Riposte (weapons stunt)

[Ryan_Singer]

Hi Everyone,

Could someone demonstrate how they think Riposte (Weapon's stunt) works?

Code: [Select]

Riposte: On a successful defense with Weapons,
you may sacrifice your next action to turn that
defense into an immediate and automatically
successful attack. Your attacker must be within
range of your weapon, and if you’re mounting a
full defense (page 199) you do not get the benefit
of the +2 bonus when your defense roll converts
to an attack roll.
So, I'm defending with weapons. Some badguy rolls a +4 Fists attack, I defend with a roll of +5 on Weapons. I choose to Riposte. What happens?

My DM suggests that I hit for 4 stress (1 shift plus Weapon:3). Any thoughts?

[gaelvin]

I'd say that's exactly right. From the text, your successful defense becomes a successful attack (and your opponent's failed attack becomes a failed defense) when you Riposte. And it counts as your next action.

[Papa Gruff]

Yes this is how it is.

One of my players has picked up this stunt after I have used it against him in a dueling situation. As a GM I must say I hate it ... and love it ... very much

[Ranma1558]

And as always make sure you have a stunt to get a +2 to defense, with the two stunts you double dip, once for defense, once for the riposte after.

[Papa Gruff]

And as always make sure you have a stunt to get a +2 to defense, with the two stunts you double dip, once for defense, once for the riposte after.

Smells a bit like stunt staking. It could be argued, that the stunts add to the outcome in a similar way since both are tied to a defense action. Probably a grey area. I don't know... I guess if you tie it to Riposte only it is probably valid.

[Tsunami]

Smells a bit like stunt staking. It could be argued, that the stunts add to the outcome in a similar way since both are tied to a defense action. Probably a grey area. I don't know... I guess if you tie it to Riposte only it is probably valid.

They both address combat, but thats basically all they have in common.
What can be argued is that taking a stunt to increase defense by +2 (which is possible) and then adding that +2 bonus to a riposte attack, would be circumventing the limitation of +1 to attacks that exists for stunts.

So, I'd limit the bonus that can be applied to the the riposte attack to +1.

Something like:
The more the Merrier (Weapons): When personally outnumbered in a Fight, gain +2 to Defense with Weapons. When using the Riposte stunt, only half of this bonus (+1) is applied to the resulting attack.

[Belial666]

The rules don't say that stunts should not stack. They say that bonuses from stunts should not stack in a way that both improve the outcome in the same way. I.e. you can't have two stunts both improving your attack rolls. But you can have one stunt improving damage and the other improving attack.

In this case, the +2 defense stunt does not improve the "attack roll" for your riposte attack since said attack automatically hits anyway. It effectively improves stress when you hit and there are stunts that improve that by +2.

[admiralducksauce]

Plus, the sidebar text even has a thing about stacking stunts: "Catch + Riposte = 'It's all in the Reflexes!'" IIRC, to recreate the Jack Burton knife trick from Big Trouble in Little China.

EDIT: Also wanted to add that you can't sacrifice more than one action in a row with Riposte (or any stunt that allows you to sacrifice your next action).

[Tsunami]

The rules don't say that stunts should not stack. They say that bonuses from stunts should not stack in a way that both improve the outcome in the same way. I.e. you can't have two stunts both improving your attack rolls. But you can have one stunt improving damage and the other improving attack.

Agreed

In this case, the +2 defense stunt does not improve the "attack roll" for your riposte attack since said attack automatically hits anyway. It effectively improves stress when you hit and there are stunts that improve that by +2.

That's not true actually. It improves your defense roll. And since said defense roll transforms into the attack roll... well, by conclusion it improves the attack roll that is calculated into the Riposte.
It improves the chance of a successful defense, and thereby at the same time the chance to counterattack successfully.
The Stress increase is a secondary effect due to extra shifts.

[Belial666]

Umm, no. Riposte ignores the attacker's defense altogether; there isn't an attack roll.

