Supernatural P.S. vs. Regular P.S. in melee combat

[jburkett]

Hello, my players will potentially be in a situation where they will be engaged in melee combat with a D-bee with Supernatural Strength and I have a couple questions.

Can a character with normal human strength parry an attack from a creature with Super Natural strength? If so, do they need to be using a MD weapon to do this (ex. vibro-knife) or can they parry with their MD armor (wrist or gauntlet, etc.)?

I know I had more questions regarding this scenario but they aren't coming to mind right now. If you can think of any other things I should be considering given this situation I would be grateful. I should mention that the D-bee they are facing is a N'mbyr who is in a raging state (and thus, has a Supernatural Strength of 24 [if I remember correctly]) and will be throwing M.D. kicks and punches.
Thanks!

[The Beast]

Generally in Palladium to parry something is to redirect the attack, so if that's your foundation then it should be possible for someone with a PS of 9 to parry someone with a SNPS of 27. Most people seem to require a MD attack be parried by an equivalent object (so no SDC swords or what have you).

Now the only exception to this that I recall is from the Mt Nimro book for the PFRPG setting. That exception basically said that normal-sized people couldn't successfully parry attacks from giants. So if in the above example the defender was a vagabond and the attacker was a 20ft tall robot the vagabond would still take (full?) damage.

Having said that there can be situations when the defender should take damage. If our vagabond had no armor and could only block an attack with a MDC shield, and our attacker was a demon of some sort who took a swipe at our vagabond. IIRC, the old rules would say that the vagabond himself would take 1 point of damage from every 10 points the demon did to the shield, plus there were also the optional knock-down rules that would apply here. I'm not sure what the current rules are for bleed-through damage, but I'm fairly sure the optional knock-down rules are still good.

[Blue_Lion]

Yes a charter with regular PS can parry an attack from a creature with SN PS. A parry does not require stopping the attack, you simply need to redirect it like a fencer. So it does not need an opposed strength.

[jingizu999]

As always, when there is not a specific ironclad rule for a situation it is a matter for GM interpretation. I see this as an opportunity rather than a roadblock.

One note to start off with. The N’mbyr is NOT a supernatural creature. It has Augmented strength that become EQUIVILENT to supernatural strength when raging as he’s basically running on a massive adrenalin rush. Since it’s not actually supernatural I’d let his attacks be parried as normal, they are just going to crush you if you miss the parry.

Now on to overly pedantic rules interpretation.

Rifts Game Master's Guide PG 25: "Simply put, supernatural creatures of magic are NOT human. They are something else. Creatures that defy the laws of physics and draw upon arcane forces and energies (like magic) as part of their innate existence. Thus, they are more than human."

Rifts Game Master's Guide PG 33: "Are there any types of physical attacks you cannot parry? Like a dragon's bite?" "Definitely. A parry is generally used to deflect or physically block an attack, so if an attack can not be deflected or blocked, it cannot be parried. This means that falling boulders, energy blasts, bullets, etc., cannot be parried."

Rifts Game Master's Guide PG 33: "Likewise, if you have no shield, hand weapon, or arm guards to parry with, one can not parry a sword strike or other attack..."

While Kevin does not specifically address parrying an MDC punch from a supernatural creature, I believe the intent is clear. As the GM you are expected to insert a certain level of common sense in interpreting the rules. If you aren't certain of K.S.' intent, just read his notes on player's abusing SDC rules to do stupid things (Rift's Game Master's Guide PG 35: S.D.C. and Combat) or ask him about it at Gencon and watch him growl in frustration as his head explodes. Much of Kevin's intent in rules resolution comes down to "don't be an idiot", and that applies to both players and GMs.

