Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

[Jachra]

All right, here's the request...

 

The shields from Dune. Please, nothing other than the original book if you can avoid it. *shudder*

 

I presume Force Field for the small ones.

IIF, Visible, Independent (though I s'pose this isn't entirely necessary), Continuing Fuel Charge (1 hour, say? I can't remember any particular limit. May even be forever..). High enough Hardened PD to stop any man-portable projectile attack used.

Limitations I'm unsure of: The Holtzman Effect and the Minimum Velocity requirement.

(Curious thought, I doubt they'd be very effective against flame throwers. Sure, the rapid-moving plasma particles of the actual flame aren't likely to get to them, but what about the jelly?)

(Also, KA tends to do a chunk of STUN, and the target shouldn't be taking any STUN. How would one get around this?)

 

Force Wall for the large ones, no doubt. Wikipedia seems to indicate these ones can be set to accept a much lower minimum velocity...

IIF, Immobile, Visible, Independent, Restricted Shape... Wouldn't need charges, likely wouldn't work without a generator on hand.

How does one factor in something like a generator?

Throw in the Holtzman effect and it'd be good, I think.

 

Thought on the minimum velocity...

My first thought was a trigger, but that's no good since the shield is on or it isn't, and too bad for you if someone shoots you while it's down. Custom limitation of some sort, perhaps.

Where's the line drawn, though? 2 DC, Melee Only?

 

The only thing I can think of for the Holtzman would be a custom Limitation, along with guidelines for determining at which point(s) the detonation(s) take place. 1/2d6, likely, 1: lasgun, 2: shield, 3: both. Anywhere from 6-10 KA Explosion (How wide depending on whether it's the ground shield or the personal shield... probably Penetrating.)

 

Well! Anything I'm missing? Mistakes?

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

Shield

http://dune.wikia.com/wiki/Shield

 

Holtzman Effect

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holtzman_effect#Holtzman_Shield

 

Paul Atreides: Is this what you seek?

Gurney Halleck: Good... the slow blade penetrates the shield... but look down. We'd have joined each other in death. However, you did seem to finally get in the mood.

 

 

LOL

 

 

QM

[ghost-angel]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

Star Hero has a build for these. Not sure how "true" they are to the book since I read them like 15 yrs ago...

[Captain Obvious]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

You'd think they would have used more in the way of stunning electricity. A knife works, but just a touch of it barely hurts, while just a touch of a stun gun will knock someone on their back.

[TheQuestionMan]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

Reactions to being STUN GUNNED very. I witnessed a guy so blitz out of his mind that it took 3 or 4 attempts before the guy acknowledged the attempt and strangely then reponded.

 

 

Wierd

 

 

 

QM

[Jaxom]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

Ummm... I think I would call this an insanely high DCV possibly coupled with Immunities or serious Damage Reduction with limitations. Forget the SFX and think in terms of the game effect, then write the SFX you want.

 

The point is that for the right kind of attack the shield does nothing. The quote is not, "You'd have joined me in having a small scratch." The shield does nothing of note against a slow blade.

 

So, in terms of cinematic effect, two guys with knives go at each other and until one of them makes a very specific, controlled attack (i.e. a really good attack roll) neither of them takes damage. When that attack gets through, it can kill in a single blow (i.e. does full damage to a Normal Char Maxima target).

 

I'd still lean toward a build that looked more like:

+6 SLs DCV (restrainable, OIF)

+15 SLs DCV (OIF, not against melee or slow-projectiles)

SFX: anything that would hit normal target DCV hits but does no damage

Side Effect: If target is hit by an energy beam

 

Scale the DCV contributions based on the power level of your campaign so that a skilled melee fighter stands a chance to hit but a projectile weapon will not.

[Maur]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

You wouldn't die from a small scratch, but the slow blade could be pushed fully through the shield. In the '84 movie, Gurney has his blade low where Paul didn't see it come through. So, in the time that Paul could have slit Gurney's throat, Gurney would have been able to push the blade through Paul's leg (potentially severing the femoral artery).

 

As for why no stun guns, think about when the books were written. Dune was published in '65. Tasers/Stun Guns weren't developed until the early '80s.