Say there's a supernaturally fast white court lady that's attacking my Knight who happens to have Riposte. She's an extremely agile combatant with +5 athletics plus +2 from her supernatural speed plus +2 from a Remarkable Agility stunt against melee attacks for a total of Olympic (+9). She is however only of average (+1) weapons skill. My Knight has a +5 weapons skill +1 from his Sword's True Strike +1 for a total of Fantastic (+6)


Normally, my Knight would only have a tiny chance to hit in normal combat. But when she attacks, he uses Riposte. Despite the white court lady's +9 effective athletics, all that matters is her attack skill of only +1. The Knight's weapons skill is +6 so, on an average riposte he automatically hits, doing 5 stress +3 from his sword's weapon rating. There is no attack roll on his part and no defense roll on her part.

[Tsunami]

Umm, no. Riposte ignores the attacker's defense altogether; there isn't an attack roll.

Say there's a supernaturally fast white court lady that's attacking my Knight who happens to have Riposte. She's an extremely agile combatant with +5 athletics plus +2 from her supernatural speed plus +2 from a Remarkable Agility stunt against melee attacks for a total of Olympic (+9). She is however only of average (+1) weapons skill. My Knight has a +5 weapons skill +1 from his Sword's True Strike +1 for a total of Fantastic (+6)


Normally, my Knight would only have a tiny chance to hit in normal combat. But when she attacks, he uses Riposte. Despite the white court lady's +9 effective athletics, all that matters is her attack skill of only +1. The Knight's weapons skill is +6 so, on an average riposte he automatically hits, doing 5 stress +3 from his sword's weapon rating. There is no attack roll on his part and no defense roll on her part.

Well, i think you've got the Riposte Stunt kind of wrong.
The Successful defense roll the Defender makes, is turned into a successful attack roll. To determine the outcome of that attack, the original attack roll is turned into the Defense roll for the riposte.

Using your example protagonists:
WCL attacks, +1 skill +2 roll for a total of +3
Knight Defends, +5 (no true strike here) Skill +2 roll for a total of +7
Knight uses Riposte
The Knights Defense is now the Attack Roll +7
WCL's Attack is now her defense +3
Knight produces 4 shifts +3 Weapon rating -> 7 Stress

When transforming the rolls this way, the attack always succeeds, as the defense roll needs to be successful in the first place to use Riposte at all.
There are no extra rolls being made, but they are still there.

[Belial666]

True Strike gives +1 to all uses of the weapon skill in keeping with its purpose. Since the Knight can use Weapons to defend vs melee and defending a human from supernatural enemies is the Sword's purpose, his defense skill is at +6.

[Becq]

There are two ways I can see interpretting this stunt.  The first (which I think is correct) is as described by Tsunami.  To simplify (at least in my mind), you take the shifts you generated on you defense, and those become the shifts for your riposte attack.  One oddity I note is that if you used full defense, you have to deduct that bonus from your riposte shifts.  So what if your defense roll (using full defense) was just barely enough (0 or 1 shift).  In this case, it seems as though you are allowed to make a riposte (successful defense) but you will end up with a failure on the riposte (-2 or -1 shifts).  Yet the power says the attack is automatically successful.  Which would mean that either you subtract from the base weapon damage, or such a riposte is treated as having zero shifts.

The other interpretation of the stunt, by the way, is to say that the riposte attack -- which is automatically successful -- is just barely succesful, so 0 shifts.  Ie, you do base weapon damage only, regardless of the rolls.  I don't think this is the right interpretation, since the rule about subtracting off the full defense bonus would be irrelevant if so; the inclusion of that rule implies that the shifts generated by the defense matter.

As for the rest, it looks to me as though any stunts/powers that improve your Weapons defense roll (except those that modify full defense) would benefit the riposte.  In addition, anything that improves damage for the weapon being used would increase the damage done.  Stuff that modifies your attack roll wouldn't, since you never make an attack roll, and any bonuses to full defense would be subtracted out along with the full defense.

As to True Aim ... it's a little unclear.  The wording on the power implies a bonus when attacking to me ("When swung in keeping with its purpose"), but its a bit ambigous, and I could see it being rules as working for parry attempts, too.

[sinker]

This seems like another vague bit of the book that would benefit from an errata sheet. Seems to me that there's no "Right way" as the rules don't specify. Do what works for you.

[Drashna]

Sinker: I doubt that it would even get cleared up in errata.  It seems that the "theme" of the entire book is about vagueness.  
Personally, I'd say discuss it with your group, or if you're the GM and an NPC has it, decide how it should be handled from the start and don't vary from it.