Page 42: Reactions
Was there a design reason to limit to EITHER an attack OR defense (Parry or Dodge)? This seems very restrictive?
In playtesting this we quickly found if you won initiative you attacked, and if you lost initiative you defended (boring, no choice).
Most versions of BRP/RuneQuest allow BOTH one attack and one (or more) reactions.
If you loose init and the init winner attacks (he could also await), you don't have to say what you do until you see if he hits and if he doesn't you can use your action to attack him (and he can't normally parry or dodge this since he has already used up his action). This means that you can feel your opponent a bit here and if you notice that you are better than him, it is usually better to await if you won the init. The combat system allows for far more tactics than the usual attack-parry, attack-parry.