>>Each is 'great' against it's particular niche and 'good' against others.

Exactly which does not answer the current discussion dillema: How to make parry more useful and sheild less meaningful and/or factor in parry against ranged attacks in some manner allowing folks to do away with shield if they wanted to.

I personaly dont support the idea of allowing parry even with a X% penalty to act as a viable ranged defence instead of shield as training all 3 skills is pretty easy even if one of them may always lag behind.

I would not mind the idea of "auto select" by the system against the incoming attack based on:

>> Parry - 80% against ranged, 100% against melee, 80% against spells
>> Shield - 100% against ranged, 80% against melee, 80% against spells
>> Evasion - 80% against ranged, 80% against melee, 100% against spells

>> Parry - 80% against ranged, 100% against melee, 80% against spells
>> Shield - 100% against ranged, 80% against melee, 80% against spells
>> Evasion - 80% against ranged, 80% against melee, 100% against spells


So obviously evasion takes nerfs from hinderance, and status effects more than any other defense. So basically you even them up like this and evasion users will be getting the shaft. I'm not against something to this effect, but each defense would have to be taken into consideration and tweaked based on the hard numbers. For instance parry has weapon balance, shield has size and range of protection. They both work with stats to some degree. Evasion however pretty much only works with ranks and reflex to my knowledge, well, also hinderance but that's one of the negatives that I mentioned before.

>> Parry - 80% against ranged, 100% against melee, 80% against spells
>> Shield - 100% against ranged, 80% against melee, 80% against spells
>> Evasion - 80% against ranged, 80% against melee, 100% against spells

As I have said before, this approach would nullify shield as an option for many.

If Weapon skillset > Armor skillset, train parry

If Armor skillset > Weapon skillset, train shield

That isn't as useful or balanced a combat system as what we would like to achieve.

---

"I have no data yet. It is a capital mistake to theorize before one has data. Insensibly one begins to twist facts to suit theories instead of theories to suit facts."
- Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Sherlock Holmes

>> Parry - 80% against ranged, 100% against melee, 80% against spells
>> Shield - 100% against ranged, 80% against melee, 80% against spells
>> Evasion - 80% against ranged, 80% against melee, 100% against spells

>>As I have said before, this approach would nullify shield as an option for many.

>>If Weapon skillset > Armor skillset, train parry

>>If Armor skillset > Weapon skillset, train shield

>>That isn't as useful or balanced a combat system as what we would like to achieve.

Well currently Parry is way way worse than what the proposal would do to shield, plus I don't think you are correct either, no one would stop training shield. People would still primarily be setup in shield stance ALL the time because the first attacks are almost always ranged attacks, and ranged attacks are just so much quicker. The above proposal would allow someone to actually CHANCE switching to parry in a melee situation once someone switches to a melee weapon. Trust me, its not dynamic now, its shield all the time, people have macros for pulling out thrown if they see someone stupidly using parry.

But anyways the auto-defending would work, but you would have to make it auto-defend using the ranks of the character.

1. a range attack comes in, you must use your shield ranks and shield must be present to use 100% of your skill, if it isn't present, you would attempt to use your weapon as a shield/deflect, but it would use 80% of your shield ranks for the ranged parry. You are always using your shield ranks against ranged attacks.

2. a melee attack somes in, you must use your parry ranks and parry weapon and/or parry stick must be present to use 100% of your skill, if it isn't present you would use your shield as a parry device, but it would use 80% of your parry ranks for the shield deflect/parry. You are always using your parry ranks against melee attacks.

3. You don't have a shield or parry weapon, which is the worse scenario. I haven't figured this one out yet. Maybe like you said you use defending skill to augment evasion, but you would have to do it at a hefty penalty. Maybe 50%. Otherwise you would only ever need evasion.

4. DFA attacks would roll through the same checks above, except it would ignore shield or parry or whatever and the system would pretend you don't have a shield or parry weapon and treat the checks as such. Maybe with an added 10-20% penalty for more kick?


Codiax.
Forged Weapons:
http://www.elanthipedia.org/wiki/User:Codiax#Codiax-Forged-Weapons