Duelist Parry ability --- Can it parry ANY attack?


Rules Questions


5 people marked this as FAQ candidate.

I was reading the parry ability and it says it can parry an attack, but it never states what kind of attack. Such as melee, ranged, touch, etc.

So does this mean Parry can work on melee and ranged attacks? Touch attacks? How about ray attacks, since they''re ranged touch?

Thanks to the people that can help me with this rule question as it has been a topic of debate in my group.

Silver Crusade

Parry(Ex):
At 2nd level, a duelist learns to parry the attacks of other creatures, causing them to miss. Whenever the duelist takes a full attack action with a light or one-handed piercing weapon, she can elect not to take one of her attacks. At any time before her next turn, she can attempt to parry an attack against her or an adjacent ally as an immediate action. To parry the attack, the duelist makes an attack roll, using the same bonuses as the attack she chose to forego during her previous action. If her attack roll is greater than the roll of the attacking creature, the attack automatically misses. For each size category that the attacking creature is larger than the duelist, the duelist takes a –4 penalty on her attack roll. The duelist also takes a –4 penalty when attempting to parry an attack made against an adjacent ally. The duelist must declare the use of this ability after the attack is announced, but before the roll is made.

Any kind of attack. Be it from a trebuchet, ghost, or a ray of exhaustion. With a mundane dagger the duelist can do it. All those examples don't make sense, but that's what the rules state. GM may call cheese and I'd recommend that (s)he does in such situations.

In a duel there is a special action called a dueling parry. The dueling parry reflects the typical person's ability to parry- it cannot deflect spell or firearm. However, the Deflect Arrows feat allows one to deflect firearms. Similarly, the parry ability by the duelist is extraordinary, and can do more spiffy things like deflect rays, hurled rocks, and incorporeal touch attacks (with a one-handed or light piercing weapon).


I always read it as weapon based attacks such as arrows, swords, and so on. Seige engine weapons would not count IMHO nor would spells(rays).

This does need clarification though. I will hit the FAQ button.

Paizo Employee Creative Director

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In a game where being stabbed in the belly does 5 points of damage and could kill one person while another person would barely notice, calling the duelist's parry ability unrealistic is kind of an overreaction, I'd say. Although I can certainly see where your'e coming from.

In any event, yes, the parry ability does indeed work against any kind of attack. If you want to invoke more realisim in your game, you can expand the word "parry" to mean "parry and dodge," and have the duelist avoid attacks as much as by deflecting the attacks with a well-placed blade as she is simply feinting with the blade and dancing to the side to avoid the strike.


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and people says that the duelist is a weak class ¬¬


I see, I thought maybe it was missing clarification but if that's really the intention than the debate's can end finally in our group. I also hit the FAQ just in case, but maybe now our group will quiet down for some time. It does sound like an abstraction and not a literal interpretation just like Hit Points. The weird part is the need to wield a light weapon or it won't work at all, as if holding a dagger when "parrying" a thrown boulder won't work if you're empty-handed.

Liberty's Edge

Quote:
and people says that the duelist is a weak class ¬¬

They're still weak. E.g., Parry is not that good compared to what a Flowing Monk can do at 1st level.

-- if you're goofing around in melee with a one-handed light piercing weapon at fifteenth level or so with half the hitpoints and half the damage output of a typical muscle-head, you need all the help you can get.

I'd support a FAQ ruling which permits them to deflect even thrown massive boulders, slam-traps and all sorts of similar crud. Only requirement is that they be holding their weapon.

(Frankly the PrC needs to be upgraded. All the 3.5 holdovers are relatively weak now compared to the base classes, let alone some of the front-loaded archetypes.)

RPG Superstar 2012 Top 16

Parry is only effective about half the time, because it's a comparison of attack rolls, AND you have to sacrifice an attack...i.e. you only get to attack and parry if you are full attacking.

So, it's dependent (again) on you gaining a full attack, the big melee weakness.

Furthermore, the attack you give up modifies the Parry. So if you give up your tertiary attack to parry, your parry is going to be at -10 for that compared attack roll.

Sure, it's good at launched touch attacks or something, but against another melee combatant? If you want to parry effectively, you basically turf your own melee output.

Crane Style does it more effectively. Basically, if you're going to parry, you need some way to generate attacks without full attacking, like lots of AoO, or like that which Crane Style does.

