An Actual Shield (As in Sword and Board)??

[Tedronai]

"Defensively Trained:
You may use an Attack skill (Fists, Weapons) to Attack and Block during the same exchange. Split your skill ranks between the two effects as per the Spray Attack rules. If you have an appropriate defensive item (shield, main-gauche, tonfa, nightstick), you gain a +1 to the Block roll, and if you take a Full Defense action, you gain an additional +2. "

Actually, that looks reasonably balanced to me.  At most, I might add that the 'appropriate defensive item' cannot be used in the attack itself if it is to provide the bonus.

[Sanctaphrax]

I model shields with a stunt that gives 1 physical armour as long as you have a shield.

Said stunt is on the master list, under Weapons.

I don't understand the line about full defence in Defensively Trained.

[Tedronai]

I don't understand the line about full defence in Defensively Trained.

I'm assuming that it means you gain a +2 bonus to defense rolls when you take a full defense, but it's not ideally worded.

[ways and means]

I think it means when you are not also attacking whilst using a shield you get a +2 to your block.

[sinker]

You know the thing that I think a lot of people miss is that almost anything that can be done with evocation can be done by pure mortals. The only difference is that the mortal has to find an appropriate justification, for the evocator the justification is "it's magic."

In this case I would think that the shield would be a great justification for creating a evocation style block. Roll athletics and that's the block to attacks against you. You could add a sheild bonus to that if you like or have a stunt that makes it more effective. Just as with evocation blocks if there's justification for an attack to bypass the block (like bullets, fire, electricity) then the block is ignored.

You could do it many other ways and I'm not even sure that something like this is functional, but that's my two cents.

[BumblingBear]

You know the thing that I think a lot of people miss is that almost anything that can be done with evocation can be done by pure mortals. The only difference is that the mortal has to find an appropriate justification, for the evocator the justification is "it's magic."

In this case I would think that the shield would be a great justification for creating a evocation style block. Roll athletics and that's the block to attacks against you. You could add a sheild bonus to that if you like or have a stunt that makes it more effective. Just as with evocation blocks if there's justification for an attack to bypass the block (like bullets, fire, electricity) then the block is ignored.

You could do it many other ways and I'm not even sure that something like this is functional, but that's my two cents.

This is not a bad idea either.

I think the shield should be able to bump that up (for melee attacks), though.

I'm not sure how many people on the boards are familiar with fighting with sword and board, but against anything other than sword and board... it really /IS/ rather OP in the RL.

Since we don't worry too much about things being OP in the DF (wizard casting 20+ shift evocations kind of makes a shield look rather lame), I'd say just go for broke and make shields OP.

That said, if a character had a shield, I'd give them the aspect, "Shielded up" while they're in possession of it.  This can enrich the story quite a bit with TONS of compel options and potential problems for the party.

People just don't carry around shields in public anymore.

[devonapple]

I'm assuming that it means you gain a +2 bonus to defense rolls when you take a full defense, but it's not ideally worded.

Have gone back and reworded it, hopefully for the better.

[Tedronai]

Full Defense is a conflict action, so you can refer to it directly, rather than 'defending and not attacking', which could including other options.  Plus, it's less clunky.

Should also fix the second sentence, too.  Spray attacks split the effort, not merely the skill ranks.

[devonapple]

Should also fix the second sentence, too.  Spray attacks split the effort, not merely the skill ranks.

How would you phrase it?

[Tedronai]

How about:  "You may use an Attack skill (Fists, Weapons) to Attack and Block as a single action. Split the effort (skill ranks + roll result) of your action between the two effects as per the Spray Attack rules."  ?

[crusher_bob]

From what I know of historical warfare, the shield stopped being carried on the battlefield with the advent of plate harness (i.e. full plate armor).  Instead of a single handed weapon and a shield, people instead started to go for two handed weapons that could damage someone in full harness.

So, a rules space to look at would be:

Someone in plate harness (armor: 2) and wielding a pole axe (weapon: 3) has an advantage over

Someone in plate harness (armor: 2) with a sword (weapon: 2) and a shield (does whatever).

