Some maneuver and weapon questions.

[Caz]

I'm still a bit confused on the dagger issue.  So, I understand that if you just stand there, and you put your dagger between you and an incoming sword, you're probably gonna die.  But, in my experience, it's no harder to put the dagger there than it is to put your arm there.  And who would defend by just standing there and interposing the dagger?  Sounds like some people have trouble with that though.  I think a dagger makes defense easier than bare hands, from practical experience, and I really don't think I'm unique.  
   For an untrained person, yes, but an untrained person wouldn't have the proficiency.
   Try this.  Get a training dagger, and just defend vs. an unrmed person.  It should be easier if you have any skill.
   For spears, if it's a purely thrusting spear, the head is too light to change the balance.  If it's a cutting head, it's almost a polearm and the blance will be slightly different, but still I'd save tht for a more granular world.  
   Defending with a spear one handed is best done vertically, (if it's not too long) so it's not hard either, and won't work against you, and it's still easy to thrust with from that position.  But hey, if you're doing that you probably have a shield anyway.
   I don't say anything I haven't tried either, I'm no BS artist.  I've tried all these, and I've handled enough replicas.

[toli]

Blocking or deflecting with an armored hand would work quite well I suppose, and you could treat it as a buckler if you liked.
Jake

The reason I thought of this is that with the advent of full plate, knights (heavy cavalry) stopped using shields in many cases.  (You certainly read this over and over again.)  In many of the paintings for the mid 1400's (say Ucello), the knights are rarely carrying shields (except in tournaments).  The armors from the time period also frequently have more developed defenses on the left side of the armor.    

That and I always liked Thralls in full garde from Talislanta....ahem...

[Ashren Va'Hale]

I'm still a bit confused on the dagger issue.  So, I understand that if you just stand there, and you put your dagger between you and an incoming sword, you're probably gonna die.  But, in my experience, it's no harder to put the dagger there than it is to put your arm there.  And who would defend by just standing there and interposing the dagger?  Sounds like some people have trouble with that though.  I think a dagger makes defense easier than bare hands, from practical experience, and I really don't think I'm unique.  
   For an untrained person, yes, but an untrained person wouldn't have the proficiency.
   Try this.  Get a training dagger, and just defend vs. an unrmed person.  It should be easier if you have any skill.
   For spears, if it's a purely thrusting spear, the head is too light to change the balance.  If it's a cutting head, it's almost a polearm and the blance will be slightly different, but still I'd save tht for a more granular world.  
   Defending with a spear one handed is best done vertically, (if it's not too long) so it's not hard either, and won't work against you, and it's still easy to thrust with from that position.  But hey, if you're doing that you probably have a shield anyway.
   I don't say anything I haven't tried either, I'm no BS artist.  I've tried all these, and I've handled enough replicas.

I didnt realize this whole discussion was about parrying an UNARMED attack. in that case it would likely not be that much more difficult but nonetheless, your arm is 1: bigger, 2: wider, 3: not as specific as far as what part to parry with. A dagger must defend with a smaller area, a specific part (flat or cross unless a roundel and then you have the whole dagger to parry with but NO cross) and generally the entire motion of parrying with a dagger is different than with your arm. In otherwords, I think jakes DTN is justified and also for the reasons he gave.[/i]

[Caz]

It's not about vs. unarmed, just an example.  Maybe the reason so many people think it's harder to parry w/a dagger, is because, like you said, they're trying to use a different motion than that of their arm.  If you're holding it underhand, you have the option of blocking w/your arm vs. something that won't hurt it, or blocking w/the dagger on your arm.  Either way, it's no more difficult.  If you interpose your dagger or your arm, you do it with the length, so it's width/thickness does not enter into the equation.  And since it'l laying on your arm or at a strong angle, neither does the part, or leverage.
   Same if you hold it overhand.  But, if you hold it overhand, a larger weapons leverage will work against you in a strike, but it's no harder to interpose your dagger than your hand, and if you have a proficiency, you should be stifling it to help negate the leverage.  
   Maybe I'm thinking about it wrong.  Is the high dtn not representing your ability to defend with it, but how hard it is to stop blows from heavier weapons?  If that's the case, the dtn should fluctuate depending on the weapon it's facing, shouldn't it?  It should be same as hand for putting by thrusts, (or better) and unarmed and dagger attacks, but high vs. swung long weapons?  It's no harder to defend against a rapier with a rondel dagger than a main gauche, but a left hand daggers guard makes it easier to trap a thrusting blade.

