The Dark Eye Help with Drakensang: The River of Time

[Turjan]

What upper limits?
You either pay AP or not, and level only limits max bonus from skill.

Your limits come from levels and available leveling points. To reach the same goal for two attributes has different costs, depending on which configuration of attributes with equal costs you choose during character creation. For example, if your goal is two attributes at 18/18, you save 130 leveling points by starting from 12/16 instead of 14/14, at equal costs during character creation, because you exchange one cost of going from 14 to 16 to one for going from 12 to 14. Also, a bonus from an advantage doesn't count when calculating leveling costs and can save a few hundred leveling points later.

This all is not necessary. But SarcasticUndertones asked for min/max possibilities.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

Well, that's that done, thanks for the help many peoples of teh internets. I think my main problem 1st time on the final battle was the fact that it had already been going on for an hour before the end-boss even made his play, and I was itching to go do something else by a deadline so tried to rush it. But really, having to spend an hour and a half on one battle? That's a debate between hardcore versus ridiculous if ever I heard one.

So onto my review.

I wont make a new thread for this as I'm no Dark Eye expert and have a very low opinion of my opinion matching public taste but I'm sure a lot of the stuff I say will be useful to people who know how to separate useful from irrelevant information and take what they need from such as I'm about to write.

Drakensang: The River of Time (a Dark Eye cRPG) (2010 EU 2011 US)

This was my first experience with the Dark Eye ruleset and I went into the game deliberately blind to knowledge of the ruleset in order to increase my enjoyment of the exploration of the new. I had heard it was a presentable cRPG from the modern era and a Youtube video of the first tutorial fight confirmed to me it was a game which adhered to a lot of my personal expectations of what a modern cRPG should be like. The following is a list of things that stood out to me from this perspective as I played through the game:

The first thing that really stood out in a big way is how awful the camera is. It's appalling. You can be standing out in the open somewhere and rotating the camera will produce a Helter-Skelter effect as the camera dives to the floor and back up again with very little obvious logic. If you wander into a corner you can expect the camera to be on top of your head with every clickable area of the screen being a click on your character instead of a move order. When in battle I often spent more time trying to find and stick with and return to the best camera angle possible than I did executing my orders to the troops. The camera view zooms to whichever party member you select, so, with many of the game's long, long, battles I found myself needing a break more from the epilepsy inducing camera flashing than I did from the minutia of the mechanics. 3/10

When it comes to free roaming the game is pure genius. The game will never force you to proceed without asking you in triplicate if you are sure you want to proceed and will also reassure you in triplicate that you can always come back to that area whenever you want. You are very rarely trapped in anywhere and if you forget to buy something or find you need to craft something half-way through a dungeon you can just go back to the area you require whenever you want. It's basically all one big open world, which is very nice. However, the final stage of the game involves a gigantic lock-in, so I can't give the game 100% here - why do even games which obsess about no lock-ins still insist on shoving them in at the end? Really annoying, just let me find a secret passage out or something! 9/10

Itemisation and loot is piss-poor. There are literally thousands of loot boxes to loot, all with their own descriptions indicating what level of loot interest will be in each sub-category of loot box. You could drive yourself mad making sure you crack open every box, they're literally everywhere, from behind random trees in the furthest part of a forest to sitting at the bottom of a gigantic pile of fooled-you non-interactive boxes. What do they all contain? 95% crafting materials. My character went the entire game without looting one single weapon upgrade, as did Cano, and the other two members of the party found one single upgrade each. Clothing you pretty much just buy from vendors when you've sold enough crafting materials or pick-pocketed enough NPCs. The game doesn't have a loot system, it has a crafting system. I'm not a crafter, I must be the only person left in the world who has never played Minecraft and never wanted to. The 5% of cool loot is nice when it lands though. 4/10

Questing variety is excellent and always fitting/interesting. When you first arrive in the opening city it can appear a bit intimidating, with every Tom, Dick and Harry giving you this and that to do but once you're out and about it settles down into more satisfying adventuring. While many of the bigger quests involve dungeon crawling to an end-boss there are also lots of other quests, many of which revolve around talking to people, having drinking competitions, stirring up a revolt, and even counting sheep (well deer to be precise), some of which even have choices as to how to proceed. Very impressed in this department. 10/10

