AreYouAShoggoth's page

Well, I have to say that I haven't really looked at Ultimate Combat. I don't own it, and when we started the campaign it didn't exist. But those crane style feats are what a duelist is all about!

I went with rogue because it fit my character conception the best, plus I really like a lot of skill points. My character conception is too much of a free spirit and hedonist to be a monk.

1) I don't have unarmed strike. I went rogue/duelist because that was my character conception.
2) Yes it is a campaign-specific problem. It was supposed to be a swashbuckling campaign, and it was at lower levels, but now every foe is a demon of size Large or larger. Never seen a touch attack, except for spells, and usually it's the party throwing them. Our foes almost never have class levels, they're always monsters.
3)I agree that it shouldn't apply to spells, except for maybe things like scorching ray. I only included that one because I've read of people using the parry/riposte in that fashion (seems like an abuse to me, frankly).
4) Haven't had the opportunity yet. I thought I would last session, but the thing was two sizes bigger than me and kept rolling attacks in the 40s.
5)I didn't exactly forget that I can parry attacks against allies, I just can't take the -8 to the parry attempt. (-4 for size, -4 for not me).

How is my AC higher than my to hit? Well, it's not always, but circumstantially it is. Normally, my AC is 31 (mithral chain shirt +3, +6 dex, amulet of natural armor +1, dodge, ring of protection +1, +5 int) and my total attack is +20, so the attack is equal or better 50% of the time (or looked at another way, worse half the time). It's just that it's a lot easier to circumstantially get my AC higher than it is my attack. For example, pro from evil=+2 to AC (which, admittedly, cancels out with a flank), offensive defense from rogue levels=+4. Then of course there's +8 from mobility if that applies (it did this last time; every time I took an attack from the foe I would have liked to parry it was an AOO). Since foes' ACs are usually lower than their attack rolls also, it's easier for me to get the +4 to AC from offensive defense by attacking normally. We don't have a bard for attack buffs, we're usually hasted but those bonuses even out, and any buffs cast usually go on the ranger because he's a killing machine (favored enemy demon, everything's a demon, holy arrows, gravity bow, etc).

Thanks for the feedback anyway.

I have a duelist and have so far found no practical use for these two abilities. My AC is better than any to hit roll unless I get really lucky in rolling, so I see no reason to give up a guaranteed attack for a possible attack in order to block an opponent's attack with an attack roll that will probably be lower than my AC anyway (does that make sense? I know the sentence construction is a little confusing). There are only four circumstances in which I see this as being useful, and both are pretty gray:

1) take TWF and do nothing but parry, hoping for an inflation in the number of attacks you would get by being able to parry and riposte a lot. Of course, in addition to TWF being against the spirit of the class as constructed in the D&D multiverse, wielding two weapons like this would negate a lot of your duelist abilities. So, why bother? At that point you're better off dropping duelist and playing something else.

2) Parrying touch attacks. This might have more utility, since a duelist's touch AC is (somewhat) lower. I have not been in this circumstance yet.

3) Parrying spells. Again, gray area. Although I don't see anything in the ability description that specifically prohibits this, it seems contrary to the spirit of the game and I really don't know if my group would go for this maneuver. Also, I've never had a spell cast directly at me.

4) Maybe this gives you two opportunities instead of one to avoid a really nasty attack: your randomly generated attack, which if that fails the attack still has to beat your AC (I note there's nothing in the rules that says the parry is instead of the AC, so it must count as additional protection). This might be useful occasionally.

I should also say that just about everything we fight is size L or larger, so I'm usually looking at a -4 on the parry. Recently I was in a battle where #4 may have applied, but since the opponent was two size categories too big I could only have parried on a 20. Since I could hit it with less than a 20, it seemed like the better strategy to take my ordinary attacks.

So my question is, do other people find uses for these abilities? It's kind of essential to the entire swashbuckler concept, but the mechanics seem to make it really difficult to actually get something out of these abilities.

<closing rant>: Why oh why can't the DnD multiverse get swashbuckling right? </rant>