"I might be missing something, but it seems that single shot weapons, even Accurate ones, are crippled when it comes to normal fights since degrees of success simply don't matter and your enemy can (and will) simply Dodge your attack."

Yes, but normal enemies/mooks aren't going to have high enough Ag/WS to guarantee avoiding the damage, whereas with more experienced enemies the PCs should be ganging up on the enemy anyway, so even if they block one PC's attack, the other(s) will get through.

The other thing people are forgetting about the usefulness of Dodge vs. Parry is that they don't exist in a vacuum, and ways exist to augment both. Off the top of my head, the best example for Parry is the Counter Attack talent, which lets you attack after a successful parry, and is an advantage that Dodge can't offer.

It seems to me that Parry and Dodge should be an Opposed Skill Check against the Weapon Skill/Ballistic Skill Check of the attacker. As it stands, most single-shot weapons can be completely neutralized with and there's nothing an attacker could do about it.

If you want to neutralize parry/dodge in melee, you Feint - that's exactly where the opposed check comes in. In ranged combat, you focus fire. The ratling can do that on his own with the set-up shot, other PCs will have to work together. A delaying sniper who already aimed for a half action last round can be downright mean: Either the enemy saves up his dodge and eats every other attack that comes his way, possibly wasting the dodge if the sniper doesn't hit after all, or he'll be literally out of dodge by the time the sniper's turn comes around.

Another reason, I believe, to make Evasion checks just flat-out Challenging(+0) check instead of opposed checks is precisely for PC survivability. Making it an opposed check adds an added element of randomness, and additional randomness tends to aid the GM more than the players, since usually the GM is going to make many more rolls than the players. Think about that the next time the GM rolling an 01 at point blank doesn't make a rokkit unevadeable 

Emperor Castaigne said:

If you turn it into an opposed check, things get a bit messy.

Its really not that bad. If the big bad is spending all its reactions to dodge the "big stuff," its allowing itself to be hit by the little things. The heavy damage dealers could delay their actions until later in the initiative order to try and go after their allies. That way, the enemy has to make a judgement call to dodge earlier attacks in expectation of the larger attack.

While there are plenty of bonuses to WS, I do feel that the limitations normally on parrying (melee attacks only, some enemies can't be parried) are enough such that its fine it is now a skill.

Okay, let's try to get back onto the topic at hand for now, I'll just start another thread later. Sorry for the derail.

Parry in Only War have the Weapon Skill and Defense aptitudes, so I thought I'd check out the Talents it sync up with.

Tier 1

Disarm: Opposed Weapon skill to disarm an enemy with a full action. (Less useful than in pre-Black Crusade games since you can now inflict Critical hits easier, and several Arm Location critical hits will cause an enemy to drop what they're holding.)

Tier 2

Combat Master: Enemies receive no bonus for Ganging Up. (No major change from pre-BC games.)

Counter Attack: Can make a single Melee attack at -20 with the weapon used to parry once per round after a successful parry. (More likely to happen now that Parry is a skill.)

Deflect Shot: Add WS Bonus to AP against ranged weapons with the Primitive Quality or thrown weapons. (Useful, but I'm not sure if it should work fully against Grenades.)

The removal of Wall of Steel (1 extra reaction that can only be used for Parrying) seems odd to me, would it really be that overpowered now that Parry is a skill? If it is, why not change it so that the extra Parry is at a penalty?

I think Wall of Steel was removed just to simplify the wording between Wall of Steel and Step Aside. Now instead of 2 talents that give their own type of reaction, theres one talent that gives either type of reaction.

KommissarK said:

Right, I suppose that makes sense. I missed that change before.

LuciusT said:

To be fair, where I learned *dodging* was also a basic part of the fight.