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Shields Up


Old Man

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Fantasy Hero (and Ninja Hero) are pretty good at statting out weapons in such a way that they play in a unique way, especially when martial arts are thrown into the mix. However, shields don't get the same treatment. By and large, Hero treats shields primarily by size and weight and that's about it. Between countries and time periods, shields had subtle but important differences in construction and were often employed in substantially different ways. I put together a brief list of historical shield types and their styles of use here; what is the best way to model these styles in FH?

 

 

Hoplon (Greek): Heavy (15 pound) circular shield of wood faced with bronze. Typically covered user from chin to knee. Central arm strap with grip toward the edge. Very concave, allowing the user to bear part of the weight on his shoulder. Used in formation, but also seems to have been used very dynamically in one-on-one combat, the user actively moving it around to parry, strike with the edge, or cover behind the head.

 

Pelta (Greek): Lightweight, wicker and leather (or leather woven with wood) construction, often with crescent cutout near gripping hand to help control spears held in primary hand. Straps/grip arrangement presumed similar to hoplon. Not clear exactly how it was used, but peltasts seem to have been armed mainly with throwing spears or javelins; light weight and cutout suggest that wielders would have used it actively.

 

Scuta (Roman): Basically a huge, heavy (15-22 pound), curved rectangle of plywood and leather, almost more of a mobile piece of cover than a shield. The grip, behind a central boss, was oddly horizontal, so the user's forearm must have pointed downward when carried. Often rested on the ground while its bearer fought from behind it. Also used for shoving. Mostly just held to cover the left side of the body in individual combat. Hard to see the user even raising it to block a head shot in time.

 

Celtic shield (Early Celtic): Actually quite similar to scuta, but flat. Plywood covered with leather or cloth, wood boss with vertical braces running the height of the shield, horizontal grip behind the boss. Usage unknown.

 

Targe (Later Celtic): 20" buckler with forearm strap and grip. Handgrip often designed to allow user to grip a dirk in the shield hand, point down, protruding from behind the targe. Leather or linen covered wood with metal boss, or possibly all-metal construction. Used for active parrying; small size means little passive coverage.

 

Round shield (Norse): Large (18-36"), circular, two plies of leather-wrapped wood with a central metal boss that covered the grip. No arm strap. Vikings appear to have employed the round shield almost as a giant buckler, very actively, to deflect strikes, jam opponents, and screen counterstrikes. Carried over the back using long strap.

 

Kite/Heater (Later European): Layered wood faced with leather or (later) metal. Arm straps. Limited shield movement resulting from shape and arm straps. Kite versions provided good leg coverage especially for mounted troops. Jousting versions seem to have been basically used as a piece of armor, with relatively little active blocking/deflecting on the part of the holder.

 

Buckler (Renaissance Europe): Small (average 12") shield, round or rectangular, wood/leather with metal boss or all-metal construction. Central grip with no strap. Small size made it mostly useless against missiles but allowed it to be carried at the hip. Primarily used for active parrying, or to cover the sword hand, with occasional strikes.

 

Isihlangu (Zulu): Stiffened leather affixed to a vertical supporting shaft that also serves as the grip. No arm strap. Tall (up to 5ft) but still lightweight. Used to deflect thrown spears, parry in melee combat, and sometimes to hook an opponent's shield to move it out of the way for a thrust with the stabbing spear.

 

Dhal (Indian/Persian): Round, buckler-sized (8" - 20") shield of thick hide or all metal construction. Usually concave. Distinctive feature is the central pair of handgrips (with resulting square of four metal bosses visible on the outside of the shield), plus a cloth knuckle-lining on the inside of the shield. When holding the grips, the shield hand knuckles press against the lining, creating a very firm grip. Sometimes an arm strap was also used. Some models also had a central spike protruding from the outside of the shield for offensive use, probably fairly effective given the grip arrangement.

 

Tengpai (Chinese): Medium round shield of rattan, with wicker armloops and a vertical wooden grip offset about 1/3 of the way from the center of the shield to the edge. Very lightweight and actively, almost acrobatically, used as per traditional Tai Ji Quan forms.

 

Double Steel Tiger Head Shields (Chinese): Dual rectangular metal shields, strapped to each forearm, with points cut in the forward edge for use as an incredibly inefficient thrusting weapon. Perhaps 18" x 24". These shields appear to have been pretty heavy and ungainly, to the point where it's hard to believe they were a real type of armor, but apparently forms exist for these in Hung Gar and Choy Li Fut. (Choy Li Fut also has similar forms for dual tengpai.)

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Hero doesn't have a lot of crunchyness to make individual shields distinct, but there are factors you could play with.

- Shield size/shape changes number of hex facings protected.

- Shield size/shape changes number of hit locations protected.

- Shield size caps maximum number of blocks.

- Smaller shields may be +Block rather than +DCV.