[Jaxom]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

You wouldn't die from a small scratch' date=' but the slow blade could be pushed fully through the shield. In the '84 movie, Gurney has his blade low where Paul didn't see it come through. So, in the time that Paul could have slit Gurney's throat, Gurney would have been able to push the blade through Paul's leg (potentially severing the femoral artery).[/quote']

 

That would be exactly my point. You don't want to model this with Damage Reduction or Armor unless you have no other option because in the hands of the right person, a 1d6 killing attack is still going to do full damage. You wind up guessing how big the average attack is going to be and building shields to stop that much damage if you go that route (so as to truly make projectile weapons useless). The build I suggest stops that completely by favoring skilled warriors over novices and then simply making it impossible to hit with weapons defined by limitation.

[Jachra]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

The explosion would not be EB. It would be RKA. Because people will die.

 

Anyway, I can see that, yes, that's a much simpler way to go about it.

Still ignores the question of what value I would assess for the Holtzmann Boom. Also, wouldn't the greater value be on a limitation?

Also, I don't recall the focus being in any way obvious, at least from the movies, and what I read in the book. Correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't Obvious Focus only when the Focus is obviously seen to be generating the effect?

[Outsider]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

Or if what generates the effect is common knowledge. If you disguised your shield generator so it didnt look like a shield generator anymore, then it would be inobvious.

 

A few questions I have about shield generators and the Duniverse...

 

1) Are personal shield generators prohibitively expensive? If so, it doesnt seem like they would be common enough to displace firearms, as most of one's enemies would still be firearm vulnerable. And if not, why hasnt anyone thought to duct-tape a laser pistol, a shield generator, and a timing device together to make a nasty little bomb/warhead?

 

2) If you're inside a personal shield and you are hit by something moving over the penetration limit, what happens to the kinetic energy? I seem to recall shielded combatants knocking eachother around in the movie, so it doesnt seem that kinetic energy gets absorbed. Unless, again, it is a threshhold effect. So if it doesnt disappear, it would seem to me that non-penetrating weapons with sufficient kinetic energy would still do a number on a shielded target.

 

3) In a related question : What effect would an explosion immediately outside a personal shield have on the shielded person? Plenty of kinetic energy in a big explosionm and, while no fragments would get through, what of thermal energy, oxygen depletion, pressure change, and the like?

 

4) Landmines would seem to work well against shielded opponents also. They step on it, its through the shield. Boom! Or pop! (no more foot).

 

5) Was the use of orinthopters instead of rotary wing aircraft somehow related to the prevalence of shield tech? Ie the blades of a helicopter had to turn too fast to penetrate a shield even if the overall motion of the copter were slow enough, while the wings of an orinthopter didnt?

[Jaxom]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

EB, RKA, pick your poison... Essentially, you have the freedom to pick and scale as will suit your universe.

 

It's been 20 years since I read the books so I don't recall what Frank said about personal shield generators. My memory of scenes from the 1984 movie is that they had a visible box on their belt and if it was not on it seems like OIF would be appropriate. This could be bad memory and totally off base though.

 

As with most things sci-fi, I don't think to much about actual physics (like momentum) when looking at these things. The movies show people knocking each other around in shields which makes great cinematography, but again, I don't recall whether or not Frank said anything about inertia. Imparting momentum could be done with the right build (doesn't stop knockback and then giving guns some amount of KB based on weight of gun/projectile being used) but it would have to be pre-planned and applied to all weapons in the universe. I think full superheroic KB would be *way* too much but 1-hex or knock-down might make sense. This also leads to some interesting questions about being crushed by a falling rock... Would it knock you down or bounce off? If it knocks you down and lands on you, does it then shift slowly enough to penetrate the shield and crush you completely?

 

I considered explosions outside the shield a little bit and they are potentially nasty for a number of reasons. This is an unwritten consequence of the DCV build I suggested... If a person targetted a hex with something AE, it would (by the rules) not be affected by a DCV-based shield build. That would make the use of explosions more dangerous. You might be able to build in a damage reduction on AE effects to show the elimination of damage from flying shrapnel but then taking damage from heat, overpressure and being knocked around.

 

Thinking more about the physics as defined by Frank and shown in the links earlier in this thread, I'd be investing heavily in napalm and white phosphorus weapons.... Heat, oxygen deprivation and sticky power effects like Napalm should have some effect, in some cases complete effect, against a shielded target.

[Jachra]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

Right, I considered the 'laser timer' thing a long time ago.

 

APPARENTLY, House shields are not vulnerable, at least one of the wikis says so.

 

Frankly, I can't see any reason other than (largely nonexistent) chivalry why flamers wouldn't be used. And yeah, there are those explosive effects.

