Force Pike Vs Lightsaber

[all2ezy]

Can a Force Pike be used to parry the blade of a Lightsaber? and if not, is there any melee weapon other then a Lightsaber that can be used to parry the blade of a Lightsaber?
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[vanir]

It depends upon the type of melee weapon. Those shrouded in an energy (including electrical) field can generally parry a lightsabre, like some electrostaves (used in RotS). A Powersword is shrouded in an energy field so should as well but these items are rare.

Most Forcepikes are graphite/composite construction and simply release a stunning or lethal discharge at the metallic tip so I would rule they can't parry a lightsabre. But they do have reach over a lightsabre so regardless of who wins initiative for the combat round, the wielder of the longer weapon can always strike first if they choose to.
In other words you can take down a Jedi with a Forcepike, so long as your first (and probably only) attack hits him and does serious damage.

Other melee items which can parry lightsabres are Force-tempered swords like the Sithsword.
Echani foils and Echani vibroblades are forged with cortosis-weave using exotic supercooled alloys and can also parry lightsabres.
Just remembered Mandalorian Iron is also Force-resistant and melee weapons constructed of this material should also parry a lightsabre (in armour it just provides high armour value for relatively little encumberance).
Both these items are extremely rare in most periods (they're only frequently encountered around 5000-3900BBY), and are near priceless by the Rebellion era. Palpatine spent great effort locating and confiscating every Force related artefact in the galaxy from museums, enclaves and any other reference he could find throughout his years of research.

Yet Palpatine's own special troops like Imperial Dungeoneers (trained to guard Jedi prisoners) and Sovereign Protectors (trained to guard important Force related locations) are equipped normally with items that can defend against lightsabre-wielding Jedi, like Force tempered equipment (Sovereign Protectors) and powerswords (Dungeoneers).

The Sovereign Protector's Forcepike does much more damage than any other type in RAW and also looks very exotic and gothic. In our game we've ruled this particular Forcepike is of a Force-tempered construction like their armour, so can parry lightsabres.

[CRMcNeill]

Depends on whether or not you want them to, really. It certainly provides options if you want your baddies to be able to counter a Lightsaber in Melee combat without actually giving them lightsabers.
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[garhkal]

To me since royal guard use FP's and they protect the emperor, theirs should at least be able to parry lightsabers...
whether they do it as a standard practice.. imo no.
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[tetsuoh]

ANY melee weapon can parry a lightsaber in our game - so long it survives the lightsabers damage to it.

We've had vibroeblades parry lightsabers and vibroblades cut through other vibroblades.

Though there are a number of materials a weapon can be made of in our game that is immune to a lightsabers energy damage.

Some of them even make the lightsaber roll to not be damaged instead of the other way around. (Cortosis alloy weapons mainly)

[garhkal]

What i think part of the issue is just cause someone succeeds in parrying a melee/brawl attack does NOT mean they blocked it.. Parrying can mean they succeeded in sticking their blade close enough to your arm to make you flinch and miss.
It could mean i hit your hand knocking your weapon off target
It could mean i just ducked your swing.

Just cause i (say with a vibro sword) succeed in a parry roll against someone wielding a lightsaber does not automatically mean i now need to roll my weapon's body resistance.
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[Leon The Lion]

When a character tries to parry bare-handed against an opponent using a melee weapon or natural weapon like claws, the attacker gets a +10 bonus to his attack roll. This represents the increased difficulty for the character of parrying without hurting himself on the opponent's weapon. You could easily adapt this rule for parrying lightsabers with normal weapons without getting them damaged in the process.
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[CRMcNeill]

[cheshire]

[jmanski]

Yeah, but you'll only end up looking like fencer D one time....
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[garhkal]

[vanir]

Samurai fencing (takamatsu ryuha) maybe a good analogue for lightsabre fencing with a breakable melee weapon because samurai swords are expensive and you're never supposed to actually clash blades. The best possible result of this is a damaged weapon that needs replacement, what is more likely is one blade breaks and its wielder dies.
There are no blocks, no parries. Two simultaneously attack, defence is solely by evasion, angling and position. Samurai fencing doesn't last long, first blade to land a blow ends the fight. A very long fencing contest might consist of two or three passes, most don't last one. The most famed practitioners were known for ending the contest on the draw (iaijutsu).

The closest thing to a parry against a samurai katana, as taught in traditional kobudo is angling evasion and a counterstrike on the weapon hand. You don't parry the weapon, the "parry" is an attack on the weapon hand. If it hits the fight is over obviously because it will sever, but the unarmed technique is the same, just a stunning blow to the wrist with follow up control of the weapon hand and take down.
It does look like a parry because the enemy has to commit to his blow for it to work, but he can spoil his own attack to avoid yours.

The whole regime of katana fencing consists of ducking in and out of weapon reach basically. Hence things like naginata were also popular at the time, better reach, harder to defend against.

