Parry & Taunt

I dislike these skills as I mentioned in another post. It is not because they are op, but because they are not part of PnP. I had planed on disabling them both. Mammon would like to try to rename Taunt Intimidate, and then disable Intimidate. I do not take issue with that, as Taunt is similar, although stronger, to the demoralize function of Intimidate in PnP.

I stated I was not opposed to a debate on the subject, so if you have feelings one way or the other, please post here.

If we were to change Taunt's name to Intimidate, we could change Intimidate to Sense Motive. The benefit of this is that Sense Motive would have a skill focus. We would have to rename the skill descriptions and feat descriptions in our custom .tlk file, but that should not be much work.

The down side is feats such as Thug, would also change. It would provide a +2 to Initiative, Appraise and Sense Motive.

i'm pretty sure we could change thug via a .tlk file to still apply to intimidate (and thereby taunt), just like we have to change intimidate and taunt via the .tlk. I'll look into it.

Anyways I'll figure out how all this .tlk stuff works and then get on fixing them. We're going to need to modify it for deities, class, and race description anyways. :-P

Mammon wrote:

i'm pretty sure we could change thug via a .tlk file to still apply to intimidate (and thereby taunt), just like we have to change intimidate and taunt via the .tlk. I'll look into it.

Anyways I'll figure out how all this .tlk stuff works and then get on fixing them. We're going to need to modify it for deities, class, and race description anyways. :-P

The feats apply bonuses based on the skill constant, which is defined by their row number in the 2da file. Or at least I think that is the way it works.

The tlk editing is easy. Its really just assigning descriptions to numbers, then putting the numbers in the corresponding 2da file so when someone selects a class, feat, deity or what have you, they read the description assigned to the number which is listed in the before mentioned 2da file.

Edit, I could attempt to write a new spell script for thug which applied the correct bonuses, as permanent skill modifiers, but I am not sure if it would read the new script without creating a new feat with the same name and disabling the old one all together. It would need either a heartbeat sensor or an on entry script which checked for the effects, removed the effects from the script, then applied the effects back again.

No one has feelings on this?

In a low powered setting Parry works well in my experience.

Frankly, I can build a 3rd level PC that has around +12 to parry after adjustments and say the aforementioned off-hand dagger for example.

Have tested a build like this and they work, if you know how to approach things as a player.

I'm not sure on how the mechanics work, but i think the issue isn't it's usability, it's that the system doesn't have a basis in dnd.

How broken is this system NWN? can you use parry to make your pc near-invincible? or is it just an alternative to tromping around in full plate?

Personally, while I don't like parry, if the system isn't broken I don't see a need to take it out simply because it's work that may not be appreciated as much as work in other areas.

Its basically a counter to a raging barbarian, you may stop incoming attacks fairly well, but until you start beating their attack rolls by 10 you will not do any damage. If you have Improved parry, you only need to beat there attacks by 5.

It just is not dnd to me, while not extremely op, its annoying. I would describe it as a secondary defense/damage shield. Will it always deal damage? No it will not. Still, assuming you have maxed out your parry, and fighting a character of equal level, they will miss 50% of the attacks which would normally deal damage to you.

I would want to limit it to certain classes, and have it flagged as trained only. Bards, Monks, Rangers, Rogues, Thugs, Scouts, and Swashbucklers would be the classes that had parry on their lists. They are all restricted to light armor with the exception of bards who can take two additional feats to wear medium armor. I would also flag improved parry to require 4 ranks in the parry skill at the very least.