RE: [HoE] On the fly shields rules

["Darrin M. Conant" <dconant@stny.lrun.com>]

OK, here's what I'd if I were forced to make up rules regarding shields.

There are two basic styles to a shield. The first is a lighter shield that
can be moved to intercept an attack requiring some kind of roll, but not too
difficult in the case of melee weapons, moderate in the case of melee
weapons (I used to be fairly good at this in my lunatic martial arts days,
so it is possible to do it reliably), and pretty darn tough in the case of
guns. The down side to this is that the shield can't be too big, either
large but light or thick but small (and tougher to use like a buckler). So
how about this.....

Oh, yeah I'm figuring that each shield can take damage as if it were size 10
with appropriate to it's size (5-9 for a small shield, 10-19 for a medium,
and 20-30 for abig armored car door style. Include it's own armor when
determining if the shield is damaged.

Round shield - reduces damage by 4 points but requires the following rolls
(use any appropriate fightin' skill - sword, brawl are all acceptable at
full value, it isn't worth creating a shield skill). The down side is that
the damage is still calculated against the arm with the shield, so make sure
that the arm is armored too. Not a great shield, but I'm imagining shields
based on garbage can lids. I'd put the target numbers at 5 for melee, 7 vs.
thrown, 9 vs arrows, and 11 vs bullets, but even these might be a little
high. I'd rather make it a little too weak and improve it for characters
once we've tried it. It can take the equivalent of 10 wounds before becoming
more of a hinderance than a benefit (i.e. breaking), the arm takes damage
along with the shield. Armor worn underneath is applied at full value. There
are better quality shields in this category. For example if someone wanted a
shield based upon a manhole cover I might give it an armor value of 2 (but
halve worn armor for play balance), but increase the TN's to block by +4.

When used against automatic fire I'd make the player place the shield so it
protects one of the three following positions:
Upper body - (locations 11-20) - note that this covers the face so they
cannot see
Lower body - (locations 1-9)
Torso      - (locations 5-10 and 15-19)- note that the shoulder with the
shield is exposed
apply damage to the appropriate body location instead of the arm.

We generally assume that a gizzard shot could also be a shot to the privates
so I'm not including it in the upper body. Also I wouldn't bother with
another set of locations for side attacks.

Buckler - Provides Armor 1 or 2 depending upon quality of material, TN's are
+2 over those of the round shield stats and bullets cannot be stopped with
this. Armor worn underneath is applied at half value for play balance
reasons. Similar to the round shield, damage is always applied to the arm if
it is used to block.

OK, now to armored car doors. This is the second kind of shield (I usually
think of the huge roman style when I think of this type). Generally it is a
big thing that isn't really moved much during the fight and covers the
torso, head (by raising it a little when needed), the arm holding it and
part of the legs (but can be lowered to cover enough to give the coverage).
I'd give it an Armor Value of 1-3 depending upon the material used, for play
balance, armor worn underneath is applied at half value. The bad side it
that these things are also heavy! Reduce the die type for nimbleness and
deftness by:

If the shield is made from high quality materials
Armor 1 or 2 - reduce by 1 die type
Armor 3 - reduce by 2 die types

If it is made of poor quality materials (e.g. car doors)
Armor 1 - reduce by 1 die type
Armor 2 or 3 - reduce by 2 die types

If this takes the die type below 4 siders, reduce the number of dice in the
same manner as damage dice are reduced.


How's this for a start?

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-hoe@gamerz.net [mailto:owner-hoe@gamerz.net]On Behalf Of
> OUR0B0ROS@aol.com
> Sent: Friday, November 27, 1998 3:29 PM
> To: hoe@gamerz.net
> Subject: [HoE] Speaking about shields...
>
>
>   Darrin M. Conant said...
>
> << I can't wait for the next update, I hope you've got some stuff
> on armor and
>  shields :) >>
>
>   We had the question of shields crop up in last week's game (our
> first HOE
> session), as well.
>   Bill in our group drew one of the weirdest character's I've
> ever seen, in
> front of us.  He drew every 2, leaving him with 4 d4 attributes,
> some other
> stuff to round him out (I think he actually had to throw away some d8's
> because of all of those fours), and he drew a red joker, and then as the
> coordination, the black joker.
>   He wanted to draw another character because he was saying that
> this guy was
> hopeless, and I was begging him to let me have his stats for my character.
>   Everyone was looking at me like I was crazy until I said, "C'mon, Bill!
> Those draws have personality!  LOOK at 'em!  You can't tell me they don't"
>   And everyone smiled, and he got this glint in his eye, and
> ended up making a
> former Super-Soldier who ended up a Templar.  Stupid as all
> get-out, but doin'
> his thing out there in the wastes, healin' and fightin'...
>   And he wanted a really big shield to wear strapped to his left arm, and
> announced that it would be a car door.  So I told him it should
> be a door from
> an armored Cadillac, with bulletproof glass.
>
>   So here comes Violence Jack, bastard sword in one hand, a black
> car door to
> his left...
>
>   (Insert Overawe roll here...)
>
>   And since in Ghost Dancers it says that hide shields add +1 to
> your Dodge
> Roll, I figured that a car door might add +3 to the dodge.  Bill
> wanted for it
> to not be based on Dodge, since there might be a time he couldn't
> waste a card
> on a dodge.  He wanted armor for that side of his body.
>   What has anyone else come up with?
>
>
>   - The Ouroboros Worm
>
>
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