Adventure Generators
- Swashbuckling Adventures (Shockingly good; generator is here.)
- Champion of the People Adventures (Domino mask optional; generator is here.)
- Gothic Mystery Adventures (Some of these are really weird; generator is here.)
Streets and Places of Old Paris
This list of Paris streets is a good place to start. Although modern many of the street listings discuss the history of the street including medieval and early modern names which makes it a useful resource for correlating then and now.A French site: Ancient names of Paris Streets the list is in alphabetical order and lists the present day Paris arrondisement or numbered section of the city.
Another French site for picturesque streets and locations of Paris. Some of the listings contain quite a bit of useful detail.
This Wikipedia site that has a list of French Hospitals. Its not an ancient site, but still very useful in tracking down period hospitals. The 17th century saw the construction of several famous French hospitals.
Geomorphs
From Aeons and Augauries
This is a badly placed question, but hopefully not a bothersome one. My question is, in H&I, what can you parry? Can you parry a beat? A feint? I noticed that you had asked that question in a couple forums, and I was curious if you ever got an answer. (I mean, I'm a big ol' grown up GM, I can make a decision, I'm just curious if word from high ever came down.)
ReplyDeleteQuinn
I don't think I did get an answer.
ReplyDeleteNow for what it's worth, I'd say no. Here’s why.
1. The description of the Parry maneuver says the following:
“Using your weapon, you block your foe’s attack. This is a contested roll. Your roll must equal or exceed the attack roll your opponent made.”
But beat and feint aren’t actually attacks. They do no damage. So reading the rules strictly the answer is no.
2. The defender is already able to parry any attack even if that attack gets a bonus die from a successful beat or feint. There is no need for the defender to parry now. He can parry later when the attack that the beat or feint are setting up is made.
3. Neither beat nor feint does any damage. Which supports these maneuvers not being attacks per se then see #1 above.
4. A successful parry allows a follow up riposte as a reaction. This riposte would occur before the attacker has had a chance to even attempt his major action for the round. That seems unfair to the attacker whose turn it is to act.
5. If parry is an acceptable maneuver against a beat or a feint then logically it would seem that other reactions should also be possible against a beat or feint. Now consider someone who uses a stop-thrust against a feint. If they succeed they do +2 damage. If they fail they take no damage since the beat or feint doesn’t do any damage. Again this seems to me to be unfair to the attacker.
I'm curious why the defender wants to parry a beat or feint. Sometimes looking at the motivation also helps the GM to see if allowing the action is unbalancing to the game.
In the strictest version then you can Parry: Bladework, Brawling, Glide, Hilt Punch, Lunge, Moulinet, Quick Cut. Also Grapple, Reposte, (it's in the example) and then presumably Stop-Thrust as well.
DeleteSo that would be rules as written, but there's this part of me that doesn't like that a character couldn't have an active defense against a Beat or a Bind. You can throw fortune at an attackers Beat, but other than that, you just get to take it. In my experience (and good gravy do things go wrong when we role-players bring up our half semester of taekwondo to justify how sword play works, so even I am taking this with a huge grain of salt) Beats and Binds are both attacks on the blade, and the defender gets active choices in defending them, including following with counters like ripostes. I'm okay with the idea that a person Parrying a Bind successfully could then Reposte and get ahead of their attacker who actually rolled better on initiative. That just doesn't bother me.
The idea that a character could Stop Thrust a Bind seems a bit more painful, because our stop-thruster loses some of the disadvantage of the move. It's an attack for a minor, and you can't yield Advantage. Presumably if you didn't kill them they would still Bind you. So really how different would it be in implementation than, say, the attacker attempts a Bind, the defender either gets bound or doesn't and replys with a Shove/Trip? (Obviously one does damage and one takes away actions, but in the grand scheme of things...isn't that close enough?)
Part of why I entertain this idea still was your conversation with Chris on when a character could yield advantage. His answer being something along the lines of "I only meant it for these couple places, but I don't know why you couldn't use it in these other places if you wanted to." It's not going to happen too often, and when it does it will mostly be characters who have spent enough of their sword skills to have an extra parry laying around. It gives them more chances to be cool, and that's good. Shove/Trip takes away a minor and here they are giving it away themselves! In most cases you'd be spending a minor to stop a minor action or minor effect.
But, of course it also opens some worms. Does it over power Parry? What to do with how powerful stop thrusting gets if you can do it to someone who's feinting. Can they just be different? (If you can Parry a Riposte but not a stop thrust they are already different, so maybe it's less of a deal.) Also, would it feel like the improv version of a "No" and those aren't allowed because they aren't fun.
What about the other attacks? Can you parry a Tag if it's just against you? I would think so. I don't think you could parry a Disarm from a Bind, but a quick Disarm? That seems fair. I don't think you could parry Feint or a Shove/Trip.
There is also, and this might be easier, and also harder, if a person went with rules as written, but allowed exceptions sometimes. We see Aramis parry a thrown sword in The Four Musketeers. And Viggo Mortenson evidently actually parried a badly thrown prop dagger on set. (With something like a broadsword!) If the Dirty Fighting was described as a kick to the crotch, I might be tempted to let a noted brawler throw a (brawling) parry at that, or if someone threw sand I might allow a cloak parry.
Would the exceptions be when and why and is that just too much work?