Shield Parries and the Issue of Armor Points

[Sadric 86th]

Shields have a greatly reduced effect, if I'm reading the Player's Update correctly. First, I would think that a shield is easier to parry with than say, a sword, spear or other weapon. Interposing a shield between a blow seems a simpler task in comparison, if one considers the surface area of a shield. I would add, the larger the shield, the easier it would be to protect one's body from harm. The way the rules play out, except for the benefit of an extra reaction, the protections offered by a shield are nearly irrelevant.

In order to address the this issue, I'm considering the following "house rules" and would like some critiques:

A character with a shield who uses a shield to parry can declare "shield high" or "shield low" during his/her reaction declaration. As such, a failed parry still provides half the shield's AP in protection to the shield arm, and depending on the size of the shield, either one or two other hit locations.

A Target shield for example, would gain protection for two extra locations , while a kite shield provides protection for one extra location. These extra locations must be declared before any rolls are made. Thus, a kite shield "shield high" protects the shield arm and either the chest or head. While shield low would protect the shield arm and either the abdomen or shield-side leg.

Thoughts?

 

[RosenMcStern]

This was already discussed infinite times in the RQ3 era, where there was a rule that actually stated "A slung shield provides half its APs to the location it covers." The reality is that if you have a really big shield, your opponent can use it to impair your sight, manoeuver around it, etc. In a mass battle a shield can save your life many many times, in a 1-vs-1 duel maybe not.

In the first edition of the rules, there is no comparison between shield parry and sword parry. If you parry with a shield you block the blow, if you parry with a sword you are not dead, but you are down: better have a good friend with Healing nearby. All this is negated by the high roll downgrades low roll rule in the new Player's update. But you can choose to ignore that rule and use the tables as they are, so shields are more useful than swords again.

 

[AKAramis]

My experiences are that the bigger the shield, the more it impairs the wielder. A really hot fighter with a tower shield is hard to hit, but has an even more strenuous time of the whole of the fight, since he's got to defend faster when something comes around it, and has a harder time seeing his opponent.

Further, a smaller, lighter shield, while not so tough, is more than adequate to stop even major blows by redirection, and further, is easier to put in place for redirection, and doesn't block view near as much.

I've used Kites, Heaters, Targes, Viking-ish Rounds, and leather and metal bucklers. A metal buckler can easily redirect a broadsword... right into the ground... in a competent user's hands.

They all provide some passive defense... and bigger ones more... but at ever increasing loss of view, reaction speed, and mobility (of shield).

 

[Mongoose Pete]

They all provide some passive defense... and bigger ones more... but at ever increasing loss of view, reaction speed, and mobility (of shield).

I agree completely. Large shields are really only good for battlefield formations where personal maneuverability is impossible and missile weapon protection is required.

When fighting in single combat a smaller shield is the better option, if for no other reason than it allows better visibility, an ability to actually parry with it rather than simply block, and greater freedom of your own weapon around it.

(Personally I prefer parrying with a greatsword myself! )

Modeling that in a couple of elegant rules however is far more difficult.

 

[Rurik]

The problem is that with the MRQ Experience system sheilds HAVE to be better than weapons for parrying. If not no one would ever use them.

The rules guidelines are 3 Improvement Rolls per adventure. Using a sheild (or dodge) as part of your fighting style means you are spending 2 of those rolls on combat skills (one for weapon, one for shield or dodge). The specialised defenses have to offer a significant advantage over weapon parries or they would be obsolete.

 

[DigitalMage]

I have only read the rules and the update, not played them, so I may be incorrect but...

Isn't the extra benefit of using a shield the higher number of Armour Points they have over a weapon? The Buckler, Target Shield and Kite Shield have APs of 5, 8 and 10 respectively. Compare that to a Short Sword (3 AP), Great Sword (4 AP) or a Warhammer (3 AP).

Or am I missing something?

 

[Rurik]

I have only read the rules and the update, not played them, so I may be incorrect but...

Isn't the extra benefit of using a shield the higher number of Armour Points they have over a weapon? The Buckler, Target Shield and Kite Shield have APs of 5, 8 and 10 respectively. Compare that to a Short Sword (3 AP), Great Sword (4 AP) or a Warhammer (3 AP).

