An Informative Guide to The Parry – Riposte Style

Parry – Riposte or Rippers can be very deadly if trained and managed effectively. Rippers arent as widely understood as the more common high skill base styles are. They do draw managers who like more of a challenge. It is not a style for quick fix so to speak. They start with much less skill and development than many other styles. This means they require a much longer development time before reaching that successful stage. Rippers are not good short term warriors. They lack what it takes to get many wins early in their career. When you make a ripper, your in for the long haul.

When making a Ripper, it is good to think about making him survive through Basic. Rippers have the second highest death rate, with Aim blows being the first. The main reasons for this I believe, is poor warrior design and/or poor strategy . Rippers, even if designed exactly the same, vary more from one to another than most styles in general. The Aim – blow, I believe is the only other style that varies more widely from one to another, than the ripper. Finding your rippers likes and dislikes maybe quite a task indeed.

The first thing to get a good Ripper is warrior design. His starting stats will greatly effect his starting skill bases as well. Since Rippers starting skill base is lower than some of the other styles, getting as much bonus skills from inital stats is very important. These bonus skills are given most in the WIT and DEFTNESS stats. Odded number stats is where most of the bonus skills are at. Such as 13, 15, 17 and 21. There are no bonus stats to be gained at 19 in any stat except speed. Good rippers will have a minimum of 32 points between WIT and Deftness. 34 or more points is prefered. 17 or 21 WIT and 17 or 21 Deftness makes the best Rippers.

Ripper stats:

Strength: 7-11 gives you the range you need for all ripper weapons.

Con: 10-14 helps keep your ripper alive and helps with encumberance. A wise mgr would put any left over points here, rather than Speed. We’ll get to that in a minute.

Size: 3-11 no bigger. Its a waste of points and kills your defense, which is one thing that will keep your ripper alive.

Wit: 15, 17 or 21 no less. You need the bonus skills and the quick learning to make up for the lower skill base.

Will: 15+ Not necessary, but to be successful quicker in ADM get at least a 15.

Speed: 5-9 Speed is the most disputed thing among ripper managers. It is split 50/50 on its contribution to a rippers success. I believe any extra points left over after adding to odd number WIT , WILL And Deftness, should go to CON, not speed. It makes no deference whether you get those skills gained from speed now or later on. They are still the same number of skills. Those few skills wont make as much difference now,as CON does in keeping the ripper ALIVE. A dead rippers bases dont matter much, now do they? ;)

Deftness- 15,17, or 21 no less. This is a MUST. Deftness gives the most bonus skills out of all the stats. Unlike other styles whom start out with higher bases, a ripper needs all the bonuses he can get. Dont skimp here. Also, many of the Rippers weapons require High deftness.

The average skill bonuses you get for the Parry- Riposte style are as follows: ( Taken from a ween chart that includes decimals)

Skill                                                Bonus
======                                               ======
Attack                                               -1.6
Parry                                                -0.1
Defense                                              -3
Initiative                                            3.1
Decise                                                1.8
Riposte                                               4.6
------------------------------------------------------------

Naturally, rippers get more bonus skills in the Riposte area. To help understand that chart, round the numbers up to the nearest whole number. Example, Decise 1.8 = 2 extra decise skills. There is no way to predict exactly what your rippers starting skills will be. But you can get a good idea when your get your overview back, by using the skill chart which is not listed here. There is the luck factor, which is a random number that RSI gives to make sure no 2 warriors are exactly alike. Some are blessed and get more than average skills, where as other get considerably less. Rippers in general seem to get LESS more than MORE skill in the luck factor part of character generation.

Listed below are some examples of actual rippers in ADM and Primus. Please take note of the + or extra skills these rippers received with the stats they have. Notice the amount of extra skills they received from high WIT and DEFTNESS . The luck factor had some play in these starting bases. These are also examples of when the luck factor gives you MORE starting base skills. The one at the bottom, with the -2 skills, is an example of bad luck. The average skill base totals is +4.8 or 5 skills rounded up. That means that if you get a ripper with more than + 5 skills to his base, he is lucky. Less than + 5 he is unlucky, depending on his stats. If the ripper has less than a 32 total points WIT and DEFTNESS, his chances of getting less the +5 is MUCH higher. If you get more than +5 skills with less than 32 points in your WIT and DEFTNESS total, you a very lucky. One exception is when you have a 30 WIT/DEFTNESS total and a 21WILL. Then you should get +5 or better to your skill base. If not, you are unlucky.

