Thoughts on Shields

[Mark Taylor]

Okay, I originally posted the following query to the Rules Questions board:

 

According to the rules in Fantasy HERO, a character performing a shield bash often seems to do less damage with the shield than they would with a punch, due to the STR Minimum rules. I'm wondering if this is correct and if so, what is the reasoning behind it?

 

For example, a STR 20 character with a Tower Sheild (STR Minimum 18, 3d6N Damage) would do 4d6 Normal damage with a punch, but only 3d6 Normal Damage with a shield bash.

 

Steve responded thus:

 

I don't generally answer game design or philosophy questions' date=' for a whole bunch of reasons. AFAICT from what you posted, you seem to be interpreting the "how much damage" issue correctly, though.[/quote']

 

Anybody here have any thoughts on the issue? Should a shield bash do less damage than a punch by the same character?

[Geryon]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

Most definitely, a shield bash should do less damage than a punch. You have to keep in mind that most shields are not designed to be used as offensive weapons. If you had one that was, then sure, build it differently to show that. But your average shield is not designed to be used as a weapon.

 

Think about the weight of a shield. If your arm does X amount of force (via strength), when you try to hit Orc with your fist, you get X damage. When you hit him with shield you get X- whatever force it took just to heft the shield in his direction anyway. In other words, you are swinging a heavy, unwieldy object, usually with your "off" hand, while holding a weapon in your "on" hand. If you really want to beat people with a shield, drop your sword and two hand the shield. It works much better.

 

Also, think about how a shield is attached to the arm its user. Basically, everything above and below the arm has a pretty big amount of give to it because of a seesaw effect (think of the arm as the part of the seesaw in the middle and the top and bottom as the parts of the seesaw you sit on) This means unless your strike is directly with the part of the shield over your arm on directly on the target, a good bit of your force is lost. This seesaw "give" is required, or a lot of weapon strikes would go through the shield instead of being deflected.

 

Of course, too much give would be bad news, and this is often compensated for with denser materials. This goes back to the earlier point about how heavy and unwieldy a shield is. Shields are also much bigger than fists, which means your force is distributed over a greater area. See real life examples such as getting poked in the ribs by an empty plastic cup, then getting poked in the ribs with the same force by the eraser end of a pencil. Or if available, get punched in the arm by a girl (small hands hurt worse than they should!). Force distribution over a much greater area also effects how effective a shield bash is.

 

If you really want to test this out for yourself, find some innocent bystanders of roughly the same size, duct tape a piece of plywood to your arm, walk up to an innocent bystander, and hit them with it while holding a heavy object (to simulate sword) in your other hand. Then rip off the tape/board, walk up to another bystander, and punch them in the face. The shield bash might knock someone back a few feet, but the punch in the face is definitely worse.

 

Back to Hero, there are still many uses for the shield bash. In a lot of cases, your primary weapon is tied up and you would prefer to shield bash than drop the shield and punch.

 

Anyway, for those of you who would like to learn more about the physics of shield and sword, join your local chapter of the SCA (http://www.sca.org) or just go watch them sometime. Its a blast.

[Intrope]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

I'd say that's not unreasonable; a shield isn't really well-suited as a weapon. After all, it's not going to travel through the air as easily as any other weapon.

[Guest joen00b]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

I'd say that's not unreasonable; a shield isn't really well-suited as a weapon. After all' date=' it's not going to travel through the air as easily as any other weapon.[/quote']

 

Captain America would like to have a talk with you:P

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

Captain America would like to have a talk with you:P

 

Cap paid character points for his shield. It doesn't have to follow the "real shield" limitation.

[Mark Taylor]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

Okay, a lot of the things Geryon posted make sense, though the force-spread over-a-larger-area-argument only works if the shield has a flat and featureless surface. In practice most shield designs (at least most of those I have seen, which I admit may be an unrepresentative sample) have some kind of protruding element close to the center, which is generally made of metal and is thus much harder than a fist, while still being about the same size. Also the seesaw argument seems to assume an attacker would be somewhat untrained at using a shield for this purpose, whereas a trained individual could be practiced at striking with the correct part of the shield - the center (it's no coincidence that the hard metal protruding part is usually located there, right in front of the wielder's arm).