- Different construction can be different DEF/Body.

- Shield cutout for weapons might give +1 OCV.

- Shields have a base +HA. Heavy shields double it.

- Two Weapon Fghting variant: Weapon Strike and Shield Block.

 

Yeah, I was just working on similar thoughts for a Fantasy Hero game...

 

Chris.

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You could stat shields with defensive powers instead of DCV or CSL's. Damage Negation and Barrier (with Self Only) could both be modified with a Facing Limitation. Going this route just means the use of shields requires a type of layered defense in practice during game.

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I guess what I'm ultimately after with this would be a shield table similar to the melee weapon table, only balanced. ;) It would involve breaking out DCV bonuses for ranged and melee attacks, +OCV for blocking, attack modes for spikes or edges, whether the off hand is free, DEF/Body, and so on. Basically all the stuff Christougher listed.

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I guess what I'm ultimately after with this would be a shield table similar to the melee weapon table, only balanced. ;) It would involve breaking out DCV bonuses for ranged and melee attacks, +OCV for blocking, attack modes for spikes or edges, whether the off hand is free, DEF/Body, and so on. Basically all the stuff Christougher listed.
Would be neat to see more asian shields. The only one mentioned (the tortise shield for karate) has no stats (at leaast for 5th ed uma)
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I guess what I'm ultimately after with this would be a shield table similar to the melee weapon table, only balanced. ;) It would involve breaking out DCV bonuses for ranged and melee attacks, +OCV for blocking, attack modes for spikes or edges, whether the off hand is free, DEF/Body, and so on. Basically all the stuff Christougher listed.
Not exactly disagreeing, but at what point is a different shield actually different? You could use 'short sword' to describe a handful of different bladed weapons, whether curved or straight, wide blade or narrow, single or double edged. As long as they all have the same Hero stats, does it matter that one is a wakizashi, one a gladius, and one a small sword? (For example purposes only, I am NOT arguing actual weapons or differences.)
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Having a Shield Table with all the different types listed and such would be cool, but I admit I am too lazy to do that, so I am going to offer an alternative to give the shield more utility without having to do any extra work.

 

For a lot of these shields, the DCV and encumbrance is all that matters for the untrained user. For the really large shields you can use partial cover rules to represent the extra DCV from missile fire. You could require a Weapon Familiarity with Shield to be able to utilize the full DCV bonus, or let characters buy levels with DCV or Blocking only usable with a shield. To really use a shield effectively might be more akin to having a Weapon Familiarity with an appropriate martial art. That would give you Block and Bind techniques and even a Shield Bash or Charge style attack.

 

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Having a Shield Table with all the different types listed and such would be cool, but I admit I am too lazy to do that, so I am going to offer an alternative to give the shield more utility without having to do any extra work.

 

For a lot of these shields, the DCV and encumbrance is all that matters for the untrained user. For the really large shields you can use partial cover rules to represent the extra DCV from missile fire. You could require a Weapon Familiarity with Shield to be able to utilize the full DCV bonus, or let characters buy levels with DCV or Blocking only usable with a shield. To really use a shield effectively might be more akin to having a Weapon Familiarity with an appropriate martial art. That would give you Block and Bind techniques and even a Shield Bash or Charge style attack.

One advantge of having more detailed stats would be for heroic level characters whereas even 1 DCV can make a big difference. Especially if said DCV bonus is tied to a STR min.
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Having a Shield Table with all the different types listed and such would be cool, but I admit I am too lazy to do that, so I am going to offer an alternative to give the shield more utility without having to do any extra work.

 

For a lot of these shields, the DCV and encumbrance is all that matters for the untrained user. For the really large shields you can use partial cover rules to represent the extra DCV from missile fire. You could require a Weapon Familiarity with Shield to be able to utilize the full DCV bonus, or let characters buy levels with DCV or Blocking only usable with a shield. To really use a shield effectively might be more akin to having a Weapon Familiarity with an appropriate martial art. That would give you Block and Bind techniques and even a Shield Bash or Charge style attack.

Speaking of shield fu, does anyone know what happened to the way of the silver shield that was in UMA 4th?
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I like the martial arts approach. You could do a fairly simple one with Bash (Martial Strike), Block (Martial Block), Knockdown (Defensive Throw), and Overpower (Shove).
If you like. I think a distinct maneuver would be a little technical for what is essentially a shield bash following a block.
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This all sounds interesting. Perhaps shields that provide passive protection increase armour, while shields that provide active protection increase DCV or Block.
One simple solution that came up last time we discussed this, is that you could split up the DCV/OCV bonuses for shields. My suggestion was that the total was +3 CSL but distributed differently for different shields.