Or am I missing something?

Yes, the AP are the advantage of shields, and can be a real lifesaver.

The OP was mentioning that shields AP almost never come into play in the new Update. They only time they ever get used is in the case of a critical (or the elusive tie).

However, when you are in fact on the receiving edge of a critical hit, those extra AP certainly will be noticed.

 

[RosenMcStern]

If you use the opposed roll rule on tied results (higher roll remains a success, lower roll is downgraded to a failure), you will not use the APs of the weapon in 99% of the cases. This means that parrying a Troll Maul with a dagger is perfectly viable, because either the troll strikes you outright or he misses you outright, no clash of weapons. I have already complained a lot about this, so no need to repeat "Hey, not very realistic!". They already noticed.

So in fact there is no extra benefit for APs in the Player's Update, unless you consider the opposed roll rule as optional. Anyone using a shield in melee istead of a parrying dagger, with the RAW, is just carrying extra encumbrance with no advantage.

I think in fact the reality falls in between the two rulesets. Shields should be most effective in large formations against missile weapons, but there must be some use for the AP score in melee combat.

 

[DigitalMage]

Oh my god! I have just re-read the players update and that is terrible!!!!!! I just though it was an opposed roll and consult the chart.

This is just as bad as the original rules! Not being funny but this puts me further and further off the game. So far I have bought the core and the companion and Glorantha in PDF. I think I won't bother buying the hard copies at this rate as I feel the amount of house ruling I will need to do makes it not worth it.

I want to like this game, but really, did no one play test this thing?

 

[RosenMcStern]

This was exactly my reaction the moment I read the update. But in fact they did playtest the rules, it is just that the oddities come out only in extreme cases (like in D&D), so I think they did not notice at first.

Do not worry, though, the rules are not so broken as they seem. However, I second your fine comment of "I want to love this game, help me to do it".

 

[Mikko Leho]

I guess I am pretty much the only one that likes the success degradation found in the Player's Update. A character with weapon skill 96% should have his ass handed to him by a character with weapon skill 156%. Without the degradation the more skilled character would just land minor hits most of the time and have minor hits dealt to him. With the degradation the more skilled character can parry better and score more normal hits.

The only downside I can see is the lesser value of shields. Simple fix would be that shields gain positive bonus when parrying as they already have negative modifier when attacking.

 

[RosenMcStern]

The poll showed that 45-50% of forum members actually liked it. The problem is that applying it to the new tables makes APs irrelevant, thus making shield use pointless in one vs one.

Parry bonus is not the solution, as you are likely to be at least 50% better in your main weapon than you are in Shield, so using two swords is much better than sword & shield anyway. The real solution would be allowing the success/success or critical/critical outcome to happen even when you use the opposed roll rule.

 

[DigitalMage]

Initially I too liked the Players Update over the core rules as it meant one less dice roll for the attacker, however I didn't appreciate that the lowest roll (if in the same success category) is downgraded a success level. This means that the Crit/Crit, Success/Success results only have a 1% chance of occurring and then only if the two combatatnts have exactly the same % chance of success.

A simpler rule would just be to consider there to be 3 levels of result: Critical, Success and Failure (with a Fumble being a subset of Failure).

If attack is two levels lower than reaction, e.g. Failure/Crit, then no damage is done and attacker is overextended (if dodging) or defender can riposte (if parrying)

If attack is one level less than reaction, e.g. Success/Crit or Failure/Success, then no damage is done.

If attack and reaction have same level of success, e.g. Crit/Crit or Success/Succes them minimum damage is done for weapon but personal damage bonus is still
rolled (so a negative bonus could mean damage is reduced to nothing).

If attack is one category higher than reaction, e.g. Crit/Success or Success/Failure then roll weapon & damage bonus as normal.

If attack is two categories higher, e.g. Crit/Failure, then damage is maximised for weapon (still roll personal Damage Bonus).

For Parries, in addition to the above, the damage is reduced by AP of weapon as long as Defender rolls a success or better. This makes parrying a more desirable choice than just dodging, but I guess this is balanced to some degree by the fact that Dodge skill can be used whatever weapon is being used or even when no weapon is used. Versatility over efficacy.

Any comments?