 

I think the main valid point here that would reduce the force of a shield attack as compared to a punch is that you can't get any leverage on the attack because of the way the shield is attached to the arm. Therefore the weight of the shield actually reduces the force of the attack rather than increasing it as it would with a weapon which makes use of the leverage effect, such as a sword or club. These are the lines I was thinking along anyway when considering why a shield bash might do less damage than a punch in some cases.

 

 

You have to keep in mind that most shields are not designed to be used as offensive weapons. If you had one that was' date=' then sure, build it differently to show that. But your average shield is not designed to be used as a weapon.[/quote']

 

I'm going to assume this point is fairly accurate in that the shields given in Fantasy HERO are flat-bodied shields not designed for attacking with, and what I probably need to do is design a different shield which takes that hard metal bit in the center (anybody got a better name for it?) into account. Probably this will also involve introducing a 1-point WF: Shields to represent being properly trained to use such an attack.

 

It occurs to me that there are probably a couple of other things a very strong person can do to take advantage of a tower shield specifically.

 

1) Tower shields almost reach the ground anyway, so you could plant the bottom edge of the shield in the ground, effectively using the bottom edge of the shield as a pivot so you could strike your opponent with the top edge. Unlike other shield attacks, this one would be able to take advantage of the leverage effect.

 

2) Performing a Move Through. It seems to me a tower shield could be very effective for performing that maneuver in the hands of a very strong individual. It might not necessarily do more damage than unarmed strength, but it should protect the attacker from most of the damage he'd normally take from performing a move though.

 

Does anybody have any idea if either of the above maneuvers were actually used historically? Even if they weren't (after all I'm running High Fantasy, which is intended to be more fun and dramatic than realistic), I'm tempted to model them by building a couple of new combat maneuvers specifically for use with a tower shield.

 

Anybody got any thoughts on any of this stuff?

[Guest Silvereye]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

OK I also play in Mark's game, though not as that character. And whilst I have little experience of the Hero system, hence why the damage question came up, I have a few things to add.

 

The middle bit of the shield that protects your hand is called a boss. It tended to be a dome of iron that covered the carriers hand of early punch shields, a type which includes the viking/saxon round shields, norman kite shields, and roman tower shields (they also had carrying straps that fitted across the shoulder to help with the weight). It is also how bucklers are constructed.

 

Later shields featured two leather straps riveted on the rear of the shield, one was grabbed in a fist and the other 'tied' around the arm. Often thay also had the shoulder straps as well.

 

"Think about the weight of a shield. If your arm does X amount of force (via strength), when you try to hit Orc with your fist, you get X damage. When you hit him with shield you get X- whatever force it took just to heft the shield in his direction anyway. In other words, you are swinging a heavy, unwieldy object, usually with your "off" hand, while holding a weapon in your "on" hand. If you really want to beat people with a shield, drop your sword and two hand the shield. It works much better." - Gyron

 

The difficulty of hitting with a shield is already covered in the rules. Tower shield is -4 OCV, plus another -3 OCV for the off hand penalty. Total -7 OCV to hit with, so you need to buy penalty skill levels and WFs to balance some of it. And a shield strike does not have to be with the flat of the shield . You can strike with an edge too, or a point if it has one.

 

Take the buckler for example, whilst the game considers it a shield, it is of very little use os a shield as it needs to be actively moved around to protect you (this is dealt with in the rules). However historically bucklers were also used as off hand weapons to punch an opponent with. Swinging heavy unwieldy objects also counts for swords, hammers, staves etc. They provide the user with extra range, and allow a strike with a surface that is harder than flesh, and will therefore stand up to more punishment.

