Larian Studios Forums Divine Divinity (English) Suggestions Parry

I think weapons should be able to Parry, giving them an Armour value. Weapons like the Sword and Staff could have relatively high Armour ratings (say 70 for top of the line Swords, 100 for Staffs), improved by <Weapon> Expertise. Weapons like the Axe and Dagger would have low Armour ratings (say 10), but make up for it in the damage they can do (magical or critical damage for daggers). The Armour rating would be standard for weapons, meaning you could parry even if you are untrained, but for it to be effective you need levels of <Weapon> Expertise. Ranged weapons would not have a rating at all, as doing so would snap them in an instant.

Also, I think that Shield Expertise should also improve the Armour rating of your shield. How can additional training not benefit you in this way?

Thoughts?

If not for divine divinity it should absolutely be done for Rift Runner you would better suggest it there <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> Though they could do it with a new pathc to dd too

HandEFoot, yes, good idea in case if I don't want to use a shield. I think Shield expertise should add defence instead of bash damage and add a skill called parry which works only if you have a one handed bladed weapon, maybe?
Also having a shield should prevent your from parrying.

I still like the idea of the shield bash. There's no reason you can't use it for both offense and defense. I was thinking that Parry would be an inate ability. Just as all weapons come with a Damage rating, they'd all have an Armour rating too. They could start with a 5% Chance To Block and increase with training. Same for the shield; it should incresae it's chance to block with training.

What if the chances were changed to:

Body: 20%-30% (depending on size)
Legs: 10%
Feet: 5%
Hands: 5%
Shield: 10%-20% (depending on size)
Weapon: 0%-10% (depending on difficulty)
TOTAL: 80% maximum chance to block any one hit, assuming full equipment.

You could train your weapon or shield up to 20% and 30% respectively with <Weapon> Expertise, making a total of 100% chance to block any one hit. Now bigger armour is a lot better!

I don't think there should be a separate Parry skill. The Armour rating of a weapon should go up with the <Weapon> Expertise. Parrying with a sword is very different to parrying with a staff.

There's no reason you can't parry with a shield or with a two-handed weapon. A two-handed axe would have an abismal Armour rating anyway because it's too difficult to manuveur. Some weapons could even have an Armour rating of zero.

Have a look at the arcade game (also on console) Soul Calibre for some interesting medieval combat.

"You could train your weapon or shield up to 20% and 30% respectively with <Weapon> Expertise, making a total of 100% chance to block any one hit. Now bigger armour is a lot better!"

this reminds me of the warrior from diablo 1...

somehow i think a 100% chance of blocking seems a bit unfair to say the least...

of course a way to balance that would be to make the durability of shields much much more easily affected by blocking blows...

idunno... i LOVE the idea of a parrying skill (it's beneficial to all "classes" aside from perhaps the ranger which would use it's dodge ability...) but one would have to restructure game elements to make it balanced (remember that npcs should follow the same rules as the player, thus they would use the parry skill as well)...

maybe each parry would cause a drop in stamina (but not if there's less than a 100% chance blows will be deflected... seriously, 100% chance just seems a bit too unfair... it'd make the player practically invincible when it comes to physical attacks...)? idunno...

Just because the blow is blocked doesn't mean you don't take damage. Can you imagine being hit in the side with a Mace while wearing Chain Mail? It would still bloody hurt! It's just that it wouldn't hurt as much than if you weren't wearing the Chain Mail.

Perhaps 95% should be highest total blocking. No suit of armour is complete impenitrable.

"Just because the blow is blocked doesn't mean you don't take damage. Can you imagine being hit in the side with a Mace while wearing Chain Mail? It would still bloody hurt! It's just that it wouldn't hurt as much than if you weren't wearing the Chain Mail."

indeed but we're talking about a parrying ability here... 100% parrying ability would mean you would NEVER get hit in the side with a mace as long as you're still armed with a shield or blocking capable weapon... - although i do believe it is feasable to assume there is still a hitpoint loss for a parried attack - albeit minor compared to being smacked flat in the head (you'd look like this guy --> <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/silly.gif" alt="" /> it's reasonable to assume that if an opponent parrys every physical attack one could still chip away it's health... perhaps each parry would take away some stamina as well as a negligable amount of health - the stamina would re-accrue as a result of standing still but when there's no stamina left the character would face a greater hitpoint loss?)

regardless of if such a skill is implemented i think it would be badass to include a randomized parry animation+sound effect... blah i guess i'm basically saying that it'd just be badass to include even if the parry bonus is adds a 5% chance of defending against a blow (although in that circumstance the player should suffer no stamina or hitpoint loss)...

effectively implementing a parry skill (without it unbalancing the gameplay) could indeed prove to be a tough task... but i hope the divdiv team sees it fit as something to pursue or simply look into <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" />

No, because blocking with your weapon or shield only counts for up to 50% of your blocks. The other 50% is made up of bodily armour. Any hit that lands on you has a chance of hitting a piece of armour or finding a chink in it. You can add an extra layer of protection with a weapon and shield. So if they get past the weapon and shield, they then have the armour to deal with. Hitting the armour still hurts the character. If they manage to get through that, they are very lucky!

Looking now, take another 5% off the Shield so that you do not become entirely impervious.

i see now what you meant although personally i consider getting hit as getting hit, regardless of worn armor... however what you describe (direct hit past armor, weapons, shield) could make for a good rationale behind critical strikes!


EDIT: what you said about soul caliber made me consider another possibility worth looking into... counter-attacks (tagged with the parry attack or as an inate skill? intresting to ponder or consider <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/biggrin.gif" alt="" /> )! or perhaps a parried attack would carry a stamina loss or stun effect for the attacker? the possibilities are endless...

and then you have duel weapons!

Parrying with two weapons would work just the same. Each weapon adds it's respective blocking ratio. The best weapon never has more chance of blocking than the best shield, so you can't have more than a 100% chance to block.

If you wielded two shields on the other hand...

...sheild bash! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" />

Shield sandwich! <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif" alt="" />

maybe the death knight and the player could team up to make a move, a special move, with 2 shields each, sandwich him inbetween them <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/badsmile2.gif" alt="" />


or a closeline move <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/devil.gif" alt="" />

I seem to remember we had this discussion (dual-character skills) once before...

Found it: Group spells

Just two thoughts from my side :

- Blocking with a shield should imho get a very very small chance of breaking the thing. I mean - you try to block a dwarf hammering his axe into your shield - if it's only made of wood, the shield could break at one point, especially with a *lot* of strenth hanging on the axe. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Strengthening the shield with metal should reduce this chance somehow.

- A very special and very delicate method of blicking can currently be seen in "Jedi Academy" : Blocking one sword with two swords by making a kind of "x" shape with the two swords. It's really difficult to explain what I mean in English, but I guess you've already seen it in screenshots . <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Anyway, this method is so difficult imho, that it should only be available to true masters of both sword and dual wielding at the same time, as a special gimmik / reward. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" />

Shields do take damage from weapons. I agree that it's not exactly balanced, but your shield does eventually break under repeated strikes. Metal shields have a higher durability. Perhaps the armour needs hit-points, so weapon damage can be applied to them. Hamemrs, etc. invariably have a higher damage rating, so they will work through armour faster.

What's wrong with the durability points...?

Nothing. I'd just like to have a better understanding on how they work.