2 stunts. need advice

[Taran]

1. Body guard (Weapons stunt):  When an ally in the same zone fails to defend against an attack, you may sacrafice your next action to put up a block.

Question:  should the block last against 1 attack, or for a full exchange, or until the someone's next turn; ie, the blocker, the blockee or the attacker.  My instinct says 1 attack for simiplicity, but it is a less useful stunt than ripost which gives you a free attack (which can create lasting consequences).

Lastly, should the stunt include a +1 to block?

2. The Best Defense is a better defense (weapons stunt):  +2 when doing the block action.

Question:  It's not an attack...but I'm not sure if a block is considered a defense (like athletics).  Should the bonus only be a +1?

Would Stunt 1 and Stunt 2 Stack?

[Viatos]

1. Body guard (Weapons stunt):  When an ally in the same zone fails to defend against an attack, you may sacrafice your next action to put up a block.

Full exchange, just as if you were blocking for yourself...but I don't know, even still, if that's enough. Since you can already block for allies in advance, and the ability to do so out of initiative order is pretty much half a stunt, a +1 to Weapons blocks FOR OTHER CHARACTERS seems fair.

2. The Best Defense is a better defense (weapons stunt):  +2 when doing the block action.

As long as it's a Weapons block, this seems okay.

Would Stunt 1 and Stunt 2 Stack?

Yes.

Other stunt ideas, if you're interested: +1 to Athletics dodges for allies within 1 zone. Substitute Weapons as a block skill against magic (including those adorable custom Evocations that target things like Might or Lore).

[Sanctaphrax]

Both stunts should specify that they only apply to actions taken with the Weapons skill.

I suggest that the former stunt last until you would have acted had you not sacrificed your action. It probably should not include a +1 bonus to block. It compares quite well to Riposte without it, I think.

The latter stunt should provide a +2 bonus. I don't think that defences or blocks are limited to +1 bonuses from stunts. It would stack with the former stunt, as long as the former stunt did not provide +1 to block.

[sinker]

I would probably allow the block to last till the person's next action like any other block, or maybe if they were really abusing that extra time then till the time in the initiative that they activated the stunt. I would think it would need a bit of playtesting, but I wouldn't want to shorten the duration more than a normal block.

Substitute Weapons as a block skill against magic (including those adorable custom Evocations that target things like Might or Lore).

That just seems...odd to me. From a thematic/rationalization stand point it seems hard to justify. "I block your...sleep spell...with...my sword?" Additionally from a stunt balance standpoint it doesn't work either. It's essentially assigning seven or eight different trappings (technically the same defense trapping sort of, but each trapping coming from a different skill) to one skill with a single stunt.

[Sanctaphrax]

I'd call it kosher to shift the Athletics defence trapping to Weapons. Weapons Footwork makes perfect sense to me.

Defending against attacks against Endurance or Might or Discipline probably should not be possible with that stunt, but such attacks probably should not be normally possible anyway.

[sinker]

I'd call it kosher to shift the Athletics defence trapping to Weapons. Weapons Footwork makes perfect sense to me.

Of course, that makes sense. It actually occurs to me that you could set up a block with weapons to prevent a caster from casting (putting pressure on them to prevent them from concentrating), but it wouldn't require a stunt, just the normal application of the RAW (using weapons to create a block that prevents one person from doing anything for that matter).