But these weapons are razor sharp and lethal along the blade, something like a rapier or even most broadswords can be safely slapped away along the blade with little or no damage, even with your hand. You could never try that with certain fine sabres like damascus steel, or a katana or naginata. You'd lose whatever you tried slapping it away with, even another katana if it hit with any angle to the blade whatsoever (if blade hits flat, even another katana will be cleaved, strikes use weight, mechanics/leverage and momentum and are very powerful to sever bone).

If broken down into SWRPG game mechanics, the correct defence against a katana wielding swordsman, for our purposes equivalent to defending against a lightsabre wielding opponent:
Scenario 1. unarmed:
Dodge inside weapon reach, one movement action is required, brawling attack on weapon hand. MAP -2D. If you succeed in the dodge he cannot reaction parry your brawl without dropping the weapon to brawl parry you, being you are now inside his weapon reach, virtually chest to chest.
Scenario 2. armed with a (breakable) melee weapon:
Reaction dodge to avoid the strike, counterstrike the weapon hand at current melee distance. MAP -1D but the counterstrike is at an increased difficulty as a called hit location.

That's how it would play out using proper kobudo technique. Like Cheshire's rapier fencing technique, it was drilled and drilled in the dojo.

In any case the point is why would you parry a lightsabre with a breakable melee weapon when you can just move out of its way using your legs? In SWRPG you can represent this easily with movement declarations to dart in and out of melee range, dodges to represent correct timing and of course you need to force opponent initiative to predict his action declarations. If he wins initiative and forces you to declare first: do not attack, just full dodge the blade for that round. If he wins and declares first, or you win you must force him to declare first, then you can counterstrike by darting inside weapon range with a dodge, move and attack. You do need to succeed in the dodge obviously..

For those in the back row, instead of parry/attack, just dodge/attack. No breaking melee weapon issues there.
As an afterthought, if you want to call it special martial arts technique to dodge melee attacks as an optional alternative to parries, simply call it a martial arts "special manoeuvre" and require a PC to have brawling: martial arts specialisation to be able to use dodge vs melee/lightsabre attacks as an option.

[garhkal]

But the parry skill itself says

(Well its under brawl parry only) that the parry roll is used to hold ones ground and either avoid the attack (move out of its way) or to block it. so why should melee parry be different?
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[Ankhanu]

No, a standard force pike cannot effectively parry a lightsaber (more than once at least). Yes, the word "force" is in the name; no, the Force has nothing to do with them. A force pike is, in essence, a long-handled cattle prod.

Now, there's no reason that you couldn't fit in the narrative that perhaps these specific ones are extra super expensive and are made of something like Mandalorian steel or cortosis, two materials that can parry (and in the latter example, disrupt) a lightsaber blade... but there aren't official rules for either material.
Mandalorian steel, I'd likely just increase the price substantially and give it an additional 2D body strength, and a capsule note that they can parry sabers. Cortosis is a bit trickier, as it's brittle, and causes a lightsaber blade to shut down; likely reduce body strength from 2D to 1D and some rules for how long a saber is shut down would have to be generated; perhaps just 1 round, kind of like a stun?

[vanir]

Because then the GM will have to use some other means to devise whether the PC manoeuvre to avoid being hit was by blocking/deflecting the weapon itself or evading the sweep/strike of the weapon completely.

You might indeed adapt the brawling parry vs melee combat rule of +10 weapon attack, if the parry is within 10pts of the attack the weapon is damaged by a lightsabre.

But here's the problem: being an RPG this is more dependent upon Player style than it is a GM ruling. If your PCs like to RP precisely the actions they perform through the action sequence, as they should rather than speak in terms of rulesets, what if the PC says, "No! I do not wish to parry the lightsabre with my vibroweapon, it might break. I want to avoid the lightsabre strike and then dart in and hit him with the vibroblade."

What then? Treat him like a naughty child who doesn't know what they mean and get him to roll a parry anyway? Argue with him about why, if he rolls within 10pts of the attack his weapon is broken, even though he clearly RP'd doing something completely different?


IMHO it just works out concise definition of terms to use dodge to dodge, and parry to parry. I think without such a clear distinction, in order to deal with PCs who (correctly I might add) RP with great detail and immersion their every combat action, you would otherwise have to determine Melee Parry specialisations of Melee Parry: deflection/blocking and Melee Parry: evasion, in order to create the distinction to suit the PC freedom of choice in running their own character actions and influencing game results by doing so.

And yet since to split the skill is to provide this player freedom, it is simply easier to call dodge a dodge and parry a parry is it not? Those two skills are already split, why call one the other?

In kobudo evasion techniques are taihen, parries part of the combat forms happo hiken, koppo, koshi, you use all and any for everything, you work mechanically and variously against bone structure, sinuses/glands, musculature/tendons, or just balance. There's a technique for knocking people down by working them off balance and giving them a fright lol, not kidding.