==+Aelryinth

Silver Crusade

OK, I am new at this so forgive me for being dense. So the other night at game our fighter tried to parry a blow coming at him. The DM would not let him do that unless he has a parry feat. We could not find it in the core book. From your conversations, if I understand correctly.... only the duelist has the ability to parry an attack? And that is if he or she takes the feat to parry? and take a ton of minuses to do it? Does the fighter also get a parry feat? I cannot find one in the book and nothing I have read really explains parry ability. Can you parry withh every weapon including natural weapons(ie, hand)?

only some one who has never fought would think of this craziness!


RoseAngel wrote:

OK, I am new at this so forgive me for being dense. So the other night at game our fighter tried to parry a blow coming at him. The DM would not let him do that unless he has a parry feat. We could not find it in the core book. From your conversations, if I understand correctly.... only the duelist has the ability to parry an attack? And that is if he or she takes the feat to parry? and take a ton of minuses to do it? Does the fighter also get a parry feat? I cannot find one in the book and nothing I have read really explains parry ability. Can you parry withh every weapon including natural weapons(ie, hand)?

only some one who has never fought would think of this craziness!

Parrying in the way that your thinking is an abstraction of armor class in pathfinder. The duelist feature is a trade off mechanic that allows you to negate "any" attack, which includes things like ray spells and the like.

Hope that helps.


There is no "roll to block an attack" mechanic outside the duelist -- making a custom feat *could* be done. (There is, however, a feat for catching arrows..)

However, at the abstract level, your fighter could have chosen to act defensively -- either fighting defensively (a -4 to attack, but a +2 dodge bonus to AC), or by using the Combat Expertise Feat (which scales with level), or, finally, by taking a total defense standard action (+4 AC, but it's your standard action -- and you can't take AoO's either).


Sorry to necro up this thread but as far as I can see this is the most recent and most 'official' explanation/ruling on the duelist parry ability. If not then consider the rest of the post as not written :p

James Jacobs wrote:
and have the duelist avoid attacks as much as by deflecting the attacks with a well-placed blade as she is simply feinting with the blade and dancing to the side to avoid the strike.
PRD Parry(Ex) wrote:
...she can attempt to parry an attack against her or an adjacent ally as an immediate action.

So the 10-ton rock thrown or disintegrate ray aimed at the ally is danced to the side by the duelist.... ?

If it were only the duelist herself it would be a perfect explanation for her to 'parry or dodge' ANY attack but since she can also protect her ally I have a hard time accepting it as a plausible explanation.

PRD Parry(Ex) wrote:
...Whenever the duelist takes a full attack action with a light or one-handed piercing weapon, she can elect not to take one of her attacks. At any time before her next turn, she can attempt to parry an attack against her or an adjacent ally as an immediate action.

And to add some more logic to it - if the duelist' doesn't wield a piercing weapon when the boulder is about to hit it's a no-no on the parry action...

With all do respect I think the explanation on ÁNY attack just falls short ánd flat the more I think about it....

My player is probably not going to be happy about it but I am going to houserule that either he can only use his parry skill on a melee attack or can only use the parry skill on himself.


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MoshiMaro wrote:
My player is probably not going to be happy about it but I am going to houserule that he can only use his parry skill on a melee attack...

OK. But note that, for the same of realism, you're turning a bad class into a terrible class.

I'd suggest the player uses a Swashbuckler instead since they already work like that:
"At 1st level, when an opponent makes a melee attack against the swashbuckler, she can spend 1 panache point and expend a use of an attack of opportunity to attempt to parry that attack."


Matthew Downie wrote:
MoshiMaro wrote:
My player is probably not going to be happy about it but I am going to houserule that he can only use his parry skill on a melee attack...

OK. But note that, for the same of realism, you're turning a bad class into a terrible class.

I'd suggest the player uses a Swashbuckler instead since they already work like that:
"At 1st level, when an opponent makes a melee attack against the swashbuckler, she can spend 1 panache point and expend a use of an attack of opportunity to attempt to parry that attack."

We're playing CRB only I'm afraid. I didn't know the Duelist was/is considered to be a bad class... As for the Swashbuckler I was thinking that because that class has been developed later on they got the wording on that one correct from the start and failed to follow up in the duelist one.

I'd understand if the developers (James et. al.) used the "any attack" argument because the duelist would be going from bad to terrible but at least just say that straight up instead of dancing around the subject (pun intented)

So a poll then let it be "any" action which can be parry on either yourself or your ally or not?


