PorkyThePaladin
Arcane
- Joined
- Dec 17, 2013
- Messages
- 5,103
Maybe I am not understanding all the mechanics involved, but how are shields balanced against each other?
On the surface, it seems as though smaller shields have less of a penalty to THC (to-hit-chance), plus a lot of other non-combat stuff, making them more offensive, while larger shields have better defense but higher penalty to THC, making them more defensive.
But in my current combat build playthrough, this doesn't seem very balanced. Most fights have you fighting many opponents at once, including ranged, and the difference in defense between a tower shield and a buckler is tremendous. The tower shield has 10 defense vs 4 for buckler, so that's a 6 that's added to your armor value whenever you block (which with a decent block stat value, seems to be all the time). So wearing heavy armor + tower shield gives you around 21 defensive value, which tends to zero out the vast majority of incoming attacks. The tower shield also has +35 vs Ranged, making you almost immune to those pesky archers and crossbowmen, which is great, since their AI makes them hard to deal with while also fighting against melee.
When I was using the buckler, I was getting slaughtered by tougher groups of enemies, but with a tower shield, I can routinely handle them. The extra +10 penalty to THC is very manageable (as your weapon skill goes up + high perception + other THC bonuses + easier to land attack types), so to me this doesn't seem very balanced. Why would anyone use the buckler for a pure combat build?
On the surface, it seems as though smaller shields have less of a penalty to THC (to-hit-chance), plus a lot of other non-combat stuff, making them more offensive, while larger shields have better defense but higher penalty to THC, making them more defensive.
But in my current combat build playthrough, this doesn't seem very balanced. Most fights have you fighting many opponents at once, including ranged, and the difference in defense between a tower shield and a buckler is tremendous. The tower shield has 10 defense vs 4 for buckler, so that's a 6 that's added to your armor value whenever you block (which with a decent block stat value, seems to be all the time). So wearing heavy armor + tower shield gives you around 21 defensive value, which tends to zero out the vast majority of incoming attacks. The tower shield also has +35 vs Ranged, making you almost immune to those pesky archers and crossbowmen, which is great, since their AI makes them hard to deal with while also fighting against melee.
When I was using the buckler, I was getting slaughtered by tougher groups of enemies, but with a tower shield, I can routinely handle them. The extra +10 penalty to THC is very manageable (as your weapon skill goes up + high perception + other THC bonuses + easier to land attack types), so to me this doesn't seem very balanced. Why would anyone use the buckler for a pure combat build?