 

In Gyrons example of force and impacts, he assumes that a target is unarmoured, adding any armour (especially metal) makes it more likely that the punching attacker will break his knuckles. Even punching an unarmoured target attracts this drawback if you strike bone. The shield takes the impact in a shield bash. It is also heavy, which adds momentum to the impact, whilst this may be distributed over more locations, it is certainly more powerful than a punch. I'd take the punch from him rather than a shield bash.

 

"I'm going to assume this point is fairly accurate in that the shields given in Fantasy HERO are flat-bodied shields not designed for attacking with, and what I probably need to do is design a different shield which takes that hard metal bit in the center (anybody got a better name for it?) into account. Probably this will also involve introducing a 1-point WF: Shields to represent being properly trained to use such an attack.

 

It occurs to me that there are probably a couple of other things a very strong person can do to take advantage of a tower shield specifically.

 

1) Tower shields almost reach the ground anyway, so you could plant the bottom edge of the shield in the ground, effectively using the bottom edge of the shield as a pivot so you could strike your opponent with the top edge. Unlike other shield attacks, this one would be able to take advantage of the leverage effect.

 

2) Performing a Move Through. It seems to me a tower shield could be very effective for performing that maneuver in the hands of a very strong individual. It might not necessarily do more damage than unarmed strength, but it should protect the attacker from most of the damage he'd normally take from performing a move though." - Mark

 

The WF is probably unnecessary, a buckler is covered by the WF: Common Melee, and another -3 OCV is probably way too harsh

 

1) Probably a little too complicated, you just want to hit your opponent.

 

2) Sounds good, maybe add the shields Def and/or Body to the characters resistence to subtract from the damage.

 

So a few more possible options:

 

1) Shields should have the adding DCs based on the users Strength compared to the Str Min required to use it (though this will not solve the character's problem of a tower shield strike being a less damage than her punch)

 

2) Add the shields Normal damage onto the characters Normal damage (which might be a bit too powerful).

 

3) Strike multiple adjacent loctions at once, 2 for a small shields, 4 for large shields etc.

 

4) Add the shields DCV to the Stun multiplier for the attack.

[Nuke]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

Anybody here have any thoughts on the issue? Should a shield bash do less damage than a punch by the same character?

 

I agree with everything people said here. In addition, you might consider allowing "Shield Bash" to do knockback. I wouldn't allow it to knockback if you increased the stun multiplier, though, it seems like it would be one or the other...

[Markdoc]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

just a couple of points:

 

Bucklers, though small, were most definately used to block with. If all you wanted was a metal punching surface, then an armoured gauntlet or any of the vaiety of handloads available would work as well and be both easier to use and lighter as well as being cheaper. Moreover the dents, slashes and dings in bucklers in the national museum here from the siege of Copenhagen indicate pretty definatively that their real-life weilders were using them actively to block with.

 

On the topic of punching with other shields: as noted the metal thing in the middle is called a boss and it covers the hole in the middle of the shield where your hand went. Since the type of shield where a boss was common was flat, and the handle ran across it, the hole allows you to get a firm grip on the handle without crushing your knuckles. It's not to hit with People DID use such shields to hit with, according to near contemporary sources, but they did the sensible thing. Instead of trying to hit with the boss, which would block your view and require an awkward and weak grip, they swung it, using the edge. That allows you to hit without changing your grip, allows you to swing instead of poke (thus taking advantage of leverage) and hits your opponent with a narrow edge, not a gently rounded metal dome.

 

Having said all that, shield blows and shield bashes are useful adjuncts to weapon strikes, not an efective weapon intheir own right. Compared to a sword or a club, a shield is heavier, slower, and not designed to use effectively as a weapon (just as a sword is not designed to keep arrows out of your chest). Swords, axes and clubs don't do more damage because they are heavy - they do more damage because that weight is designed to take advantage of leverage. Just think of picking up a club and hitting someone with the bit just above your hand. Now think of hitting them with the end. The weight is exactly the same, but there's no doubt which one will do more damage.

