Well I was playing around in the demo and I noticed I started gaining some skill in Parry while holding a candle so I was like WTF MAN SO COOL and I did some research. Maybe this would be accurate here.
Source: Parrying by Batlin
Quote:Miscellaneous parry facts
Candles, fishing poles, and torches check for parry skill (they do not give any AR).
Using magical clothing/armor of Protection raises parry skill 9.1. There is a bug that will give you different AR depending on what order you put on your shield and magic item of protection.
Parry started in UO alpha as ‘Battle Defense’ and determined how well you defended in combat. Some time before beta, this was changed to ‘parry’ for shield use. The fact that magic items of ‘protection’ raise parry skill (unlike the spell ‘protection’) is an artifact of the old ‘battle defense’ skill.
Source: Parrying by Batlin
