I might as well take up this fight, but may i ask you of a favor? The thing is, a dodge or parry aren't always a concrete solid defense IRL, and while i do agree that simply altering an attack without any premise doesn't quite fit the roleplaying format, i'd like to know wether you would accept thing such as slipping around the parry after collision and immediatly halting an attack that has missed in order to switch to another one? Both could count as seperate actions, but both can come in faster than a counter-attack, thus, sometimes chopping off that part of the opponent's post - although, unlike altering an action, it won't be able to put the whole reply to waste. It is usualy unknown how your opponent will exactly react to a certain attack, so surrounding a single action with a barrage of additional 'if' statements isn't always going to work out, plus, it will be simply annoying to do so. But if one excludes the possibility of such interruptions alltogether, the lose a great deal of realism and the combat becomes much less fluid than it really is, losing a truly essential part. I, myself, am ready for such inconviniences as getting half of my post rendered null by a legit interruption, but what about you?