Does a shield avoid or prevent damage?

[DMMike]

...or both?

Scarmiglionne brings up a worthwhile, yet off topic, issue: how to treat the shield. My universal rule system has two major defense mechanics: damage protection, and the Parry skill. Damage protection reduces the amount of damage taken from an attack, and the Parry skill (evasion) serves to avoid attacks altogether. How should I treat shields in this game?

Considerations:

1) a walkthrough I just looked up on FF4 says that shields dramatically increase evasion (defense %), and slightly bump up protection. However, the helms and armors tend to decrease your evasion, while increasing protection, and I don't have the intent to include this aspect as well. (It's possible, but not appropriate for the core rules).

2) The shield is probably the least effective thing for an enemy to hit, so he's probably not targeting the shield. Which means the shield is serving to deflect hits, rather than absorb their damage.

3) Hit points (physical health) include fatigue as well as bruises, cuts, and punctures. So forcing an enemy to heft a heavy shield around can still reduce hit points.

4) a light shield makes one more nimble than carrying, say, a tower shield. In terms of my Parry (evasion) skill, that seems like as a shield gets lighter, it should increase your skill. The logical conclusion is that -no shield- increases evasion the most. That is, of course, unless blocking a hit counts as "evasion" too, and a larger shield is better at blocking a hit than a smaller one. Or is it...?

[awa]

If your asking about in the real world first it depends on the type of shield but in general a bit of both.

I remember reading accounts of viking shields that were large but fairly thin to reduce there weight and so were primarily used for parrying and stopping arrows.

i also have read accounts of romans fighting some barbarian group i honestly don't recall which and initially fights between the two groups would have the barbarians hacking through the roman shields killing the soldiers until a metal rim was added to the shield with was enough to prevent them hacking through and left the barbarian completely open to a counter attack.

so block or parry depends on the type of shield the most realistic system would likely use some combination of the two and have shield damage mechanics of some kind.

personally i would have it increase parry and allow sufficiently powerful attacks to ignore or reduce the effects of shields.

[wayfare]

Shields are used for blocking. In the time period, if its strong enough to pierce a shield, its slowed down enough to glance off armor. But those cases are fairly rare in terms or ranged weapons.

As for melee weapons, it depends on the design of the shield. Some cultures have shields that are designed to fail to deflect impact, or to get an opponents weapon stuck in the shield, effectively disarming them and leaving them open to attack if they try to get the weapon out of the shield. The spartans had shields that absorbed impact and deflected off the rounded bronze surface.

I think its more common to see fail designed shields once steel became a thing.

[Belial_the_Leveler]

And then there's Captain America.



Seriously though, a titan's wheelbarrow-sized, multiton hammer shouldn't be blocked by a shield. And yet it is.

[Spiryt]

...or both?

4) a light shield makes one more nimble than carrying, say, a tower shield. In terms of my Parry (evasion) skill, that seems like as a shield gets lighter, it should increase your skill. The logical conclusion is that -no shield- increases evasion the most. That is, of course, unless blocking a hit counts as "evasion" too, and a larger shield is better at blocking a hit than a smaller one. Or is it...?

Small, handy shield is easier to maneuver, but it obviously has to be maneuver way more to intercept incoming blow.

In result, big shield is generally better protection - not exactly surprising.

Other important thing about shields is being 'general' combat tool - to intercept, control etc. opponents weapon, body, movement, as well, as provide angles and possibilities of attack to wielder, while limiting them for opponent.

Doesn't matter how flimsy your shield is, and how shield crushing is opponents weapon, if you place your shield 8 inches from his hands, he will have trouble finding angle to actually attack effectively.

Then there's actually dealing blow with shield, which can be very effective at disrupting opponent to downright debilitating.

Anyway, this topic seems like a matter for "Real World Weapon" thread, no?

[Deepbluediver]

Anyway, this topic seems like a matter for "Real World Weapon" thread, no?

Probably, unless the poster was trying to figure out how they might be improved in-game.

Personally, I support the idea that shields and all armor give DR as well as AC bonuses (sort of like the UA version) because they can be used for both the deflection and mitigation aspects.
They should also apply to touch attacks, IMO.

[Erik Vale]

Depends on the shield, as said. A light shield or buckler are definately avoidance, medium is either way, tower is obvously hit points.

And then there's Captain America.



Seriously though, a titan's wheelbarrow-sized, multiton hammer shouldn't be blocked by a shield. And yet it is.

Captain America's shield is made from a 'unobtainium' designed to reflect impacts [originally said as vibrations, but still], which is why it levels the forest and sends the other two flying, it literally [and sci-magically] just takes all the force and sends it in another direction.
Also, he has to brace against the blow, just walking around and being thumped by the hammer on his sheild [should] send him flying.

[LordErebus12]

shields have always been majorly underpowered in my opinion... can it grant both?

[Glimbur]

Dominions 3 has shields granting a penalty to defense (larger penalty with larger shield) but also a 'shield bonus', if you make your defense check with the shield bonus you get the (rather large) amount of armor from the shield on top of your armor. This models the idea that you want a shield against a bunch of kobolds, but a giant can punch through it. Dominions 3 is also a computer game so the heavy numerical lifting happens behind the scenes.

At least one version of Hackmaster has a similar idea. Their implementation might be more tabletop friendly.