I can tell you as a long time (though amateur) fencer, that parrying very much requires strength as well as technique. Not nearly as much as a bind or a beat, but you are still moving a mass in a direction it was not previously moving. When you parry a blow, you are applying a lateral force sufficient to overcome the attacker's momentum and change the impact point of their attack. Preferably to a point that doesn't hit you and turn you into tomato paste. When attacker and defender are of similar strengths (IE, both human) the strength required is small, maybe 1/10th the strength of the attacker, as you are redirecting rather than stopping the attack's momentum. However as the attacker's strength increases it will require a commensurate increase in the defender's strength to force the attack to one side. If you doubt the need for strength in a parry you can conduct a simple experiment. Weld a metal rod to a steel plate, stand in front of it, and try to "parry" the rod to one side or another with your hands. The rod won't move significantly because the force you can apply with human physiology is insufficient to break the weld holding the rod in place. In the same way, the force you can apply with physics and physiology is insufficient to redirect a force repeatedly said to defy the laws of physics and be powered by forces beyond nature. Outside of a Kung-Fu movie, you can't deflect a blow with a feather light touch. You can't parry an oncoming forklift, and you can't parry a strong supernatural blow.

That being said, there is an exception. Rifts Game Master's Guide PG 26 under Weight & Movement: Supernatural Creatures. "Creatures with a strength of 17 or less are equal to humans..." Therefore I would allow a mortal character to parry a blow from a supernatural source with strength 17 or less just like any other attack. In your specific case of a supernatural strength of 24 the character is strong enough to carry over half a ton (1,200 lbs) and lift over a ton (2,400 lbs). That is simply not a blow that can be deflected with merely human strength. If the character has robot or augmented strength I would allow a parry as long as the supernatural strength is below 30. For supernatural strength over 30 I would only allow a parry by another supernatural source.

TL,DR My interpretation based on real world physics is no, you can't parry a strong supernatural blow with unaugmented hand to hand combat, but you can parry augmented strength attacks.

[Incriptus]

I'm just spit balling here, I usually base it on what is maximum fun at the moment, but if I were to formalize such rules

Catagories: Normal, Augmented, Robotic, Supernatural

Modifiers: Manual, Massive

If you are the same category Parry as usual
If you are one category inferior you take 1 point of damage on a successful parry from strain
If you are two categories inferior you take 1/4 damage from successful parry
If you are three categories inferior you take 1/2 damage from successful parry
If you are four categories inferior you can not parry

If you choose to make a manual parry instead of an autoparry [applies only to those trained in HTH] you count as one category higher.

If you are sufficiently massive you count as one category higher.

--------------

So if a normal guy tries to auto-parry a supernatural being he's still going to take 1/2 damage, he could try to use an attack for the parry and get it down to 1/4 damage. A juicer would auto parry at 1/4 damage, or manually parry at 1 damage.

A giant with Augmented strength would be a step above a juicer

A giant Robot would be equal to a supernatural being

So on and So forth

[Killer Cyborg]

Could allow the parry, but use the Knockdown rules even if the damage is prevented.

[Shark_Force]

supernatural PS defies physics, yes. but not in the way you might think.

in terms of raw strength, supernatural PS does not outperform normal PS by nearly as much as the damage would suggest; supernatural PS is more destructive, not more forceful, than the numbers would indicate. a dog boy with high strength can lift tremendous amounts. a juicer can, iirc, lift more weight than a supernatural PS equivalent to their augmented PS.

so while a supernatural PS is probably harder to parry, it isn't going to be anything like 100 times as much force. more likely, we're talking 5ish times as much force behind it (less for high "regular" PS values), which is certainly a lot, but not nearly as much as the damage would suggest.

in particular:

a "normal" human can carry 10 lbs per point of PS, up to 20 for high strength values.
an augmented PS... can't find the reference, but i recall double normal. that might be based on superhuman PS from heroes unlimited, and of course it might just be that augmented PS is generally high enough to benefit from the higher multiplier of higher PS values.
robotic PS is 20 per point of PS, up to 100 for very large robots with a high PS.
supernatural is 50 per point of PS (down to 20 for weaker supernatural PS).