Monster encounters and variety are quite a mixed bag. The bulk of the game is the basic Humans/Elves/Dwarves/Animals and very, very, very rarely do you encounter enemy mages. There is a smattering of interesting foes but only a smattering and they also tend to come in quantity rather than quality (as in large packs). The only really strange beasts are the various end-bosses, from the first, a Junk Golem, through Demons, Dragons and all kinds of interesting types and what-nots. It does have one really hideous dungeon where you have level after level of repeated set and monster, think the Remorhaz grind-walk in the Icewind Dale expansion Heart of Winter and then repeat that level 5 times and you know what I mean, it had me yelling "what were they thinking!" almost throughout. Generally though, most combat encounters are interesting and thought-required, even the crappy ones. 7/10

The game also has puzzels. There aren't many but they are there and often in crucial places where you'll be desperate to work them out. I found them all quite easy, but not dumbfuck easy and a non-puzzle person might stumble on some. Yes... there's a SLIDEY PUZZLE!!! (lol, in-joke for all slidey-puzzle haters). You could even class some of the people-quests as puzzles in their own right. 7/10

The general ambiance of the game as a whole is one of neither exuberance nor hatred. The opening town feels over-stuffed where-as the Elven Forest feels bare and empty bar one cool dungeon, the Dwarven mines area is a bit of both with an intensely busy centre surrounded by empty pointlessness with two big dungeons. The Dragon's Lair is a long walk to a dragon and literally nothing else. The Temple is just one big appalling, repetitive dungeon. The final section is just really weird as it starts with a dungeon which you can choose to either fight through or peaceably walk through followed by lots of end-boss stalling tactics before finally doing the end-battle thing. So the game is constantly flipping you from too much to too little to just right, never allowing you to make a definite decision about what the game feels like as a whole. Disjointed, but not necessarily badly. 6/10

A lot of people I since read about seem to think the english version has badly acted voice actors and it's not a patch on the original german. I never had a problem with any of the voice acting aside from the odd very small sore thumb and generally found it all fully satisfactory. I didn't dislike any of my forced companions (it's a single player game with forced companions up to a total team of 4) and I thought them and most of the NPCs sounded great. 10/10

The look and graphics of the game were fine for me. They're probably not that much advanced from the original Neverwinter Nights (2002) and there's not much to write home about with quite a lot of repeated scenery, but they present their world concisely and coherently and nothing sticks out as particularly bad. It's all exactly as you'd expect a NWN clone to look. I even prefer this look to how they made NWN2 (2006) look, everything being a bit smaller and less in-you-face but still obviously pretty. If you like just standing next to a waterfall watching deer bounce through the flora for 5 minutes in your RPGs then this game is up to the aesthetic challenge. 8/10

I had no noticeable bugs or technical issues with this game from start to finish. 10/10

So, my big ten categories added up and divided by ten equals a total score for the game of... drumroll please...

7.4/10

(Metacritic critics 7.5, users 8.6)

 

[VentilatorOfDoom]

I don't remember the camera being so obnoxious, but anyway... I wholeheartedly disagree with the itemization being piss poor. This game has a lot of crafting skills, smithing, bowcrafting, alchemy etc. In the first Drakensang game all those skills were there, but were pointless because of the loot bonanza. What's the point of finally finding a bow schematic and have the according crafting skill high enough to craft that bow when you were regularily finding better bows in barrels already like 3 levels worth of playtime ago? All the crafting skills were absolotuly pointless because you already had far better equipment than whatever you could craft. (except 2 or 3 special items you could craft from dragon remains) So, after that received some criticism they changed it in RoT and made crafting useful. You will have a loot bonanza towards the endgame but during the first 2/3rds of the game crafting will be extremely helpful. Want a good bow early on in Nadoreth? You need to craft it. Want half-plate metal armor early? Get the steel and craft it. You can even use alchemy and craft stuff from monster parts to get coin for buying some of the more expensive stuff (like the two-handed magic warhammer from one of the merchants in Nadoreth) earlier in the game. That way they actually made the skills the character system provides more meaningful. Plus, it's not like you never get any unique rewards, be it armor or a weapon, when completing certain sidequests.

 

[SCO]

I like that itemization in dark eye games is 'restrained', to make a nice contrast to the horrible itemization that diablo inflicted everywhere else.