 

[Sadric 86th]

I think the key, is bringing in the shield's armor points in some fashion. I think the critiques of larger shields vs. smaller shields and their uses, are quite legitimate. Nevertheless, there must be some mechanism for accounting for the benefits of a shield during a parry attempt.

So, back to my original premise. I'll try to abstract from the critiques. All shields protect the shield arm and one other area, high or low, providing half the AP in protection, even on a failed parry with a shield. The 1/2 points and limited area of protection accounts for the difficulty of using larger shields in single combat and the lack of protective surface of smaller shields. Both have sufficient disadvantages thus, the abstract nature and application of my proposed "shield rule."

More feedback is welcomed.

 

[Mikko Leho]

The poll showed that 45-50% of forum members actually liked it. The problem is that applying it to the new tables makes APs irrelevant, thus making shield use pointless in one vs one.

I think the problem is not the APs but the fact that shields don't have any other bonuses than higher APs. I have never quite understand how weapon's durability is going to stop damage, parrying should be all about skill not about your equipment. In fact if one wants to take account how different weapons effect parrying, reach is much bigger factor than the material the weapon is made from.

Parry bonus is not the solution, as you are likely to be at least 50% better in your main weapon than you are in Shield, so using two swords is much better than sword & shield anyway. The real solution would be allowing the success/success or critical/critical outcome to happen even when you use the opposed roll rule.

I feel that the Player's Update cleared some of my reservations for RQ: opposed rolls, missing fumble charts, imbalanced combat for higher skilled characters and use of weapons AP for parrying which never made much sense to me. Now AP can be factor but this comes into effect much less often.

Also the success degradation favors equally higher skilled characters. For instance in combat situation with characters having relative skills at 36% and 96% we are going to see lower skilled character losing almost every time. The situation is the same with or without the Player's Update. However when we change the skill scores to 96% and 156% then the Player's Update continues to favor the higher skilled character but without it the combatants deal similar kind of damage to each other. I like the updated version better.

 

[DigitalMage]

Are skills of 96% and 156% common? if a game is designed to be percentage based I would expect the design of the game to be that skills in excess of 100% are very rare (reserved for things like Dragons, or epic heroes).

 

[kintire]

This means that parrying a Troll Maul with a dagger is perfectly viable, because either the troll strikes you outright or he misses you outright, no clash of weapons. I have already complained a lot about this, so no need to repeat "Hey, not very realistic!". They already noticed.

I'm not really in sympathy here. I've always had serious reality check problems with the APs system: you parry a weapon by displacing it so it misses you, not by laying your weapon against yourself at the target point and using it as armour. And if you do get a firm impact, the weapon doesn't reduce the attack by its armour points: it stops it, or it breaks. Okay, a troll with a maul can smash through parries perhaps, but that based on the Troll's strength, not the wepon's AP. The new system is much much more realistic. If you're worried about the troll problem, add a resisted strength to beat parries aside mechanism.

Edit: and yes, the system assumes that 100% is very skilled, but that serious contenders will get higher than that. 100% plus skills are not exactly common, but they are far from unheard of.

 

[RosenMcStern]

The new system is much much more realistic.

I am still unconvinced about the dagger parrying a poleaxe. It can be done, but it is much more difficult than parrying a rapier or a spear. And here it is a matter of momentum, not STR of the wielder.

If you're worried about the troll problem, add a resisted strength to beat parries aside mechanism.

It is exactly what I did in RQ3: in my campaign the APs parried by a weapon or shield could never exceed the wielder's STR (or half against for 2H weapons). This limited the abuse of hoplite shields, which should only be used in mass warfare.

 

[Mugen]

I have a solution, but it needs a big modification of RuneQuest rules.

It is quite simple : use the 10s of the d100 roll as a Degree of Success.
Treat "0s" as 0 in case of a normal failure, and 10 in case of a critical.
If skill>100, add 1 to DoS for each 10% above 100.

In combat :

Base damage = Attack DoS + weapon dmg modifier
Parried damage = Parry DoS + weapon parry modifier.

Final damage = Base dmg-Parried dmg-armor.

 

[RosenMcStern]

Degree of Success was originally proposed by Steve Perrin two years ago but not accepted by Mongoose. Your solution is elegant, as it was Steve's but MRQ is based on opposed rolls, not DoS.