Parry and high WS

One thing that has bugged me for quite some time (and I know I'm not the only one) is that parry gets worse if your WS is high. If your opponent needs 5+ to hit, it's harder to parry when he actually hits. This doesn't seem logical since if you're weapon skill is better, it should be easier to parry.
In addition to this, as you get more attacks, it's easier to get at least one 6, making parry worse in the long run. This isn't true for other weapons, such as Axe, Spear etc which have a constant bonus.

Has anyone come up with any creative ideas to "fix" this?
One thought that I had today was to allow parry on equal or higher when your opponent needs 5+ to hit. But that would do nothing against several attacks.

I toyed with the idea of allowing a model that has twice or WS than the attacking foe to parry on ties as well, but threw it out simply due to just being an extra thing to remember and most people I play with are not very experienced wargamers.

The other idea I had was to allow an extra chance to parry against lower ws models. So if you have Ws4 and they have Ws2 and you parry their first attack then you can try to parry their second as well. I intended this for Bucklers though not swords etc.

The other way to think of it is that you get an automatic parry on a 4. You get a 2nd chance if they roll a 5 up. when you think of it that way then your weapon skill is seriously buffing your parry ability Now sure, it does apply to all weapon types but what are ya gonna do

Drayven wrote:

The other way to think of it is that you get an automatic parry on a 4. You get a 2nd chance if they roll a 5 up. when you think of it that way then your weapon skill is seriously buffing your parry ability Now sure, it does apply to all weapon types but what are ya gonna do

Well, that's the problem. It applies to all weapons and a sword is actually quite expensive compared to other weapons.

I've heard of people using another rule where the attacker adds his to-hit roll with his WS, and the defender adds his WS with a "parry-roll", and if the defenders total is higher, the parry is a succes.
In this way having the higher WS is a big bonus.

If we implement a parry fix in our group (and I'm not convinced one is really needed) then I'd use the method mentioned by Louis. It seems simple and factors in WS. However as always would this change break things? Would dwarf Master of Blades skill become too powerful? What about mercenary swordsmen which already get a buff for using swords? I agree that it doesn't feel right but the game is designed around this quirk and balanced around it.

We introduced following houserules:
Higher Weaponskill give +1 to the roll
2 items with the parry-rule grant you a reroll
a buckler combined with another item with a parry rule allow you to choose to parry a second attack or reroll your first attempt to parry.

In my gaming group we opted for the following: if you have a weapon with the parry rule, you can force the opponent to reroll one to-hit die, if two weapons, then two dice. It's simple and fast, and assures that a fighter with high WS is less affected than a low WS-model.

In my group we play it like Louis and it works great, makes high WS more powerfull.

-Skavenslayer

I'm with Drayven on this one - if the difference in skill is high enough that the attacker needs a five to hit, then basically 4s are automatically parried. Certainly that makes the high WS very valuable - no reason to make it even more so. If an attacker has a high enough WS that an average fellow needs a 5 to wound him, then the chance to hit him has already neem reduced by 33% - that is an extremely significant reduction. And don't forget that when striking back your high WS warrior will also have a 33% greater chance of hitting his opponent. To me, making the same high stat even more powerful with a house rule that changes parry is not justifiable.

Your complaint (which is indeed fairly common) is really that for high WS warriors, the higher cost for a sword is not as justified (since the 4 "auto-parry" works with any weapon). True. Don't buy them one if you are strapped for cash. And don't buy axes for your extra-strong fellas either.

folketsfiende wrote:

In my gaming group we opted for the following: if you have a weapon with the parry rule, you can force the opponent to reroll one to-hit die, if two weapons, then two dice. It's simple and fast, and assures that a fighter with high WS is less affected than a low WS-model.

Yep, we've played with it a while now and haven't found any problems with it. The malus of the reroll is lessened by the fact that we give +1 to hit if you don't use two weapons, so it's fairly easy to hit if you have a good fighter.

Wow +1 to hit would be brutal with a single weapon! My Snotlings would swarm you easily!

Saranor wrote:

Higher Weaponskill give +1 to the roll

I like this idea!

Thanks for other ideas as well. I'll discuss the options with my group.