 

So, all in all, it does not seem unreasonable that a shield bash does less than theoretical maximum damage. Just like in real life, it's an adjunct and being able to bash someone when your weapon in binding theirs is till a useful tactic.

 

cheers, Mark

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

Good post Markdoc.

 

 

As far as the Shield bashing goes, to my mind there are two seperate things to consider. One is strict realism and the other is cinematic action.

 

From a strictly real point of view, a Shield is a less than ideal weapon.

 

However from a cinematic action point of view, its an easily visualized and "neat" attack.

 

 

So really, it boils down to this; if you favor realism then yeah Shields are going to be less effective and the STR Min rules work to make that happen.

 

If on the other hand you favor cinematic action then the Shields performance as written is so poor as to make it dissapointing. Some options to resolve this are to lower the STR Min, or perhaps allow a character to buy a 1 pt Weapon Fam with Shield that unlocks an extra slot in the MP that has no STR Min at all, or something along those lines.

[Killer Shrike]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

Adding a Slot to the Shield MP with Naked Power Modifier Penetrating on up to X STR (however much could be afforded) might be a good way to handle it. STR Min wouldnt apply to it, and some STUN would likely get thru on heavily armored opponents making it a worthwhile attack.

 

 

Dont have my books w/ me so I cant check it for legality, but off hand it sounds feasible.

[LordGhee]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

Historical note:

During the battle of Marathon a greek figure out that with his 40lb bronze shield that if he struck hard with the edge to the center of the Persian wicker tower shield he could bread the arm of the Persian holding it.

 

Greek shields are large round made of bronze and held with a center strap to arm and a grip for the hand at edge.

 

Lord Ghee

[Markdoc]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

There are lots of cool things that you can do with shields - but what I do is rather than add them to the freebie shield as a WF, I allow the players to buy them as talents (generically referred to as "cool fighter shit" in my last FH game )

 

Some examples:

 

shield bash : +3d6 HA, double KB, requires a large or medium shield (OIF). Note that since this is power not a freebie there's no STR MIN, so a player gets to add his pro-rated STR. There's a good chance the player can knock his oponent off his feet with this one. A refined version added trigger (successful block) to the power, allowing the player to block and then whack his opponent.

 

Yet another variant shield bash was simply extra HA using a shield as a focus. That allowed players to dish out 6d6 or more, since again there was no STR min built in.

 

One player took a "weapon trap" option. When using a wooden shield, he could trap weapons in it and twist them out of the user's hand. This was built as: +4 CSL to disarm, requires opponent to hit shield (-1/4), wooden shield (OIF). He later added a "weaponbreak" maneuver in which he could twist the shield and break the blade - that was a triggered HKA with the same limitations that automatically targetted the focus and became a second slot in a multipower (we didn't use damage shield because it was too expensive and I didn't want it to automatically succeed - this way although he got a "free" attack he still had to roll to hit the weapon, giving his opponent a chance to "wrench it free").

 

Just as an aside, talking of shelds, one character - Brok Bloodspear - brought the old celtic "shield feat" in which he sprang onto an opponent's shield and delivered the killing blow from there. This was simply brought as levels to counteract any shield bonus to DCV.

 

cheers, Mark

[Curufea]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

I'd like to just add (as a dark-age re-enactor) that I do think Shield Bash should do less damage than a fist.

I think where people are getting confused is that the majority of attacks that you do with a shield, will be Move Throughs (or, as we called them, Charges).

 

Shields are light - because you get tired of having your arm out for too long, and you want to move them quickly to intercept blows.

 

The only way a shield will do significant damage is if you put your weight behind it - usually with your shoulder. And this constitutes a Move Through. Albeit you may not move more than a metre.

 

Shield Bashes are most commonly used (by our group at least) to knock weapons aside - especially spears. But can also be used to blind opponents or unbalance them.

[Storn]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

Folks, what about the edge?