Disgusting level-scaled, random stats items begone. Where has all the dignity gone?

 

[Turjan]

I didn't really have any camera problems, either. Regarding the itemization, I also liked it as it was. Then again, I'm not into games that throw all those +1 this or +1 that items at you constantly. The game had enough of those for my taste. I had Forgrimm do all the smithing, which worked out nicely.

I'm not sure as to the NWN clone moniker, either. The game seems rather to try and emulate the BG mood directly, with lots of classic Aventuria (Arkania) atmosphere strewn in.

 

[Abu Antar]

The camera is dreadful but knowing how to handle it, it can be manageable.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I wholeheartedly disagree with the itemization being piss poor. This game has a lot of crafting skills, smithing, bowcrafting, alchemy etc. [Then lots of talking about the crafting and over-praising the 5% loot]

Yes, that's what I said, it doesn't have a loot system, it has a crafting system. I don't like dominating crafting in my RPGs, so, obviously, that irritated me.

I like that itemization in dark eye games is 'restrained', to make a nice contrast to the horrible itemization that diablo inflicted everywhere else.

I have no idea why someone would compare this game to Diablo or bring Diablo in as a reference point. And "restrained" is a gigantic understatement.

Regarding the itemization, I also liked it as it was. Then again, I'm not into games that throw all those +1 this or +1 that items at you constantly.

This suggests you don't really know what makes for good itemisation and what doesn't. A game which just drops +1 upgrades willy-nilly isn't great itemisation. Great itemisation is any system which will add another layer of player agency to progressing through the game. Firstly, by requiring that the player will get better results from specific monsters if he uses different weapons of the same power-rating - such as a hammer against stone or fire against an undead.

Secondly, by requiring the player to actually have dilemmas about what is the best weapon to use from an array of similar power-level choices, such as the choice between a crossbow of speed or a crossbow of impact or a crossbow of accuracy to which the player then adds a further dilemma of which bolts to use with regards to quantity management and/or cost/droprate. And this isn't happening just once with one upgrade, this is happening throughout the game.

A game which just litters you with upgrades for the sake of it is not great itemisation, it's just general itemisation. Crafting is something else altogether which has to be judged in the context of what makes for great crafting.

The game had enough of those for my taste. I had Forgrimm do all the smithing, which worked out nicely.

Oops, it seems that you think crafting is itemisation...

I'm not sure as to the NWN clone moniker, either. The game seems rather to try and emulate the BG mood directly, with lots of classic Aventuria (Arkania) atmosphere strewn in.

It may be emulating BG in spirit and intention, but, as a consumer, people will identify with NWN more because of the 3D + camera and other less easily describable traits (such as the piled up fooled-you un-interactive boxes everywhere and generally boring main plot). I think if you marketed it as a BG successor people will be leaning towards disappointment but if you marketed it as a NWN successor then people will probably appreciate it more, if that makes sense.

 

[Turjan]

This suggests you don't really know what makes for good itemisation and what doesn't. A game which just drops +1 upgrades willy-nilly isn't great itemisation.

No, it just means I generally don't care for it. Having specific tools for specific tasks gets old quickly. It's something you need in MMO's in order to keep them interesting, but it's utterly dispensable in single-player games. It also fits the rule set. But even Drakensang has that to some extent. Having the right items ready for specific encounters makes a big difference.

By the way, the example you gave is something that's actually present in the game, where you have to make this choice regarding bows and arrows.

Oops, it seems that you think crafting is itemisation...

No, but I think it's an excellent addition to and replacement for it.

It may be emulating BG in spirit and intention, but, as a consumer, people will identify with NWN more because of the 3D + camera and other less easily describable traits (such as the piled up fooled-you un-interactive boxes everywhere and generally boring main plot). I think if you marketed it as a BG successor people will be leaning towards disappointment but if you marketed it as a NWN successor then people will probably appreciate it more, if that makes sense.

I simply don't think the game has much in common with NWN at all. I don't see the semblance, and definitely not regarding plot, which I found a refreshing change from the usual bombast. I mentioned BG, as it seems to be the model the mood and the organisation of the game are based on.

 

[SCO]

For me, the gold standard of itemization will always be early 90 rpgs, like ultima 7 or realms of arkania, where magical loot was fixed, found in places where the lore around them made them fit (magebane for instance, which you could deduce the location from reading a book about castle stonegate), and never sold magic stuff in shops (actually, spells shouldn't be sold in shops either).