 

So buckler-type-shields give only +1 DCV, but a +2 OCV when actively blocking: a buckler's not that good for passive protection against incoming arrows. It's actually designed for active defence. In contrast, a big heavy shield like a Hoplon or Scutum gives a +3 DCV, but +0 OCV when blocking - it's too heavy and cumbersome to move swiftly in response to a specific attack, but it gives you a pretty big bonus to passive defence, even in melee. A shield like a viking-style shield which combined both functions, gave you a +2 to DCV and a +1 OCV when actively blocking. In addition, the DCV bonus can be applied as penalty when shield bashing (I can't recall if that's an actual rule or one of our long-term house rules ....)

 

As for other things, like materials, I haven't bothered to do more than use DEF/BOD for breaking things with the proviso that (like armour) shields are designed to take punishment and thus have 2x the BOD that you would expect from their mass. It's still not unusual in our games for some guy with a big axe to smash your shield to flinders in pretty short order. Likewise the chance that your weapon can get stuck in a shield: that's not unique to persian wicker shields. We know it happened with Roman Scuta, Korean tower shields, Viking shields, and (I am guessing) every other kind of shield.

 

One thing I would strongly, strongly recommend against is allowing shields to add to armour. We actually played with this rule for a while and it turned out that an armoured guy with a shield was almost impossible to hurt, unless you had significantly enhanced attacks (magic swords, big-ass energy blasts, giant-hurled boulders, etc). We allowed heavy shields to add up to 6 DEF (on an activation roll), which doesn't sound completely unreasonable ... until you realise that if the shield's in play, a guy in plate with a heavy shield and moderate human PD won't take any BOD from a 20d6 EB and odds are good he'll bounce a 5d6 killing attack with little harm. We found that stopping a PC with plate armour, a heavy shield and 8 PD (not uncommon) was like dealing with someone in terminator armour: most ordinary weapon attacks simply bounced off. Forget pathetic weapons like arbalests or heavy longbows ... if shields add to PD, you need ballistas to reliably take down armoured infantry and every fight ends with lots of unconscious but unwounded enemy. Unless you plan on increasing damage from all weapons as well, it's just not a good idea.

 

cheers, Mark

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A passive shield would only provide sectional defence, of course. If the attack struck the target's head for example then the shield's extra defence would not apply. The added DCV of a large shield would be simulated by the need to make aimed shots to hit a part of the target's body that was not covered.

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I guess what I'm ultimately after with this would be a shield table similar to the melee weapon table, only balanced. ;) It would involve breaking out DCV bonuses for ranged and melee attacks, +OCV for blocking, attack modes for spikes or edges, whether the off hand is free, DEF/Body, and so on. Basically all the stuff Christougher listed.
You're right of course, but at the same time, just having small/medium/large shields is kind of boring. One characteristic of many fantasy campaigns (and martial arts in general) is the fetishization of weapons and armor. FH has plenty to offer with the weapons table and sectional armor, but shields have never received the same attention to detail.

 

Of course the flip side to all this is balance. I'd like to encourage different shield types that actually play differently in the system, but I don't want one shield type to be clearly superior to another. In AD&Dv1, for example, you'd be a fool to use any weapon other than a longsword or bastard sword.

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A passive shield would only provide sectional defence, of course. If the attack struck the target's head for example then the shield's extra defence would not apply. The added DCV of a large shield would be simulated by the need to make aimed shots to hit a part of the target's body that was not covered.
Wish I could rep Marcdoc. I like the OCV/DCV bonus idea.
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A passive shield would only provide sectional defence, of course. If the attack struck the target's head for example then the shield's extra defence would not apply. The added DCV of a large shield would be simulated by the need to make aimed shots to hit a part of the target's body that was not covered.
That reminds me, we always played with a house rule that if an attack missed by less than or equal to the DCV bonus of the shield, the shield took the hit and the attack's damage was inflicted against the shield's DEF and BODY. That way, when fighting against, like, frost giants, the shield bearer would be much more likely to spend a phase actively blocking with the shield (or dodging like hell) so as to prevent their shield from getting smashed to flinders in one hit.
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Would it be worth treating shields a bit like hand and a half swords in that they have two different STR Minima. The lower STR Minimum is required for passive shield use i.e. carrying the thing into battle and holding it reasonably steady. The higher STR Minimum is for actively blocking with the shield.

 

Most anyone could defend themselves with a buckler, at least until they got tired out. But it would take a real mighty thewed Conan type to swing a Roman shield around in the same way.

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Would it be worth treating shields a bit like hand and a half swords in that they have two different STR Minima. The lower STR Minimum is required for passive shield use i.e. carrying the thing into battle and holding it reasonably steady. The higher STR Minimum is for actively blocking with the shield.

 

Most anyone could defend themselves with a buckler, at least until they got tired out. But it would take a real mighty thewed Conan type to swing a Roman shield around in the same way.

Shadowsoul that was sorta of the idea I mentioned upthread with DCV and str min. Perhaps if you have enough STR you can justuse the shields DCV bonus as OCV for blocking.
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