ST-CN-SZ-WT-WL-SP-DF  BASE : ATT ,   INIT,   DEC,    DEF,    PAR,    RIP    (Bonus, +/-)
17-13- 4-17- 9 -9-15         60(0),  60(+4), 30(+2), 40(-1), 45(+1), 65(+5)---- +11
 9-13- 8-17-15- 5-17         55(-1), 55(+4), 15(0),  30(-4), 55(+3), 70(+6)---- + 8
11- 9-12-15-17- 5-17         55(0),  35(+2), 20(+1), 30(-3), 45(-1), 75(+9)---- + 8
 9-12- 5-17-15- 9-17         45(-3), 50(+1), 40(+3), 45(-2), 40(0),  70(+5)---- + 4
10-10- 9-21-15- 4-15         60(-1), 50(+2), 45(+5), 35(-4), 35(0),  65(+5)---- + 7
 8- 9- 7-17-17- 9-17         50(-3), 50(-1), 50(+4), 50(-2), 40(+1), 85(+8)---- + 5
 8-10-12-17-17- 3-17         60(-1), 45(0),  25(+2), 30(-5), 40(+1), 55(+4)---- + 1
 8- 9- 8-15-11-12-21         50(-2), 75(+5), 35(+2), 35(-4), 50(+1), 80(+5)---- + 7
12-10- 8-17-11- 9-17         40(-3), 45(0),  40(+4), 30(-4), 15(-4), 70(+5)---- - 2
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The numbers in the parenthesis are the + or – the projected skill base for that set of numbers. Example: +5 means that he got 5 more than the average projection. Plusses are good and minuses are bad.

A simple method to see whether or not your ripper was lucky or not, is to add the WIT and DEFTNESS together. If it is above 32 then you should get + 5 as an average, and any more than +5 is lucky. The higher the WIT/DEFTNESS total the higher the average. This is a quick guesstimate to see if your ripper was unlucky at getting a good number starting skills. It is not an exact way to tell. You can tell more accurately by using the skill chart that lists the skill bonuses, and the style modifers.

Good WIT statements for a good ripper include High order ATTACK, DEFENSE, and PARRY. An initiative statement is nice, but harder to come by for a ripper, unless you give up one of those 3 up there. If you get ATTACK, DEFENSE, PARRY and INITIATIVE High order you have a GREAT ripper. Rippers almost always get some kind of Riposte statement. Riposte isnt really as important as those 4 up there are in the long run. Decise skill is meaningless to a ripper.

ARMOR
———–
Rippers should wear heavy armor at the beginning of their career. It is better to run a ripper defensively or ‘ scum’ him for awhile until he gains more skill. When he starts getting his Experts in defense and parry, then you can take off some armor. Rippers are more like to DIE in their first 10-15 fights than later on when they have more skill and experience.

Some people dont like playing defensively, and run them offensively at the beginning. Rippers are long term projects and are not ready for this. They lack the skill and experience to do this in the beginning. For this reason, and the fact most people dont put much armor on them at the start of their career, is why some many rippers DIE. By putting heavy armor on them and playing them defensively, increases the rippers chance to make it to ADM ALIVE. I’ve put rippers in ACM and APA in basic for their first 15 fights. It keeps them alive and gets them learns without affecting their performance.

Weapons
————-
Your rippers favorite weapon is VERY important. Rippers do have a very limited amount of weapons to choose from, but do have some good ones.

This is a list of ripper weapons. They are listed in order of which is best to which is worst according to a poll of 58 ripper mgrs.