Resuming, low magic for loot even if the setting wasn't low magic at all (both of those for instance). I wouldn't say no to location randomization as long as the alternatives are still lore appropriate and can be turned off in options (a baldur's gate WEIDU mod did this, very good for replays).

I also prefer stats not even being visible to the player (but i like 'extra' effects, if deducible from lore) but that is admittedly radical.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

No, but I think it's an excellent addition to and replacement for it.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

It surprises me how little attention this game gets, particularly from the codex. This is a great little game. But, woe is me, I went back to a pre-save before the final area and 'properly' stocked up for the finale. It turns out I was given completely incorrect information as to how to best cheese the final encounters with regards to spells. But more of that later.

I also discovered a couple of areas I hadn't completed while looking for spell-trainers.

I had completely forgotten about the Troll Bridge. So I went and got the Candy Kosh from the dodgy dealer and went to see what was down there. Again, nothing much, until I hit the island and found probably the best puzzle of the game, that was really nice. I revise my score to 7.5

But I also bought the Hamster and the Sabre Tooth Rabbits... Yes, it was fun, yes it made me chuckle... until I realised they were completely useless. 100 Duckets for a joke. Jeeeeezus, just make them 5 Duckets each, it meant I couldn't afford to upgrade Ardo's sword from +4 to +6 because I was short about 100dp (well, more like 200, but I could have 'found' another 100 if I spent another umpteen hours looking for it). I revise my score back to 7.4

The guy was also selling the Amoeba Spores, which reminded me about the Decay quest I had never bothered with. So I went back to the Decaying thing and it sprouted giant Amoebas, which was an awesomely fun monster, probably the most gorgeously original monster of the entire game. It was a shame Fogrim could kill them all on his own without losing any health while all the others just walked away from them, but, still, really nice touch. I revise my score back up to 7.5

I then decided to really take-on the animals in the Dark Wood, instead of just running through them all last time. I had killed approximately 30 Wolves before I realised it was a permanent respawn. You could not fight your way through. Because running seemed retarded I assumed it must be a puzzle. But I couldn't work it out (sneaking, route etc). So I gave in and looked it up - there was chest buried in the long-grass which had a torch in it you hold to just walk through unimpeeded. How utterly horrible a puzzle/set-up. I revise my score back to 7.4

I found a nice chest in the Dark Wood though, full to the brim of nice things.

So... onto the final fight (Ambush, multiple wizards, yourselves, Statue/Wizard.

I pre-prepared (or already had):

176 Bandages
137 Oneberry Juices
16 Healing Potions
1 Giant Healing Potion
20 Magic Potions
186 Incendiary Arrows
197 Elven Arrows

And the final batch of fights used up:

37 Oneberry Juices
3 Healing Potions
1 Bandage
93 Elven Arrows
42 Incendiary Arrows
5 Magic Potions (see below)

On the subject of spells that were useful:

Firstly, I thank everyone who said about adding + enhancements to spells, it was nice to have my Healing Spell work at last. I didn't use it much, but when I did it was crucial. I could only pump it to +3 though, even with maxed stats (hence the single use of a Bandage above).

Secondly, all of the actual spell suggestions were pretty darn lame. Actually worse than lame in some cases because they were outright wrong. My character wasn't allowed to learn any Summon spells at all. I thought there must have been a reason why I didn't have any, because I love Summoning mechanics. Nope they were all red'ed out for me. Had this been any other decently popular game and I wouldn't have been able to move for people pointing this out, but it appears even the fanboys of this game haven't played it enough to know that Charlatans can't use Summon Spells.

The spells I found to be ideal were: The Mirror Image spell, the Dispel (sleep/petrification) spell, the Sleep spell (that I was already using), Thunderbolt (that I was already using), and that was about all the time I had to cast anything useful when it was needed. In the reverse to the Amoeba battle, for the statue battle Fogrim did nothing except walk away while everyone else creamed the enemy without loss of HP. Training a couple of Archers is a total must.

I also found a shirt that I believe is way better than the -4 to enemy attacks shirt. I found a shirt that regenerates and extra +1 Astral Energy, with ok stats. Wearing that with Mirror Image felt nicely OP.