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

I'm honestly not certain if this is "correct" or not, but based on what little information is available to me, my summation would be pretty straightforward:

 

Dune Force Field: Force Field (20 PD/20 ED) (Protect Carried Items), Side Effects, Side Effect occurs automatically whenever Power is used (Side Effect only affects the environment near the character; Generates a Hyper-Frequency Hum; +0), Hardened (+1/4), Invisible Power Effects (Fully Invisible; +1) (112 Active Points); OIF (-1/2), Only Works Against Limited Type of Attack (Fast Moving Projectiles/Edged Weapons; -1/2), Restrainable (Only by means other than Grabs and Entangles; Can be rendered inoperative in the correct envrionment; -1/4)

 

Y'all can argue over how to do the Charges/Continuing Charges/END Battery. That I don't know -- but from what I've read, and what y'all said, this should be ABOUT right.

[Curufea]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

Right, I considered the 'laser timer' thing a long time ago.

 

APPARENTLY, House shields are not vulnerable, at least one of the wikis says so.

 

Frankly, I can't see any reason other than (largely nonexistent) chivalry why flamers wouldn't be used. And yeah, there are those explosive effects.

 

I can't see how heat or explosions would transmit - the kinetic energy is far too fast to penetrate the shields.

[Outsider]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

I can't see how heat or explosions would transmit - the kinetic energy is far too fast to penetrate the shields.

 

The average velocity of an oxygen molecule at room temperature is moving several 100 meters per second, down at the molecular level. Well above the 6-9 cm/s limit mentioned in the linked wiki article. And if a several 100 m/s oxygem molecule can penetrate, why not one moving twice that fast?

 

Or it could be that personal shield generators are set up with a discreet and unmentioned hole or three for ventilation.

 

Anyway.. what I really think we're running up against is the author wanting his space-men to fight with swords, and coming up with a technological doodad to justify it. Since the author probably didnt want his protagonists fighting with landmines, flamethrowers, white phosphorous, or anything -except- knives (or Psi powers) the shield will work against anything but knives (or Psi powers). No real explaination needed, just accept...

[Thia Halmades]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

That doesn't mean it can't be justified vis-a-vis a valid build. Sure, Herbert liked his melee combat, but let's be fair -- he also transplanted everyone to an environment where they don't always work. And. I loathe the idea of fighting in slow motion.

 

"Hang on, hang on... I have to stab you SLOWLY... I feel like we're all caught in the end of Saving Private Ryan. If say 'shh shh' enough will you bleeding die already?!"

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

Ah, yes, the Dune personal shield.

 

Personal Shield: Force Wall (20 PD/20 ED; 2" long and 1" tall), Side Effects (Always Generates Hyper-Frequency Hum; +0), Hardened (+1/4), 1 Continuing Charge lasting 1 Season (+1) (229 Active Points); Side Effects (When Screen Shot With Lasgun; Nuclear-Scale 'Clean' Detonation; -3/4), OIF (-1/2), No Range (-1/2), Personal Only (-1/4), Restrainable (Only by High-Static-Discharge Environments (e.g. Arrakis sandstorms); -1/4), Limited Coverage Does Not Protect Against Objects Moving at Specific Speed (6-9 cm/s) (-1/4), Takes Knockback (-1/4): Real Cost 61.

 

Not many things man-portable are going to do more than 20 Body; everything less it stops dead, no stun, no nothing. You CAN, however, be knocked down (Takes Knockback) by heavy concussions or people tackling you. I gave it a one-season continuing charge because, well, you wouldn't figure you'd want to replace your power cell more OFTEN than that, but it might work if you do it only once a week, or once a month. It's going to be rare that someone can arrange for it to be Restrained; that's more a 'crap, I'm in a sandstorm, it won't work' situation. I figured Limited Coverage best described the well-known 'only the slow attack penetrates' situation.

 

And, of course, there's also the similarly well-known fact that a shield will imitate a small nuclear device, of which strength is up to you. Even 0.3 kt is a big boom, going to wipe out the shielded person AND anyone shooting at him/her ...

[Jachra]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

I kinda preferred the DCV version, much more elegant, though it didn't prevent AoE like this one.

 

20 PD really is fairly necessary, I s'pose. A schmuck with a battle axe and Offensive Strike could conceivably deal as much... and consistently has in one of my games. Stinker.

Not sure 20 ED is, though. I mean, really, how many energy attacks in Dune that aren't lasers are going to rack up 20 BODY?

I think 12 would probably be safe, if, say, a flamethrower is 2d6 killing.

If you're using anti-tank weapons on a Dune shield... well, I really have no idea how it'd work anyway. I'm not sure they ever discuss that.

