Parry Rule (2)

If a defender is attacked in melee, and she is aware of the attack, she can attempt to parry it by sacrificing any attacks she has left in that round. The parry roll is exactly like an attack roll, except the AC that needs to parry is equal to the attack roll of the attacker. Even those who have already declared their actions for the round can change their minds in the middle of the round, thus sacrificing whatever they were going to do once their turn was up.

Shields can be used to parry one attack per round (or two, if the character has Improved Two-weapon Fighting), as if the character were using two hand weapons. The character does not loose her shield bonus by doing this.Why: Combat tends to be a stiff affair in D&D. This rule has done wonders for my campaigns, and I'd like to share it with others.Pro: High level bashers clearly outclass lower level fighters in combat, sometimes not suffering a single wound, even if they aren't wearing any armour.

• Armour loses a lot of it's importance.
• A crowd of warriors can much more easily defeat a single warrior.
• Combat becomes much more cinematic, and not a simple I hit you/you hit me, we lose hit points routine.

• Combat takes a *lot* longer, especially duels. That was never a problem in my campaigns, but those who have a lot of combat should consider carefully before using this rule.
• It really makes it hard for a low level warrior to defeat a high level warrior in single combat. To some, that would be a bad thing.