Really guys, more of you should play this game. They even thought to put a continue option after the final boss fight if you're a completionist obsessive. It probably does lack re-play value though, as evidenced by the lack of knowledge about the Charlatan character. Some people might be butthurt by my score of 7.4, but to me that's a very high score from someone who gets raged quite easily playing RPGs.

 

[Turjan]

It probably does lack re-play value though, as evidenced by the lack of knowledge about the Charlatan character.

Meh, there was a Charlatan NPC in the first game, the girl Forgrimm talks to in the loading slides, so most people know the archetype quite well. I used her mostly for fencing, selling loot, and some of the backup spell stuff. Given you have Cuano and Ardo, and given that most social skills are shared in TRoT, there isn't really any need for such a support character with mostly social skills in this game, which is why I would not consider it a good choice. The limited availability of NPC's in this game (due to the costs of VA) basically means that slightly different replacements for either Fayris or Jaakon are the best picks, like the mentioned Spellweaver. A Geode is also a very nice archetype.

I'm playing Phileasson's Secret at the moment (not recommended), and let's see whether I finish the final battle tonight. Using it as add-in makes it more bearable.

It surprises me how little attention this game gets, particularly from the codex.

It's hard to get in many places of the world. Also, it's stuck in a weird place. The system is too arcane for casuals, but the production values are too low for them. For the more hardcore crowd, it's a bit too bare bones, because the very limited budget combined with the decision to pay for VA put quite harsh restricitions on the game, like the lower level cap and limited number of companions compared to the first game. Lastly, the game didn't even get a release notice in the US, and the first game had not been overly well received outside of Germany.

I was also thinking about your camera comment. You did use right mouse button plus WASD keys to steer the chars, right? Also, regarding the summoning spells, you were told that it's not really worth much in the final battle. The Duplicatus spell is also a summoning spell, btw. I also used Fandango of Fireflies for the Charlatan in Drakensang:TDE (well, only technically a summoning spell, practically a debuff).

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

His main social skill is Fast Talk and there was a heck of a lot of Fast Talk/Lie checks in the game. Cano was good for Human Nature and Ardo did the Etiquette. Where my character passed with flying colours in the training area was with the Seduce skill. I stopped putting points into that when I had 8 points in it but Cano, with six, stole the only noticeable Seduce mechanic in the game. Charlatan starts out with the 'Good Looking' trait, +2 to Seduce checks IIRC.

I was also hoping to go for Streetwise, but outside of Nadoret I kind of lost interest in it. I'm not sure if there's many Streetwise checks. I really enjoyed playing the character though, I never felt overpowered but always useful. I had him be the Lockpicker, Leaving Cano free to max Trap Detection and Pickpocketing. I also maxed my PC's Animal Lore and Botany. He's basically a stats/spells character instead of a Weapons/Spells character.

 

[V_K]

It's just that the first game had trainers for all skills/spells, so I assumed that the second one does the same and never bothered to check. And my first and only playthrough was with a metamage, who has skeletarius from the start. It seems from the GameBanshee walkthrough that there are indeed no trainer for summoning magic (with the exception of the elven one). Which, I assume, means there's no summon djinni spell in the game, since I don't remember any class starting with it.

 

[IncendiaryDevice]

I think it had the Djinni, it was just for Wizards though I guess. I thought I had the Elemental Summons, but I never did, it was always that Wizard guy you pick-up from the wizrd-archer npc choice at the beginning.

 

[Turjan]

Which, I assume, means there's no summon djinni spell in the game, since I don't remember any class starting with it.

No, there is.

Which also means that it may sometimes be preferable not to upgrade your summoning spells.

 

[V_K]

Which, I assume, means there's no summon djinni spell in the game, since I don't remember any class starting with it.

No, there is. It starts with simpler summons though. The djinni is a higher power form.

A higher power form of what? Elemental?
Also, this shot is from Phileasson's Secret, I believe.

 

[Turjan]

A higher power form of what? Elemental?
Also, this shot is from Phileasson's Secret, I believe.

Yes, higher power form of elemental summonings.

The shot is from Phileasson's Secret, but that's just an add-in to the main game which doesn't change anything besides a bunch of additional items and stat upgrades. It's also my own pic. Fayris is summoning scorpions at this point.

Edit: See below.