so, looking at that, we're only talking 5 times as much force as a normal human for supernatural PS. less if that human has a high PS value. and yet clearly far more than 5 times the damage.

supernatural PS is supernaturally destructive; it can overcome the toughness of such things as concrete bunkers, a car's engine block, a bank vault, or a gigantic war machine (among other targets), and actually inflict damage far beyond what you would expect under normal situations. a human, no matter their strength, is not supposed to be able to punch a hole in a 6" think steel plate, no matter how many times they try. a creature with supernatural PS can gradually smash their way through, in spite of potentially having the exact same number value on their PS.

so i wouldn't go anywhere near as far as to suggest that supernatural PS should be nearly impossible to block, at least not as a general rule. i would base it more on mass than i would on PS value. you can parry a vampire, but you can't parry a 30 foot robot's stomp attack (unless you yourself possess appropriate mass). you simply cannot shift that much mass with normal human muscles.

(i would also consider attacks that make it technically possible for the creature to hit, but exceptionally inadvisable, to be parrying however; a human with a vibro-sword may not be able to swat away a giant's club, but if they can threaten to cut off the giant's finger should that giant follow through properly instead of turning the club away, i would allow them to "parry" in that manner... at a penalty).

[Warshield73]

Could allow the parry, but use the Knockdown rules even if the damage is prevented.

This is what we started doing after the rules first appeared in WB 1. It gives a sense of realism.

Again all you can do here is put in some house rules that you and your players like and go with it.

[eliakon]

The answer is "what makes your particular game better"
If your game is improved by making the various strength levels be unable to be parried by those in the lower brackets, than that is what the rule is.
If your game is improved by allowing everyone a chance to parry and not allowing certain fighters to be unable to be countered... then that is what the rule is.

There is no canon ruling on this, so as with many things it is purely a question of what makes a particular game better. I fully expect that the rule will be different at almost every table with some shading between "yes, always no changes at all" to "yes with some changes" to "maybe" all the way through to "no never"

[Vrykolas2k]

Hello, my players will potentially be in a situation where they will be engaged in melee combat with a D-bee with Supernatural Strength and I have a couple questions.

Can a character with normal human strength parry an attack from a creature with Super Natural strength? If so, do they need to be using a MD weapon to do this (ex. vibro-knife) or can they parry with their MD armor (wrist or gauntlet, etc.)?

I know I had more questions regarding this scenario but they aren't coming to mind right now. If you can think of any other things I should be considering given this situation I would be grateful. I should mention that the D-bee they are facing is a N'mbyr who is in a raging state (and thus, has a Supernatural Strength of 24 [if I remember correctly]) and will be throwing M.D. kicks and punches.
Thanks!

Since an actual Parry is a redirection, yes.
A Parry isn't a Block, no matter how many movies get this confused.

[Prysus]

Greetings and Salutations. As others have stated, Palladium doesn't address this specific issue very clearly. Everyone needs to find what works best for them. After giving the matter some thought a while back (and listening/reading to the viewpoints of some others), I came up with these house rules:

1. A character with normal strength attempting to parry a character with Supernatural Strength suffers a -2 penalty to parry. This makes it a little more difficult, but still possible. Note: I did not factor in the various strength categories of Rifts and/or Heroes Unlimited, but left it at Supernatural and Normal strength categories as that is rather common across most of Palladium's game lines.

2. If you cannot lift the attacker, then you cannot parry the attacker (regardless of the attacker's strength category). Note: This came about because of references in books to difficulty parrying giants and dragons. People often try to compare parrying a supernatural punch to parrying a semi-truck or a wrecking ball, except even if a semi-truck or wrecking ball are NOT moving, you'd still have extreme difficulty moving those items. While some creatures with Supernatural Strength are massive, others are more humanoid in weight.

Those, and a few other random house rules for parrying can be found here: http://www.prysus.com/parrying_expanded.htm

That's all for now. Farewell and safe journeys to all.