Nimon said:

Remember that Fate Points can still be spent to make it non-dodge/parry-able with Killing Strike.

You know that is true, and niether my players nor me used fate points on the fights where I had made that mistake so I will call it even at that.

Back on topic, thinking about it you really could "attempt" to parry anything, if a car is flying at you and you are crazy enough to attempt to put your sword to it I guess you could. Penalties and chance to break your weapon would be high not to mention possible effects of being thrown across the zone and taking fall damage on top of impact.

Got it! It was a rule in Warhammer Fantasy RPG, 2nd ed. - some creatures had a trait that made their attacks impossible to parry. Thanks for the input everyone!

I would say it depends not only on the kind of attack wether you can parry it but on the tool you use to parry as well.
Trying to parry the bite of a giant dinosaur with a combat knife seems silly. But with a tower shield or something like it you could try it.

The iron arm psy power for example should give you something to parry even very strong attacks simply because (if I remember right) it is indestructable.

Skie said:

40k games have the flexible trait, which makes the weapon in question immune to being parried.

Just a suggestion about how I handle when my players try and parry the hive tyrants attack.

1) Roll the hive tyrants first "attack", actually a feint(opposed WS to remove the chance to dodge/parry next attack)

2) Tell the player "roll your parry", actually the opposed WS roll required for feint, then ask for degrees of success...

3) Roll the Standard attack, which goes one of four ways,

a) feint successful and hits : "You raise your chainsword to parry the decending scythe arm, but you notice too late the bonesword sweeping in from the left... " You may have to explain what happened to the player if they whine too much about "but i wanted to parry the bonesword attack..."

b) feint successful and misses: " You raise your chainsword and parry the decending scythe arm, and noticing the bonesword sweeping at your torso, you barely manage to dive under the attack, as you spring out of the roll, the hive tyrant roars in anger..."

c) feint failure and hits: "You recognize the scythe arm attack as the feint that it is, and are prepared for the real attack, little good it will do you against the bonesword sweeping down. roll your parry" then on a successful parry, describe the huge force that was blocked, "Your chainsword angled just right to shed the tyrants blow, you still feel the plating below your feet buckle under the force of the impact."

d) Hive Tyrant failure: Perdicting the hive tyrants attacks perfectly, you step inside its sweeping bonesword strike, and are now in the perfect position for a retalitory blow" then give some bonus to attack from +1 to +20, based on how bad the Tyrant failed. ( my only houserule, it goes both ways... one of my players had the tip of his nose cut off by a scum boy when he rolled a 100 on his test to attack the boy, giving the boy a +20 to hit with his chainknife... the other players didnt shoot the boy because they respected his courage to fight a space marine.)

The_Sasquatch said:

And what about when a player has step aside or wall of steel and wants to use that against the 'second' attack ?

Lets say that the roll for a parry and defeat the feint, but the tyrant misses. They will think that they have spent a reaction for the parry, meaning that if something else attacks them they won't know that they have an unspent reaction to defend them-self with.

Balanced and Defensive weapons both give a bonus to parry, others give a penalty for parrying, but not for defeating feint. If you tell the player to parry, they will include the bonus/penalty which doesn't apply. So you need to remember to take it back out.

I'd think it's best to just tell they player that the NPC is attempting a feint, so they make the correct roll and nobody gets confused.

You might want to look at it another way... When parring you don't "block" the attack as much as you would "bat it away" so it doesn't hit you... Just a thought...