In the Face of Death Parkour questions

[5IronBadger]

I have two questions about the new Parkour skill from "In the Face of Death" source book.

1. Is the Special Dodging Capability in parkour intended to be used with the character's H to H skill?

2. The parkour Base skill % is listed for all abilities. Does that mean to use the Special Dodging Capability (one of the abilities) the character must roll successfully on their parkour skill percent?

How I read the skill in the book the answer seems to be yes to both but I am not sure.

[Eric42]

I have two questions about the new Parkour skill from "In the Face of Death" source book.

1. Is the Special Dodging Capability in parkour intended to be used with the character's H to H skill?

2. The parkour Base skill % is listed for all abilities. Does that mean to use the Special Dodging Capability (one of the abilities) the character must roll successfully on their parkour skill percent?

How I read the skill in the book the answer seems to be yes to both but I am not sure.

I haven't fully read the book yet, life has been getting in the way, so I had to just pull it out to look it up.

1. Yes. What I believe it simply means is that in the Combat Rules (p.172-174) Step Three (Defender May Parry, Dodge or Entangle), the rule that states "Each dodge uses up one of the character’s own attacks per melee round." is trumped by the idea that the parkour skilled PC is good enough to dodge without using up a melee round. This kinda makes it an automatic dodge, I'd say.

2. Nah. Like I've already said, this replaces how the dodge works in the Combat Rules so thus it'd work like normal dodge rolls.

(edit: fixed a mistake...)

[5IronBadger]

I have two questions about the new Parkour skill from "In the Face of Death" source book.

1. Is the Special Dodging Capability in parkour intended to be used with the character's H to H skill?

2. The parkour Base skill % is listed for all abilities. Does that mean to use the Special Dodging Capability (one of the abilities) the character must roll successfully on their parkour skill percent?

How I read the skill in the book the answer seems to be yes to both but I am not sure.

I haven't fully read the book yet, life has been getting in the way, so I had to just pull it out to look it up.

1. Yes. What I believe it simply means is that in the Combat Rules (p.172-174) Step Three (Defender May Parry, Dodge or Entangle), the rule that states "Each dodge uses up one of the character’s own attacks per melee round." is trumped by the idea that the parkour skilled PC is good enough to dodge without using up a melee round. This kinda makes it an automatic dodge, I'd say.

2. Nah. Like I've already said, this replaces how the dodge works in the Combat Rules so thus it'd work like normal dodge rolls.

(edit: fixed a mistake...)

OK. Cool, but doesn't that kind of make it OP, especially with the dodge bonus?
Almost every ability says either a +1 or +2 to dodge. A few of the abilities in the Parkour skill specify "bonus to dodge with this maneuver", but most of them just say +1 or +2 to dodge. Not limited to that ability.
If I am reading it right that gives the character a total constant dodge bonus of +9 and it doesn't use an attack. This is in addition to any other dodge bonuses the character may have.
That leaves me with a ten year old kid with Parkour out performing a Navy Seal with H to H Commando. The absurdity of that thought aside; this seems OP. Am I reading something wrong?

[Eric42]

OK. Cool, but doesn't that kind of make it OP, especially with the dodge bonus?
Almost every ability says either a +1 or +2 to dodge. A few of the abilities in the Parkour skill specify "bonus to dodge with this maneuver", but most of them just say +1 or +2 to dodge. Not limited to that ability.
If I am reading it right that gives the character a total constant dodge bonus of +9 and it doesn't use an attack. This is in addition to any other dodge bonuses the character may have.
That leaves me with a ten year old kid with Parkour out performing a Navy Seal with H to H Commando. The absurdity of that thought aside; this seems OP. Am I reading something wrong?

Yeah, I think you are reading it wrong. First, you don't add up every dodge bonus throughout the whole ability and apply it to anything that character does. Instead, it should be read more like each listed ability is it's own thing. For instance, when a player does a Back Flip (#2 in the list of abilities for the Parkour skill), they only get the listed +1 to dodge. They don't get the plus bonus from the Body Forward Flip (+1), Horizontal Flip (+2), Leap Up Onto or Over Walls and Barriers (+1), Run up the Side of a Wall (+2), Running Cartwheel (+1) or Running Somersault (+1).

The idea is that the PC would use specific moves, like those I just listed, to dodge an attack. They would first roll to see if they are successful in performing the move in the first place (the skill being 50% +5% per level) and if it is successful, they'd get the dodge bonus to see if they got to dodge the attack. If they failed the parkour move, they just don't get the bonus but still perhaps could still dodge or vis versa. At least, that's how I would understand it.

[5IronBadger]

Yeah, I think you are reading it wrong. First, you don't add up every dodge bonus throughout the whole ability and apply it to anything that character does. Instead, it should be read more like each listed ability is it's own thing. For instance, when a player does a Back Flip (#2 in the list of abilities for the Parkour skill), they only get the listed +1 to dodge. They don't get the plus bonus from the Body Forward Flip (+1), Horizontal Flip (+2), Leap Up Onto or Over Walls and Barriers (+1), Run up the Side of a Wall (+2), Running Cartwheel (+1) or Running Somersault (+1).

The idea is that the PC would use specific moves, like those I just listed, to dodge an attack. They would first roll to see if they are successful in performing the move in the first place (the skill being 50% +5% per level) and if it is successful, they'd get the dodge bonus to see if they got to dodge the attack. If they failed the parkour move, they just don't get the bonus but still perhaps could still dodge or vis versa. At least, that's how I would understand it.

Yeah, I think you are right.
Thinking about that inspired me to compare Parkour to how similar abilities/skills were written in the other Palladium books. Based on that as well, it seems that Parkour is intended to work in the way you stated.
Thank you so much for your feedback. It was a big help!