 

[Fenris 2.0]

You get the summon djnn spell after slaying the dragon (and carefully examining the loot).

While your Charlatan can't cast summoning spells, either Fayris or the redheaded guy that no heterosexual male ever uses can cast them (Fayris can cast summon animals, the mage can learn to summon skeletons; it depends on the modifier, wich skeleton or animal appears. Fire-Elementals are decent damage dealers, but you need creatures that can take a beating (skeleton warriors and Crabs or Bugs).

 

[abnaxus]

Elves can learn Summon djinn too.

Ecliptus shadow clone is in the game too, but it is pretty crappy.

Funnily enough, in Blackguards the same spell is very OP.

or the redheaded guy that no heterosexual male ever uses

If your main is an Elf, it might be considered to use him.

 

[Turjan]

You get the summon djnn spell after slaying the dragon (and carefully examining the loot).

Well, you are right. I guess my mage didn't bother with Summon Elemental, as Fayris' spells seemed to do the trick, and you cannot have more than one summon anyway. I have to play that part of the game again :D.

Edit: Finally finished Phileasson's Secret. It works much better if you stay out of the Aerofugo .

 

[Caribbean Druid]

Hail, Hivemind.

I have a question about DSA's ruleset and I thought I'd seek wisdom to the source. So here goes:

I think I have understood most of the subtleties of this system but I still don't get how shield parry is calculated by the game. Let's take my main character for instance :



My weapon of choice is a sabre, I maxed out my weapon skill and focused on parry. Hence the 13.
I also found this neat shield which gives +3 to parry, and bought the skill shield combat I. Combined with my parry base of 7, that makes a 12.

I understand that having a shield gives an edge in combat in that it allows for two parries per round.

Here's my question though: when it comes to parrying, does a character use his shield twice per round, or parry once with his weapon and then with the shield?

If the shield value supersedes the weapon value, then I should have put my skill points in the AT pool. If not, does that mean that to have an effective defense twice a round, a PC should buff both his weapon parry and shield values?

I'm asking about this because it will impact Forgrimm's development as well.



So far his stats are almost equivalent (weapon parry 12, shield parry 11), but later in the game I expect his weapon parry value to be abysmal (I made him specialize in axes and maces and focused on AT), whereas his shield parry value should be pretty solid. Again, if the game uses his shield twice per round, there will be no problems, but if this is not the case, does that essentially mean he will fail at parrying 50% of the time?

Thank you for your attention, fair Codexia.

PS: Inb4 "Dude, go play PoE instead."

 

[Siobhan]

Here's my question though: when it comes to parrying, does a character use his shield twice per round, or parry once with his weapon and then with the shield?

I haven't played Drakensang yet (it's on my todo list) so I don't know how close it is to the offical ruleset (DSA v4.1). I never liked shields in DSA (they were completely useless in DSA3 and the fourth edition didn't make them much better), so I double checked in Wege des Schwerts to make sure I'm not misremembering things:

- every character has two actions per round, one for attacking, one for parrying
- if you have a shield, any parrying action uses the shield by default (p70)
- if you have shield combat II, you get an extra shield parry action (p71)
- you can also convert your attack action into a parrying action, so in combination with shield combat II you can defend up to three times per round (p71 and 81)
- converting your attack usually lowers your parry by 4 points, but not if you're using a shield (p81)

All of this suggests that your character should always use the shield for parrying, provided that all the PnP rules were adopted faithfully.

 

[A600]

For anyone interested, you can get the game for 4$ with the Be Mine 18 bundle.

 

[Caribbean Druid]

Hey Siobhan, thanks for the answer. I realised the complete edition (Drakensang+Am Fluss der Zeit) I bought comes with a pdf version of the rules (second printing, in 2008, I think it has to be the 4.1th edition) and it does say that once a shield is equipped, the weapon PA value won't ever be taken into account. Actually, I found a digital version of Wege des Schwerts and it seems that Drakensang uses a simplified version of the core ruleset with handpicked additions from the extensions. For instance, the special skill Linkhand doesn't exist, and neither does the Meisterparade maneuver. In the videogame adaptation, there is no option to convert an attack into a parry, etc.

Even if there is no way to check how exactly the developers implemented the rules (in-game, the console gives feedback about attack rolls only), I think you're right, there is no combination of weapon/shield parry.