However, any direct hit from an antitank weapon shouldn't really be rolling damage on a Heroic person anyway.

 

C'mon, a season?

Really, I can see maybe a month. More likely, a week, or even a day.

 

Can put Fragile and Expendable (Difficult) in there. It's an instrument of questionable durability with advanced parts.

 

Also, Knockback is not applicable in Heroic campaigns.

 

Restrainable does not cover the particular limitation; that's Limited Power. Make it "Does not Operate in High Static-Discharge Environment." Limited Coverage does not apply, that only affects the direction the attack comes from. Probably something like "Requires Martial Manuever Slow Attack" or "Requires melee attackers to take -3 OCV penalty to penetrate."

 

Throw in Gestures (turn shield on.)

 

There, down to 164 Active and 38 Real points

[Jaxom]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

Actually, the reason I put in Restrainable was because if the target is restrained, then it should be fairly simple for even an untrained fool to push his hand (and a knife) through the shield. Although I can think of no examples in the books or the many movies, it seems to me that if someone wearing a personal force-field were to stand still or be otherwise immobilized that anyone could tag them with a knife. Note that I very carefully did *not* apply that limitation to the portion that works against projectiles.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

I kinda preferred the DCV version, much more elegant, though it didn't prevent AoE like this one ...

 

(Much Clipped.)

 

 

So ... mostly a problem with phrasing. I wouldn't agree with gestures, but that's flavor. *shrugs* Care to assemble your build and present it to us?

[Jachra]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

Actually' date=' the reason I put in Restrainable was because if the target is restrained, then it should be fairly simple for even an untrained fool to push his hand (and a knife) through the shield. Although I can think of no examples in the books or the many movies, it seems to me that if someone wearing a personal force-field were to stand still or be otherwise immobilized that anyone could tag them with a knife. Note that I very carefully did *not* apply that limitation to the portion that works against projectiles.[/quote']

 

That'd really be more of a cinematic coup-de-grace. Really, at that point, you're behind held down to the point where you can't really struggle at all, it's not like it's become useless until you're totally restrained.

 

Sure sure, if you insist, sec.

 

Force Wall (20PD/12ED; 2" long and 1" wide); Hardened (+1/4), Produces High Frequency Hum (+0); Continuing Fuel Charge, 1 Day (+1/2) (143 Active Points); Side Effects (When Screen Shot With Lasgun; Small Nuclear-Scale Detonation at Shield, Lasgun, or Both; -3/4), No Range (-1/2), Personal Only (-1/4), Limited Power (Does not work in high static discharge environment, -1/4), Limited Power ("Requires Martial Manuever Slow Attack" or "Requires melee attackers to take -3 OCV penalty to penetrate"; -1/4), OIF (Fragile, Breakable (Difficult); -1), Gestures (Turn on Device; -1/4): Real Cost 34

 

Increase to 164 AP and 38 real points if you want a battery good for a week of continual usage.

 

I think Gestures are necessary because you can't just turn it on with a mental command. This is Dune after all. And let's go with a day, it's a personal shield after all, and only sucks charge when it's active anyway so you can stretch it. Note that it's a FUEL charge, otherwise you expend it just by deactivating it.

[Wyrm Ouroboros]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

True; I was thinking about the fuel charge, but forgot exactly WHY it was used that way, so I didn't put it in. While I suppose I can concede gestures, I don't know if I'd call shield generators fragile; you have to run, move, possibly fight wearing them but without them on. Breakable? Sure. Fragile? No way.

 

As for the knockback, well, it depends on your campaign. I'd put that in anyhow, because someone with that high of DEF of a force wall is NOT going to be budged even if they get concussed by a near-miss from an artillery piece -- while in the books, it's clear that if you would normally be tackled or knocked aside by something, you'll STILL be tackled/knocked aside while the shield is on.

 

Otherwise, same disad values, virtually the same description, just 'it's not Partial Coverage, it's Limited Power' or what have you. Sure, okay. Call it like you want, it's still a -1/4.

 

Still would want a higher ED. Those guys over there are talking about using a bloody flamethrower ...

[Jachra]

Re: Can't Touch This (Except Slowly!)

 

It really shouldn't apply to Dune anyway. Knockback is... a lot of distance. Knockdown would be fine.

 

Also, I've never seen stats for a flamethrower in the main book, so, really, take the highest Killing Attack done by any player and set the maximum damage they can deal as your value.

 

KEY EDIT: They should probably require the Pulling a Punch manuever. Melee only. Though might want to houserule some stiffer penalties.