[Caz]

Here's something I whipped up I think I'll start using.  
Dagger, atn 6  dtn 7

DTN + 1 per range increment of the weapn over the dagger, for defending vs. blows.  (might try the same w/bare hands)
   This works much like attacking vs. longer weapons, simulating the difficulty of closing the distance to stifle swung attacks of longer weapons, or for the untrained, the difficulty of stopping swung attacks by longer weapons in place.  
   It simply handles all the fluctuation in dtn.  Thoughts?
A dagger designed to be used for parrying rapiers may have an abstract -1 dtn vs thrusts, or simply a lower activation cost for binding the opposing blade.

Here's another exercise.  Spar unarmed vs. a sword.  Then spar w/a dagger vs. the sword.  Which one's easier to defend and attack with?

[Ashren Va'Hale]

Here's another exercise. Spar unarmed vs. a sword. Then spar w/a dagger vs. the sword. Which one's easier to defend and attack with?

one is not EASIER to defend with in the sense you are thinking of.  Its EASY to parry with my arm, my arm just happens to get FREAKING CHOPPED OFF. The Dagger is harder to parry with but leaves me with my arm intact. Its all part of the rule that one can parry a swing with their hands/arms if they want, but the limb takes the damage.

Can anyone else perhaps say it clearer than I have been?

Heres another stab while I am at it. The DTN represents catching the incoming object in a manner that allows you to either block or deflect (parry) the incoming attack. This doesnt take into account the common sense factor of what will happen to the interceding object. Thus the DTN for your hands/arms is lower because its easier to place them infront of the blow, that doesnt mean its a smart thing to do though.

so, in real life, if I want to stick my hand/arm in front of the swing of the longsword, thats damn easy. Getting the arm to stay attached is a different matter. Now trying to do the same with a dagger is more difficult.
But I would prefer the dagger.

So there's my trying to rephrase one last time, after which I will quit since if there still is no understanding between us we are simply speaking different languages and it will save us both many a headache if we just quit trying. [/quote]

[Ingenious]

And then we all forget what parrying really is about. It's about re-directing attacks.. sending them off in a direction other than towards you. So instead of BLOCKING with aforementioned arm and it being 'FREAKING CHOPPED OFF'... you essentially swat at the thing in an attempt to send it in a different trajectory. It's also like palm-thrusting the thing out of the way... and if you're SMART about it when you're unarmed in the hand region, you'll be hitting the flat, non-razor sharp side of the sword. It's like the inverse of using a broadsword to break someone's clavicle... by hitting them with the flat side of the sword in order to have more surface area and force at the point of impact. Plus it's safer to do this way.. and most likely easier than with a dagger due to a dagger being shorter than an arm, not as easily articulated as a hand... etc etc etc.
Hell, even when parrying with a dagger it isn't like you're putting steel to steel in hopes of completely stopping the attack.. that would be outrageous to attempt. In rapier/dagger mode.. a parrying dagger such as a main gauche or other form of parrying dagger would be used to intersect the weapon.. and then you would 'turn' the parry and push the opponent's weapon away from you.. etc. etc.
Ash, you mention the common sense factor of the arm or other appendage taking damage that is doing the blocking... it depends on how you are parrying with the appendage.. if you're going to use sweeping moves to swat away the incoming weapon... or if you're going to be smart and try to take on the edged part with your arm/leg/whatever.
Hell, let's even talk about martial arts for a second. Anyone worth listening to in that field knows how to redirect punches, kicks.. etc.

*shrug*
-Ingenious

[Ashren Va'Hale]

And then we all forget what parrying really is about. It's about re-directing attacks.. sending them off in a direction other than towards you. So instead of BLOCKING with aforementioned arm and it being 'FREAKING CHOPPED OFF'... you essentially swat at the thing in an attempt to send it in a different trajectory. It's also like palm-thrusting the thing out of the way... and if you're SMART about it when you're unarmed in the hand region, you'll be hitting the flat, non-razor sharp side of the sword. It's like the inverse of using a broadsword to break someone's clavicle... by hitting them with the flat side of the sword in order to have more surface area and force at the point of impact. Plus it's safer to do this way.. and most likely easier than with a dagger due to a dagger being shorter than an arm, not as easily articulated as a hand... etc etc etc.
Hell, even when parrying with a dagger it isn't like you're putting steel to steel in hopes of completely stopping the attack.. that would be outrageous to attempt. In rapier/dagger mode.. a parrying dagger such as a main gauche or other form of parrying dagger would be used to intersect the weapon.. and then you would 'turn' the parry and push the opponent's weapon away from you.. etc. etc.
Ash, you mention the common sense factor of the arm or other appendage taking damage that is doing the blocking... it depends on how you are parrying with the appendage.. if you're going to use sweeping moves to swat away the incoming weapon... or if you're going to be smart and try to take on the edged part with your arm/leg/whatever.
Hell, let's even talk about martial arts for a second. Anyone worth listening to in that field knows how to redirect punches, kicks.. etc.

