Defensive Grappling.

[Bob Richter]

2-die "probing" attacks are lame in the game just as they are in real life.  If you punch a brawler that lamely, chances are that he'll break your arm.  If you strike a swordfighter with a sword that badly, he may not even bother to block it.

If I were fighting an unarmed man with a sword IRL, I would take lots of strong, fast cuts and give him no room to close in.

You'd wear yourself out pretty quickly that way, as he consistently full evaded and waited for you to wear yourself out with your wild swings.

Consider. You have to save SOMETHING for defense on the second exchange. If he gets in an unarmed hit on you, you might as well throw in the towel then and there: he's under your reach and you're about to take a beating.

As to weak attacks being lame: yes. They will never hit anything or cause any damage. As a matter of fact, they are not intended to. Rather, they are used as a lure to get your opponent to overcommit to his defense.

Break my arm? I'm sure he'll have an easy time with that as I follow up by throwing him over my shoulder.

Not block? Then he's a fool. I just slit his throat with a feint.

[Lyrax]

I didn't say "wild."  I said strong and quick.  That means spending a fair amount of CP dice, not just one or two.  And he'd find that fully evading (i.e. running away) would wear him out at least as quickly as swinging a sword.

If he gets an unarmed hit on me, then I'll drop my sword and deck him in the face.  However, I'd much rather just kill him when he's at range.

The 2-die attack is just begging for a disarm, grapple, or block open and strike unless it's a feint (in which case it isn't a wimpy 2-die attack anymore, is it?)

[Bob Richter]

The 2-die attack is just begging for a disarm, grapple, or block open and strike unless it's a feint (in which case it isn't a wimpy 2-die attack anymore, is it?)

Against a ten-die Defensive Grapple, it might as well be. Every point by which he succeeds is a level of damage YOU ACTUALLY TAKE. Even a single success in his margin leaves you flat on your back.

Defensive Grappling REALLY sucks.

I like some of the variant rules here presented, though.

[Lance D. Allen]

You know, thinking about it, there are good times to do a feint, and bad times to do a feint.. On the second exchange of a round is, in my opinion, a bad time to do a feint. The defender will be using all he's got to defend on the second round, and if you undercommit, he's still going to use it all, and do so in a manner that can hurt you, if he's able. A feint is best used on the first exchange of a combat, where you can get your opponent to undercommit, hoping to save dice. Admittedly, it means burning your dicepool while leaving him the rest of his, but the point of a feint is to hurt them unexpectedly, so they don't get to use all of that leftover dicepool, if any of it. It's the risk you take when you do a feint that they will not undercommit. When they don't, it usually really sucks for you.

[Bob Richter]

You know, thinking about it, there are good times to do a feint, and bad times to do a feint.. On the second exchange of a round is, in my opinion, a bad time to do a feint. The defender will be using all he's got to defend on the second round, and if you undercommit, he's still going to use it all, and do so in a manner that can hurt you, if he's able. A feint is best used on the first exchange of a combat, where you can get your opponent to undercommit, hoping to save dice. Admittedly, it means burning your dicepool while leaving him the rest of his, but the point of a feint is to hurt them unexpectedly, so they don't get to use all of that leftover dicepool, if any of it. It's the risk you take when you do a feint that they will not undercommit. When they don't, it usually really sucks for you.

Actually, it usually doesn't. It usually really sucks for them, because it means they overcommitted to the feint YOU DIDN'T THROW.

But the Defensive Grapple carries back immediately into an attack that YOU CANNOT DEFEND AGAINST. It is the only maneuver that does so.

[Vanguard]

One way of handling probing attacks involves having the players declare their moves before dice assigned (is it like this in the book?).

EG. Fighters A & B role init.

A rolls red, white rolls white.

Red (A) declares thrust with rapier, white (B) declares block.

They then declare dice used. 2-8 would be fine as a succesful block doesn't grant any advantage in the next round except init (at a loss of lots of dice). White would have been wiser to commit only 3-5 maybe, just like a probing attack would be dealt with, I imagine.

But had fighter B declared a defensive grapple instead, then fighter A would have foolish indeed to commit only 2 dice - knowing the consequences of getting succesfully grappled. He would be wiser not using a probing attack against an enemy rushing at him, arms reaching. You spit THAT bastard proper.

This process gives players even more strategy to play with - trying to second-guess the ferocity of an incoming blow and how to deal with it.

Did that make sense or was it too waffly? Oh Dear...