Yes, allow it. If realism is a problem, you might be playing the wrong game. I seem to be bring this up a lot, but it is relevant. Ever seen a character with a 35 Perception? Not that difficult really. Did you know that with a 1 on a Perception check they could hear a bow being drawn through a 1 foot think wall from 10' away? That's not wonky reading of any rules. Look at the DC for perception checks: Hear a bow being drawn DC 25 through a wall +10 DC 10' away +1 DC. Is that really any more believable?


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I'm pretty sure you can could up with a semi-plausible heroic narrative explanation of how the duellist 'parries' any given attack. "Vaulting through the air, you knock your friend out of the way of the incoming boulder, flicking it with your rapier as you pass to give yourself the extra push you need."


Do you make huge dragons auto-hit with their attacks? Because I don't see any kind of armor helping you avoid being bitten. And his mouth is like a full square at least so it's not like you can really dodge it in your square. Yet the dragon can miss against you if you had high AC.

To sum up, this game ISN'T realistic. If you looked at things outside of core it gets even worse. Original crane wing lets you block the first attack against you. So that halfling just deflected a Dragon's bite attack with his free hand.

Also, it's really annoying to have the GM make an ability you already have worse. If you are going to change it, you should also let the player change their character if they no longer want to be a duelist.


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So around the level the castery types start getting really good at snapping reality in half across their knee (Overland Flight, Raise Dead, Plane Shift, Teleport, Dominate Person, etc) a single otherwise meh prestige class can sacrifice an attack to potentially negate a single attack. Whoop-dee-doo.


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There is absolutly no need for nerfing here.

You do not need to hamper the merely super-humanly heroic actions, at a point in the level progression in which casters simply reshape reality to fit their whims.

You are now a Frog!
You have cancer? Not any more!
Bashed in head? Meh, live again!

Oh no! He hit the Giant's weapon with his perfectly timed shlashing attack and made him flinch, so that he missed him? No way, Hosey! This is *unrealistic*! NERF!


Hi guys, thanks for your replies...

I'm having the feeling that the discussion is going the wrong direction. Realistic, realism or lack there-of has NEVER had anything to do with it (for me that is)...

It's a combination of flavor/theme in the description and the resulting action. As James already extended the "parry" to "parry and dodge" more extending is needed imo for covering the resulting action. There is a mismatch between the title and the description.

It's the same as a spell named fireball which would result in conjuring a square of ice. (exaggeration intended)

When Matthew says

Matthew wrote:
I'm pretty sure you can could up with a semi-plausible heroic narrative explanation of how the duellist 'parries' any given attack. "Vaulting through the air, you knock your friend out of the way of the incoming boulder, flicking it with your rapier as you pass to give yourself the extra push you need."

I can't not laugh when reading the narrative explanation for having to wield a piercing weapon and that's the main problem I'm having with it.

Either name or description of the class skill parry falls short - there's a discrepancy between the two and I'm having an allergic reaction to things that feel tacked on. Hence I want to fix it.


Either house-rule that they can't use that ability against anything but moderate-sized enemies making melee attacks, or house-rule it as a dodge that doesn't require the weapon.

The latter is probably better from a game-balance perspective.


Matthew Downie wrote:

Either house-rule that they can't use that ability against anything but moderate-sized enemies making melee attacks, or house-rule it as a dodge that doesn't require the weapon.

The latter is probably better from a game-balance perspective.

The first would bring it in line with the swashbuckler parry and riposte. That was my initial thought as well - only melee attacks and a consecutive penalty for larger than medium-sized opponents.

Reading the reactions on my first thought - "NERF!" e.g. and the notion that in terms of power level the duelist is a poor sucker already I do agree with you Matthew, latter is better.

Even though I can't get rid of the thought that with the swashbuckler ability the developers 'corrected' the earlier mistake with the duelist which in turn they don't (perhaps dare to) fix because of all the nerf flak they would eat. Taking things away from player's makes you less popular than giving things to them :p


Or that the Duelist, being a prestige class, gets a different and in some ways better version of the ability.


?.....Yes that too :)


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MoshiMaro wrote:

I can't not laugh when reading the narrative explanation for having to wield a piercing weapon and that's the main problem I'm having with it.

Either name or description of the class skill parry falls short - there's a discrepancy between the two and I'm having an allergic reaction to things that feel tacked on. Hence I want to fix it.

Wave your hands and say it's magic. Done.

However you want to fluff it out, don't penalize your player because of your lack of imagination.


Thanks for the constructive contribution and character portrait MeanMutton - you sure live up to your name :)
I indeed have an enormous lack of imagination...

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