But someone in mail armor (armor: 1) would prefer a sword and shield over a 2 handed weapon.

As grainy as the rules are, lets see if they allow anything to fit into this space...

--------

Option 1:
The shield provides +1 armor.

That gives the 2h, plate guy weapon 3, armor 2; and the S&S, plate guy Weapon 2, armor 3.

This makes them even vs each other, they both have a net weapon vs armor advantage of 0.  So, not so bad

Now, how about the mail armored guys?
2h, mail guy has armor 1, weapon 3 and S&S guy has armor 2, weapon 2. So the trade offs remain the same.

This produces a simple rules space where the trade offs are simple, but doesn't produce any 'bad' results.

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Option 2
Shield adds +1 to the defensive skill

This option makes the shield a much more attractive option because the shield is effectively 1 armor, in addition, it reduces the number of hits you take, so it's always better the trading up to weapon: 3.  Not a great choice.

------------

Option 3
Allow the the weapon + shield guy to 'spray' attack and defense with one action.

Since defense is normally a non-action, this isn't that attractive, either.  Even if you got a free +2 bonus to the spray pool, you'd effectively get your normal non-action defense + a targeting 2 attack.  But if your weapon skill is better than 2, they it's never worth doing, unless you want to have more defense for no attack, or more attack (and I don't think we want guys who use a sword a shield to have more attack options that guys who use a 2 handed weapon.)

Though the roll you skill and split attack and defense between them as a general way of implementing combat may be a rules-space worth taking a look at later.

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Option 4

Make a shield related stunt required to get a bonus out of a shield.
I don't like this option because we don't need to have a stunt to wield a 2 handed weapon, so this makes the shield not really worth it.  The shield has to be worth picking up by itself, and any stunts should improve things, not make you stay even in options with guys who took no stunts.

[admiralducksauce]

From what I know of historical warfare, the shield stopped being carried on the battlefield with the advent of plate harness (i.e. full plate armor).  Instead of a single handed weapon and a shield, people instead started to go for two handed weapons that could damage someone in full harness.

So, a rules space to look at would be:

Someone in plate harness (armor: 2) and wielding a pole axe (weapon: 3) has an advantage over

Someone in plate harness (armor: 2) with a sword (weapon: 2) and a shield (does whatever).

But someone in mail armor (armor: 1) would prefer a sword and shield over a 2 handed weapon.

As grainy as the rules are, lets see if they allow anything to fit into this space...

--------

Option 1:
The shield provides +1 armor.

That gives the 2h, plate guy weapon 3, armor 2; and the S&S, plate guy Weapon 2, armor 3.

This makes them even vs each other, they both have a net weapon vs armor advantage of 0.  So, not so bad

Now, how about the mail armored guys?
2h, mail guy has armor 1, weapon 3 and S&S guy has armor 2, weapon 2. So the trade offs remain the same.

This produces a simple rules space where the trade offs are simple, but doesn't produce any 'bad' results.

I agree with your assessment.  It's based on nothing more than the in-game mechanics of the weapons and armor used during the time period when there were shields.  Societal influence shouldn't enter into balancing shield mechanics.  If the drawback to using a shield is "nobody carries shields anymore", it doesn't carry over into a game set in medieval times, does it?

Requiring a stunt to enjoy the basic benefit from a shield is lame.  Having stunts that increase the user's shield abilities is fine; but to just plain USE a shield, I shouldn't need anything other than a shield.

For my contribution, however, I suggest that as an another option (either on its own or in addition to the Armor:1 idea), a shield can absorb a mild consequence, which is always "your shield breaks".  Maybe a moderate consequence depending on the material of the shield.

I also think a shield can act as Weapon:1, but no higher.  Even if there are spikes and stuff on it.  It's basically a big metal brass knuckle or studded with knives, both of which I'd call Weapon:1.  Better than using bare hands, but honestly a sword would be better, which is why people used swords.

[BumblingBear]

From what I know of historical warfare, the shield stopped being carried on the battlefield with the advent of plate harness (i.e. full plate armor).  Instead of a single handed weapon and a shield, people instead started to go for two handed weapons that could damage someone in full harness.

