Statting a REAL shield

[John Galt]

I'd stack it as armor 2 and roll athletics vs. Alertness for " getting it up" in time.   Needs a stunt too. 

[JustinS]

I like it as a floating aspect, and add the stunt "Shielded warrior" that adds +1 to melee defenses".

Possibly add the bonus "Can use melee as defense against thrown and 'bows' while taking a full defense action" somewhere...

[thegrinner]

You might want to consider not putting the defensive aspect to high and remembering that shields can be weapons, so adding a Weapon:1 to it as an additional stunt might work out.

[CMEast]

I would think an enemy could compel the 'I'm a shield' aspect to nullify the extra armour bonus, this would show the enemy attacking from behind or attacking in ways that are hard to deflect (a flurry of well timed blows, aiming at exposed areas, assuming the shield also blocks line of sight for a certain attack etc).

[Esoteric]

Another interesting thing to consider if having a shield is considered a tag-able aspect is that the opponent can also use it against you. Besides the whole "attacking from behind" idea to nullify the shield bonus, opponents could also tag it if you were trying to run away from them (shields are pretty heavy, especially the large ones).

[TheMouse]

Give it an armour rating and a weapon rating depending on size, design, and material. If the play wants more umph, allow for Stunts and personal Aspects.

In real life, people who used shields spent a lot of time learning how to use them. You learn how to position them to effectively protect yourself, how to attack with them quickly without negating the defensive benefits, and similar things. Anything beyond using the basic armour and weapon rating would be reflected by Stunts, which would represent time spent training thusly.

If the player wants the thing to be important to the character's story, that's what Aspects are for. "My handy shield!" is a fine Aspect. And it earns you fate points when you can't bring your toy somewhere with you.

[GoldenH]

Let them Ready the Shield as a assumed maneuver akin to picking up a weapon, and let them tag it as invoke for effect on it. A shield is likely to be a real powerful prop, as it can reasonably allow all sorts of things. Very diverse use and very powerful.

If you want actual stats, just have it's armor apply to everything short of Thaumaturgy. It can even block line-of-sight for evocation!

[Belial666]

1) When wearing any shield you defend with your weapons skill against melee at +1 if you spend a supplemental action to use it.
2) Once per exchange, you can interpose a shield to absorb some of the energy of a melee blow that lands; reduce any extra stress from the attacker's high success roll by the shield rating. You still take normal stress from the weapons rating.
Buckler
Shield Rating 1
Medium Shield
Shield Rating 2. You can use the shield as partial cover against ranged attacks (guns, thrown, bows and the like). You can interpose against both meleee and ranged attacks and use the defend option as a supplemental action against a single ranged atacker. A medium shield slows you down a bit and you can't use both hands to effectively use larger weapons; you get -1 to attacks with weapons rating 2 and -2 with weapon rating 3.
Tower/Riot Shield
Shield Rating 3. You can use the shield as full cover against melee and ranged attacks; as a normal action, you interpose it against all attacks from one direction. However, a tower shield is too unwieldy to move quickly; you cannot use it as a supplemental action, and you get -1 to attacks with weapons rating 2 and -2 with weapon rating 3.



So a SWAT guy with a riot shield that wears heavy bulletproof suit (armor 2) and takes cover and gets shot from the front by some thugs with handguns is fairly safe; even if they get 3 shifts of success in their roll to hit, the shield absorbs the extra stress and the armor stops weapon 2 attacks. Then comes a guy with a machinegun. The shield still absorbs up to 3 shifts of extra stress but doesn't stop the weapon 3 attacks; the armor reduces the impact but the SWAT guy still takes 1 stress.
In his turn, he attacks back with his own gun but because the shield is in the way (-2 to hit) he misses.
In the next exchange, the sneaky thug that had crept up behind him and aimed in the first exchange now shoots, tagging "In my Sights" and "From Behind" since the SWAT guy is definitely facing away from him. He rolls great and the shield does not protect against it; the SWAT guy rolls only an average in his defense. He takes a weapon 2 hit with +2 success from rolling but another +4 from aspects for a total of 8 stress. Armor reduces that to 6 stress but he is still taken out. (unnamed NPCs don't have consequences to spare)

[Kordeth]

Eh, I'd just treat a shield by itself as armor:1 and let it stack with worn armors--as long as you keep reasonable with your armor values, it shouldn't be too bad. According to the guidelines on YS 202, an armor's rating should be equal to the kind of attack it's completely effective against. In other words, chainmail is probably armor:1 (pretty completely effective against knives and such, but a sword can still crack a rib if it's a heavy blow), while full plate is probably armor:2 (complete protection against swords and such, hence the development of big smashy hammers and greatswords and such).