My happy DP

[Benjamin Austin <jedi@ecn.purdue.edu>]

First of all, to everyone (espescially Lyle), I'm going to apologize in 
advance for spelling and grammatical errors.  If I combined the use of a 
dictonary with how slow I type, I'd never finish an email.  And I'm still 
looking for new-mone-ya.

Secondly, Wright, thanks for adding me to the list (at least, I think 
that I should thank you -  that may change). Think your weapon list 
generated enough response?


To the point...

I am inclined to agree with Wright's interpretation of what DP is a 
representation of, ... asshole (sorry, taught never to end a sentence with a 
preposition).  I had heard that DP was an estimate of one's ability to 
dodge, parry, or otherwise suck an incoming attack.  I'm not quite sure 
from whom I picked that up but it had been a couple of years ago.  

It does make since to me.  I have had a limited amount of "sparring" in 
my martial art days but quite a bit of wrestling.  From both, I can tell 
you that it is VERY rare that a technique will work completely as it 
should due to the various dynamics of combat.  Given that someone sees 
you coming and is resonably free to move, I can see how DP is a relation 
to someone taking actual physical damage from a block or a parry, 
becoming tired and weary from absorbing energy from attacks, or just 
plain rolling with the punch.  However, this all goes out the window 
if they are totally unaware of the attack or rather unable to move.  
Then again, there are rules to account (at least partially) for such 
things (i.e. assassination skill, adjusted DVs for different sides, 
setting to kill, etc.).  I can see that the VERY rare case that I 
mentioned above can be attributed to just about 5% (1/20th) of the time.

Keep in mind that AQ has no rules for how close someone is to death 
relative to themselves.  In other words, if I lost 43 DP in combat but 
still have 6 DP, I am just as alive as the person walking down the street 
with 6 DP.  Also, my nearly 90% lost of DP has no bearing on my ability 
to barister or back flip.  I am not advocating that we have rules for 
such.  Part of AQ's charm is its (relatively) easy playability.  Start 
adding a bunch more rules and it will take four hours to run a simple 
combat (reference to Shadow Run).

The interpretation of DP given by Wright also allows in the improvement 
of DP.  Someone can learn to block, dodge, parry, roll resonably through 
practice and training.  I am not certain that if I keep poking myself 
with a sharp knife that I'll be able to take it continously better the 
next time and my DP just wouldn't be happy about that.

BJ