shield bash/running shield bash

[phydaux]

A quick question regarding shield bashing.

 

Say I have a character with an 18 STR, a medium shield (min. STR 13), and +3" Running.

 

How much damage do I do with a standing shield bash?

 

How much damage do I do with a running shield bash (Move Through)?

[TheQuestionMan]

Shield Bash; +2d6HA

Move Through; +1d6 per 10meters (+1d6/Hex for 5th Edition)

Total: 9d6 Total

[L. Marcus]

Shield Bash; +2d6HA

Move Through; +1d6 per 10meters (+1d6/Hex for 5th Edition)

Total: 9d6 Total

... Isn't that +1DC/6 meters? +1DC/10 meters sounds like a Move By.

[phydaux]

Yes, 5th ed. I should have specified.

 

So standing, with my STR, I do a 3d6 shield bash?

 

And a 5th ed running shield bash would be +1d6 for every inch? So with my STR and +3" Running I could do a 12d6 running shield bash? That doesn't sound right. That's enough to knock out a warhorse.

[phydaux]

BTW, check out this video for REPEATED running shield bashes. MAJORLY lol-worthy.

 

[NuSoardGraphite]

Shield Bash; +2d6HA Move Through; +1d6 per 10meters (+1d6/Hex for 5th Edition) Total: 9d6 Total

Kiss my what?

 

Move through in 5th edition (and every previous edition) was +1DC for every 3" of movement (6 meters).  But remember also, this is per 3" of Velocity, not distance moved.  If your running is 6", you get +2D6, no matter if you have been running for 3 phases and moved a total of 18"

 

Move by and Passing Strike (martial maneuver) both get the +1DC for every 5" of movement.  Move-by is the weak link as the character only gets to apply 50% of their STR score to damage. (boo!) but Passing Strike and other Martial Arts maneuvers with +V/5" bonuses don't reduce STR at all.

 

In general for a Shield Bash, I would apply +1D6 damage for every "rank" of the shield.  In other words, Small=+1D6, Medium=+2D6 and Large=+3D6 damage.  Each one also has a correspondingly higher OCV penalty due to bulkiness. (simply reverse the DCV bonus into an OCV penalty for attacking) Bucklers add +1D6 to damage (or 1/2D6k base for a spiked one) but are small enough that they incur no OCV penalty.

 

As for the Running Shield Bash, using Move Through and Move By are appropriate, but they are for the untrained.  For an accomplished warrior who has trained with such a maneuver, I would use the Charge Maneuver from the UMA (and presumably HSMA, I have not seen it yet) which does STR+ V/5"+2D6 damage(!).

 

Think about that for one second.  A character who is designed around this concept could take the Charge maneuver and increase his movement to 10".  That would give the character STR (lets  say 15) +[10"/5=2D6]+2D6 for a total of 7D6N damage without incurring the penalty for Move Through and superior damage to Move By.  Using the Passing Strike maneuver would only net this same warrior 5D6N damage (3D6 for STR, +2D6 for velocity)

 

A couple of custom Talents could easily make something like this a scary maneuver in the context of a Heroic level campaign.  How about applying a Naked Does Knockback advantage to it?  Now it uses the rules for Knockback.  How about adding Double Knockback as well.  For a total of +1, being capable of adding it to up to an 8D6 (40pt) attack at +1 gives it 40 active.  Some limitations (OAF, bulky, Must perform half-move or more) could reduce it to a reasonable price.  For those of you who don't use Knockback, but use more realistic Knockdown instead, you need only apply the Double Knockback advantage to the Talent at 30 Active (for up to 40 pts or 8D6N) to double the Body damage rolled to determine the point of knockdown, at which point you now have combats that look like the video above.

 

For a general Shield Bash, I would use it with a Martial Maneuver to get damage bonus.  Since the Shield is not a well balanced weapon, I would use it with Fast Strike (+2 OCV to compensate for the shields) which gives a +2D6 damage bonus and for general principle, I would use it with the Defensive Block maneuver so I could still block and not lose my DCV bonus!