Assuming were using the tables from vanilla here. WS isn't -that- big a factor until you have MORE than double the WS of your opponent. Even then the worst it will be is 5+ and the best it will be is 3+. So the thought I had for this was to somehow use the 'opposite' roll value on the table.

So the attacker rolls to hit, if its a 4+, ONE parry can be done for the same roll. However if he hits on 3+, parry is 5+ and visa versa.

This is just what's in my head and I confess I haven't play tested it at all, I'm unsure of the consequences of using it in conjunction with the -1 to hit DW. Though in that case I'd stick with the above (the -1 to hit only confers a disadvantage to the attacker, rather than also applying any bonuses to the defender)

I like Lord 0's parry modifiers - they are in this thread - they are veary reasonable and simple.

I've played around with parry alot and found 3 results to be the 'best'.

For one, parry doesn't need a heavy buff, as if you have a higher WS, the person attacking is already at a 4+ or 5+ to hit. One way to fix this was to give +1 to higher WS parries (or just say they parry on ties). This is the simplest rule, and is the easiest to implement.

My favourite way is to roll under your own WS, modified by -1 for every increment over thier needed hit. If you roll a 5 and needed 3 to hit, that's -2. So a WS 5 would need under 3. This is WAY more complicated but seemed more fun when we understood it, and it made the amount over the need to hit important, which is lacking in any other aspect of the game. I don't suggest this way even though it is my favourite.

The last way is to just let the person parrying choose the hit they can parry. Against one attack this isn't much of a change, but again, parry doesn't need a massive boost. Against multiple attacks this is a big buff to ignore 6s and parry a 3 or 4. This helps to tame down dual wielders a bit, and along with decent armour buffs, weapon choice gets more balanced.

The current campaign I'm rolling does both +1 to higher WS and choose attack to parry, along with some massive overhauls to armour (shields 6+ unmodfied save on hits, Armour at +1, -1 hit to off-hand attacks, and a few others). The rules are a bit too complicated in this campaign, but the weapon balance is better as you can see the value in sword/shield over dual wield at times.

When messing with parry, watch out for any Dwarf Warbands, as parry is big part of special rules and dwarf axes.

When messing with armour, watch out for Dwarves, Lizardmen, Black Orcs and anything else that has natural armour buffs, as getting overpowered gets easy.

Louis wrote:

I've heard of people using another rule where the attacker adds his to-hit roll with his WS, and the defender adds his WS with a "parry-roll", and if the defenders total is higher, the parry is a succes.
In this way having the higher WS is a big bonus.

I like this...simple, doesn't require extra rules creation, just add your WS to your highest to hit roll when calculating the parry. Not difficult at all, and doesn't add any +'s or extra steps.

*edit* Ok, in thinking about it, it might be a little too simple, and it could be too easy for the higher WS to parry,

I really like the concept of both players rolling a dice and adding their WS to the result. This will make swords a strong weapon for a warrior with a high WS and a bad choice for a warrior with a low WS, where in the current system, it is the exact opposite.

For instance, if a WS 5 warrior attacks a WS 3 warrior (assuming 1 attack) he will have the following hit rates:

WS 5 attacks WS 3 (no parry): 0,67 hit rate
WS 5 attacks WS 3 (old parry): 0,5 hit rate.
WS 5 attacks WS 3 (new parry): 0,64 hit rate.

This means that it will be almost impossible for the WS 3 warrior to parry attacks from a very superior attacker

If the WS 3 warrior attacks the WS 5 warrior, the hit rates are:

WS 3 attacks WS 5 (no parry): 0,5 hit rate
WS 3 attacks WS 5 (old parry): 0,42 hit rate.
WS 3 attacks WS 5 (new parry): 0,25 hit rate

In the old system, there was almost no difference whether the WS 5 warrior could parry or not. This is no longer the case, as his risk of getting hit is reduced in half.

If the attacker and defender have the same WS, there is no difference between the systems.

I think I will try to get this system implemented in our group to try it out

The adding WS to the roll seems popular, my only question is what would people do regarding rolling a 6 to hit? Is it still 'unparryable'?