This was also because one handed weapons largely stopped becoming much of a threat... well, except for daggers through the eye slits and such.

It's good to look to RL for inspiration, but if we start trying to be too realistic, it would change the entire game and get too crunchy.

For instance, someone fighting a guy in full plate with a stick in the DF could invest fate points into his or her attack after a good roll and do tons of stress to the plate wearer.  That does not happen in real life.

If anything, I would call plate armor an armor:3 that only works against melee weapons.

I think if I were going to allow shields in my game, I would have to sit down and really talk it out with the player.

But for the folks looking for a way to "balance" shields or find a downside... there really isn't one.  At least not in RL.  In RL, some things are just better than others.  However, for game purposes, something you could do is to make the character /tire/ faster while wearing a shield.

This can lead to aspects and consequences that makes the character weary faster. 

Either way, it seems like the community is very divided on this issue.  I think that we will probably all just end up agreeing to disagree.

[arsieiuni]

Wow! I just left this little question here and what a response! I really appreciate all the thoughts posted.
Fairly enough, I should say that in my case currently this pertains to the Scion conversion I posted about previously as that's the game I'm running right now that needed help using shields properly, BUT I'm going to be running another game out of DFRPG soon and I wanted to make sure I knew how to work shields for that game because I have a player I just know is going to want to use them.

Crusher_bob seems to have pretty much laid it out simply as possible.

From what I know of historical warfare, the shield stopped being carried on the battlefield with the advent of plate harness (i.e. full plate armor).  Instead of a single handed weapon and a shield, people instead started to go for two handed weapons that could damage someone in full harness.

So, a rules space to look at would be:

Someone in plate harness (armor: 2) and wielding a pole axe (weapon: 3) has an advantage over

Someone in plate harness (armor: 2) with a sword (weapon: 2) and a shield (does whatever).

But someone in mail armor (armor: 1) would prefer a sword and shield over a 2 handed weapon.

As grainy as the rules are, lets see if they allow anything to fit into this space...

--------

Option 1:
The shield provides +1 armor.

That gives the 2h, plate guy weapon 3, armor 2; and the S&S, plate guy Weapon 2, armor 3.

This makes them even vs each other, they both have a net weapon vs armor advantage of 0.  So, not so bad

Now, how about the mail armored guys?
2h, mail guy has armor 1, weapon 3 and S&S guy has armor 2, weapon 2. So the trade offs remain the same.

This produces a simple rules space where the trade offs are simple, but doesn't produce any 'bad' results.

-----------

The only problem with this is not really in the way it works, but in the way it works in the circumstance in which I was using it. Essentially, the character using a shield was Tora, the daughter of Thor. She's already ... really tough... and obviously trained in weaponry. So making her even harder to do damage to... well it wasn't really working out as a +1 to armor so we sought out other options. (She has armor 2 from Supernatural Toughness and wears 1 armor rating clothing that were made for her by a friend.) Giving her a total of 4 armor really seemed too powerful since she was already hard to hit in the first place and now almost no damage was being dealt and even really powerful enemies couldn't land any damage off her track to a consequence. She faced some really nasty opponents and was all on her stress track as she killed them.

Option 2
Shield adds +1 to the defensive skill

This option makes the shield a much more attractive option because the shield is effectively 1 armor, in addition, it reduces the number of hits you take, so it's always better the trading up to weapon: 3.  Not a great choice.

------------

When we did it this way, it made her even harder to hit and reduced the damage because of less overflow in the attack. My mate really felt this way was too powerful and so did I so we just stopped using the shield at that point, setting it aside until we knew what to do with it (and I made this thread). (Lesser foes REALLY had a hard time with her, whereas otherwise they could at least knick at her.)

This could really just be an issue so much because the character in question is already so, so tough, BUT... This is exactly the reason we need to know what is balanced/fair and what is RAW.

What stops a Supernatural Toughness character from wearing thick armor and a shield and being utterly impossible to hurt?
There are no penalties for wearing armor, no penalties for wielding a shield...