1. Scimitar- The best ripper weapon without question.
2. Longsword
3. Epee – I wouldnt advise using this weapon in Basic.
4. Shortsword
5. Shortspear
6. Longspear
7. Hatchet

Using that chart above, you can tell whether or not your Ripper got stuck with a lousy favorite weapon. Down below is more info on rippers favorite weapons.

Out of 44 Parry – Ripostes the following is a chart of the favorite weapons they got: EP (11), SC (8), LO (8), LS (4), SS (7), SH(6)

Notice that most got the top 3 Ripper weapons. Just hope your ripper doesnt get stuck with a lame weapon.

Off-hand weapon
————————
Rippers do better with 2 weapons than one. In ADM, a ripper can use either one or 2 and still be effective. Shortswords and hatchets are the most effective. Daggers and sheilds are OK, but not really good in ADM. If you have a ripper with high enough deftness, twin longswords or scimitars can be devasting. Rippers have an unusually higher chance of being Ambidexterous.

Strategy- Using tactics
——————————-
Rippers in general dont react well to tactics in general. This is agreed upon by most ripper managers. Although, they can use Lunge, Dodge, Response and Parry to some effectiveness. Out of 44 Rippers, 3 got Lunge, 6 got Riposte, and 3 got Parry as a favorite tactic. Riposte tactic is lame, and should never be used on a ripper. He reposte good enough without that tactic. All it will do is penalize him in other important areas.

Strategy- (favorite rythems)
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Unlike other styles, the ripper favorite rythem is used more closely. Most managers use different strategies in basic than they do in ADM for their rippers. They play it more by ear in Basic, and stick mostly to the rippers favorite rythems in ADM. Unless, of course, they have very bad rythems for favorties. They they may go back to playing it by ear.

Below is a graph of 44 Parry – Riposte’s favorite rythems.

A. L. -- O. E.    VL         LO         MO        HI         VH       TOTALS
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
VL                 3          1          2         0          0         6

LO                 2          1          2         2          0		7

MO                 2         19          0         1          0		22

HI                 2          0          5         2          0		9

VH                 0          0          0         0          0		0
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TOTALS             9         21          9         5          0

As you can see, most of the favorites for a Parry Riposte fall in the LOW Offensive and Moderate Activity range.

To give someone an example of a basic strategy, I will give you an example below. This defensive strategy is good for about 10-15 fights. Then play it by ear and/or use the favorite rythems chart above as a guideline.

--------------------------------------------------------------------
MIN      1         2        3       4        5         6        Desp.
------------------------------------------------------------------
OL       2         2        2        4       4         3           7

AL       2         2        2        4       4         2           7

KD       5         5        5        6       6         5           5

Att      RA----------------------------------------------->

Pro      HE----------------------------------------------->
-----------------------------------------------------------------

You can experiment with other strategies, and might even check out how your ripper likes tactics.

In ADM, I’d stick with the favorite rythems, unless they arent working for him.

Best style match-ups for a ripper in basic are: PR, TP, BA, PS, WS. Worst in Basic are : SL, LU, AB, PL, ST.

Best style Match-ups in ADM are: TP, PR, BA, ST, PS. Worst in ADM are : LU, SL, WS, PL, AB.

Well, that should be enough information to get any manager started with a good Ripper. If you need more information about rippers or anything else about DM contact me. I can be reached via email at 103260.3347@ compuserve.com . Or you can Diplo me at the Joker’s Wild 2 in DM 75. I hope this helped someone.

Credits- Major contributors
————————————–
Mitch Nakagawa- AKA- Sensei
Glenn Uren-AKA- Heretic
Jeanette Jerles- AKA- Shark
Gary Triplett- AKA- Miles
Johan Behrenfeldt- AKA- Bartender
Assurnasirbanipal
C.J Caviness-AKA- The Visionist

Credits- others
———————
Lunatic
Soulburn
JRK
Jester
The Boss Man
VooDoo
Lord Bosk
Manager(Dwayne)
Revenant
Soultaker
Doctor Scot
Buri
Eric Goche
Seeker
Rajesh Nanda
and many others.

Sir Jessie Jest