*shrug*
-Ingenious

AAAAAAAAGH

I quit.

[Ingenious]

Dude.
I was merely pointing out that the factors in calculating DTN's was acceptable to me. The whole thing makes sense to me. You only have to use a little bit of effort to swat something out of the way with your hands.
Now then, parrying with a dagger... involves more motion than with hands.

Example:
Say someone did an overhand diagonal-swing to my zone 4(left shoulder)
All I do is push the sword away as I pivot to where I am perpendicular to him.. and he would then be facing my left shoulder. I hope you see my point with that... It would be far more effortless to do than to attempt to just stand there and hope to redirect a cut such as that with a parrying dagger.

-Ingenious

[contracycle]

That means that they usually have a *lot* of money on their hands, since thy don't have to buy a house.

Then they look an awful lot like bandits, don't they?  Dirty and unwashed (who's doing their laundry?  no soap powder after all), paranoid and suspicious (they're rich, they know it, they have no Safe Place) and ready for violence.

If you were the county sheriff and a band of raggedy warriors who'd clearly not slept in a bed for weeks came into town and started flashing gold about, wouldn't you wonder if they were ill-gotten gains?

[Jake Norwood]

   Try this.  Get a training dagger, and just defend vs. an unrmed person.  It should be easier if you have any skill.
   For spears, if it's a purely thrusting spear, the head is too light to change the balance.  If it's a cutting head, it's almost a polearm and the blance will be slightly different, but still I'd save tht for a more granular world.  
   Defending with a spear one handed is best done vertically, (if it's not too long) so it's not hard either, and won't work against you, and it's still easy to thrust with from that position.  But hey, if you're doing that you probably have a shield anyway.

Whoa. Big difference in parrying an unarmed attack with a knife in your hand, yeah. But why? Better to kill with the knife, yes?

As for the spear. If you're using a spear one-handed you have zero leverage for anything but the most "oh crap" of defenses. Hence the shield.

Jake

[Caz]

Lol nobody knows what I'm talking about!  
   As for the spear, try some of the one handed spear work in gladiatoria, w/the point down.  It's excellent for defense, and still easy to thrust with.
   As for the dagger, like it was said, it's common sense you'll get your arm chopped off it you put it in the way of a sword cut.  Why I didn't bring that up.  I'm talking about the ease of putting it there.  And if someone is talking about going unarmed vs. a sword, what kind of retard would assume you'd block the blade w/your arm anyhow?
   The DTN on daggers as is means it's extremely hard to move a dagger around.  I'm saying it's not much harder to move a dagger than a hand.  And there is a grand canyon of difference in the dtn in this very non-granular system.  Some are saying they can't defend themselves with a dagger worth a darn because it doesn't have a wrist.  Fine for them.  I just don't see that it's that hard to put a dagger there instead of your arm.  But thanks for the attempts anyhow hehe, been fun

[kidar]

Parrying with a dagger against anything other than a thrust is nearly impossible if the guy really wants to kill you, unless you are quite skilled (in TROS terms, that means "higher DTN"). Historically the dagger was protection against thrusts and for closing in for the kill, meaning that the sword was actually the defense weapon and the dagger was the kill weapon. It's an issue of leverage, amongst other things.

Yeh, one of my players is using a dagger/rapier combination and he uses his dagger to parry blows. The DTN of 7 against any kind of attacks is too high (as there's no lenght penalties when parrying).  My player nicely used his dagger nicely against a great sword.. and I actually realized that it is just as easy to parry great sword with an other great sword that it is with a dagger.
Do you use some house rules?

[Mike Holmes]

Caz, actually I, for one agree with you. But look at the DTN of the spear listed. Does it seem wrong to you? I'm just arguing that it should be worse than the DTN on a quarterstaff. Would you disagree?

Mike