I understand the in-game reasons. Assume that the in-game reasons have already been made reasonable in the setting and think about the question as such.

In this setting, yes, it is weird for someone to walk around with a shield, but much as Michael carries his sword around in a duffel bag, there ARE ways to disguise what one is carrying. PLUS there's a big difference between trying to walk into an airport with a sword and board and whipping out a shield from a pick-up truck as one is entering a hidden compound that's full of Giants and Titanspawn. As long as she gives it a look around and is sure that there aren't any cops etc nearby  when she gets out, she won't get questioned again for the scene in all likelihood. And Tora? Being the kind of person she is? If she got stopped by a cop and asked why she's wielding a shield and a big hammer, she'd honestly just tell them she was defending her friends and probably make a social attack on them (Which, her Presence ain't shoddy!) to talk them into leaving her be. She's done it before successfully. If she ever got to a point of needing to be "taken in" because a cop saw her with her weapons and thought she needed to be looked into, she'd honestly probably end up knocking them out and getting away from the scene. 

I dunno. I'm just saying that she gets around the weirdness. Our setting is a bit different so that it makes sense. Yes, Tora has ended up on the news and yes she's had to deal with the consequences of becoming temporarily very wanted in an area because she killed someone (that the mortals can't possibly know was actually a monster trying to eat them) and yes, she and her friends have had to deal with some serious consequences as a result of her really just not hiding her armor and shield and weapons at certain times.

But at this point I think I'm going to end up rolling with...
that the shield is just a part of her overall "armor". Her armor isn't full plate to begin with. It's usually something like a kevlar shirt or a small plate "sports bra" type breastplate made of molded, reactive armor. The point being that her style isn't full-cover armor. So the shield could really just be flavor, a part of her 1 armor rating from the protective gear she wears. And I'd be happy enough with that. Maybe if she went full defense, she could get an extra armor or defense out of it.
Her shield, for the record, is a mechanical shield that extends and detracts to go from a buckler/small shield size to a medium shield size. (Think of the awesome shields in Gears of War 2. Similar in concept if not in style.)

And yes, shields can be broken. >:3

I definitely wouldn't make shield use a stunt though. Just to me, that seems kinda like too much cost for something that just anyone could pick up and it'd at least help.


Also for the historical viewpoint: You DO NOT straight-up BLOCK attacks with your shield. If it's a blow from any heavy weapon (axe, hammer, etc) you will BREAK your arm that way. Shields are used to parry/deflect blows aside to keep your arm from taking the shock.
Those speaking from the point of view of having faced shield-bearing opponents in a larp, it's kinda a bit different when the weapons are all made of foam and latex. People CAN and DO hide behind a shield and just let blows fall on it an d be untouchable (my mate has a shield and uses it sometimes and maaaaaan does it suck to fight the shield) but in all realism (for the sake of re-creating the effect in a game when the shield isn't blocking boffers) you can not ever assume that just hiding behind a shield is going to save the wielder trauma. It might even get them hurt. They have to parry the blows with it. That's why armor is a pretty appropriate representation.
For example, an Amazon was being attacked by a thrall with a shotgun. She used a shield to block some of the blast and took damage past the shield (armor 1, reduced the damage but she still took some stress). Very appropriate. The shield just causing the attack to miss her (like if it added to defense rating) would not represent that as well to me.


Okay... I think I know how I'm going to handle this for my game currently. I'm glad it could open such a nice discussion though. Thank you to everyone! I really appreciate all the input.

[BumblingBear]

What stops a Supernatural Toughness character from wearing thick armor and a shield and being utterly impossible to hurt?
There are no penalties for wearing armor, no penalties for wielding a shield...

Armor does not stack in the DF.

Whichever armor is highest is considered the armor.  So a character with toughness that has a natural armor of 1 who is wearing a bullet proof vest for an armor of 2 gets an armor of 2.  Not 3.

This may be where the game breaker you were talking about before was coming from.

Being able to add 1 or 2 armor (stacked) with a shield is pretty powerful, but not game breaking.