 

That is a lot of force being applied in a very small area. Obviously, bucklers were used in this fashion. And larger shields would be very unweildy to use in this fashion... so it kinda goes back to "style of shield".

 

But you chop at someone's wrist with a shield edge, and it connects... that is going to hurt more than someones knifehand... unless it is a perfect hit or a martial arts master who hits a nerve cluster or sumthin'.

 

Yet while I see that it is a HKA by the rules, I would still consider it normal damge myself.

[Roger Books]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

I'm going to assume this point is fairly accurate in that the shields given in Fantasy HERO are flat-bodied shields not designed for attacking with, and what I probably need to do is design a different shield which takes that hard metal bit in the center (anybody got a better name for it?) into account.

 

I believe it is called a "boss".

 

Roger

[HewhoisMatt]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

It depends on the size and how you are holding it more than anything. I have shield bashed people in the past and it hurt alot more than my punch would. I think where people are having a problem is the wording. If you hit someone with the flat of a shield or "the center boss" it comes out as a shove and this works well to give me some space, so it would be better called a "Shield Shove". When I hit someone more to hurt it was more of a punch. The shield was round, and 27 inches across, was strapped across my palm, and just below my elbow. I punched out with the shield hit with the edge and the effect was alot like brass knuckles cept more so cause the shield had more weight and mass. All I had to do was get it moving, his head had to stop it.

 

On to other things........

 

Tower shields, when I am coming across a battle field the last thing I want to see is a line of tower shields. I love coming across one guy alone with a tower cause it works just as well for me as for him and he has to deal with the weight. Towers are of almost no use anywhere but a shield wall and there they are gods. You have a line of men holding this portable wall locked together with a line of men behind them with pole weapons(spears and such) and it is a real bear to break thru. What I am saying is towers are great for a army on the field but a bad plan for a small party of heros, you might as well paint "Flank Me!" on the front of your shield.

 

I should point out I should not have shield punched the people I did. It was against the rules and lacked honor. I was young, mad, and stupid at the time and could have really hurt them.

[Curufea]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

Depends on the edging as well. Most shields are either wood edged, or edged with leather. It is rare that you waste metal on a shield edge, as metal was difficult to obtain.

 

However, definitely dependant on type of shield. I'm speaking about the Dark Ages. Which was mainly round, large round and kite shields.

 

Some shields, especially of those wacky french and german nobles, were designed as weapons, complete with spikes.

[Ner0Sputnik]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

OK, you say that you're running a high-fantasy campaign so what you want is to look at movies and literature to find the effects this has in those sources.

 

There are a couple of ways you can recreate these things.

 

First, I agree that someone having a tower shield on his own is not a good idea, but if it's part of their character concept, that's fine.

 

So, let's break this down into the effects it has on the combat.

 

Shield bash:

1) To knock down or knock back your foes.

This would most likely be a move through. But let's break it down even further. What are you really trying to do is temporarily stun your opponent, right? How about calling it a flash? Just 1pip. No more than 1 turn but enough to let your guy get the first attack in next time.

 

2) To release the proverbial smackdown on some b*&hes.

You could always work it like a club (Str damage +1d6 normal) if the current rules don't work the way you want them to. I would see this as a shield bash more by a smaller shield but hey... it's your campaign.

 

Jon

[NuSoardGraphite]

Re: Thoughts on Shields

 

Has anyone considered simply having a fighter trained in using a Shield Bash buy it as a Martial Art maneuver? Simply have them purchase a Martial Strike or Offensive Strike and add it to the basic shield damge (Sheild damage of 3D6 plus Martial Strike of +2D6 is 5D6 damage. Not too shabby, but far from overpowering)

 

The basic shield damage would be for anyone who simply uses a shield to bash someone with, but a fighter trained in Shield Bashing would purchase the maneuver and get increased damage. Shield skill levels should also be usable to add to the damage during a shield bash in addition to adding to DCV or OCV during a block....