Scope RPG

Dodge & Parry ​

Two ways to avoid taking damage. Dodging sidesteps the hit. Parrying deflects it. Dodge is available to every unit; parry is a Knight-only trick.

Dodge

Dodge ​

A percentage chance to completely negate an incoming attack. When a dodge roll succeeds, damage becomes zero.

Driven by: Speed. Each point of Speed adds a small amount to dodge chance.

Bonuses from class perks:

  • Rogue - the highest dodge floor of any class. A Rogue with modest Speed allocation reaches the dodge cap quickly.
  • Archer - a dodge floor, smaller than the Rogue's but still meaningful.
  • Bard (soldier) - a dodge floor matching the Rogue's.
  • Flying monster class - the highest dodge floor of any monster class.

Cap: dodge chance has a hard ceiling. Past it, more Speed doesn't increase your odds (though Speed's other effect - turn frequency - keeps paying off).

Parry - Knight Only ​

The Knight's signature defensive trick: an extra "the hit didn't land properly" check that runs after the dodge roll. If the dodge misses but the parry succeeds, the hit is still negated.

Driven by: the Knight's physical damage reduction. Parry chance scales from physical DR - so every Armor point indirectly raises parry probability too.

Caps and floors:

  • A minimum parry chance that guarantees Knights always have some parry probability, even at low Armor.
  • A maximum parry chance that prevents extreme builds from reaching near-100% negation.

Parry vs magic: parry does work against magical attacks, but with reduced effectiveness. Knights parry magic at half their normal rate. Enough to feel meaningful; not enough to make them a magic-resist class.

How They Layer in the Damage Pipeline ​

Both run at specific, ordered points in the damage pipeline:

  1. Raw damage + variance + defense reduction + crit.
  2. Dodge rolled first. On success, damage becomes zero. End of sequence.
  3. Parry rolled (Knights only). On success, damage becomes zero.
  4. Remaining damage passes through any active damage-reduction buffs.

A dodged hit and a parried hit both do zero damage - you don't tell them apart mechanically, only narratively.

The Knight's Compounding Defense ​

Knights have the most defensive compounding in the game:

  1. Armor → physical damage reduction.
  2. Physical DR → parry chance.
  3. Physical DR also sets up the damage-reduction cap they live near.

One Armor point does three jobs. No other class gets that stacking.

Interaction with Attacks That Target Back Row ​

Dodge and parry work the same regardless of who's being attacked - front, middle, or back. They don't help you avoid being targeted (that's a positioning concern), but once you're targeted they run the same way.