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Crispy™ How are shields balanced?

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?
 

Jvegi

Arcane
Glory to Ukraine
Joined
Nov 16, 2012
Messages
5,065
Cost?
Edit: Not dnd. Got it.
 
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Shadowfang

Arcane
Joined
Aug 27, 2009
Messages
2,002
Location
Road to Arnika
Shadorwun: Hong Kong BattleTech
PorkyThePaladin Keep in mind that your armor affects your blocking skill. Going with light armor and a small shield will boost your block rating.

I finished the game once with a dexie Spearman with a shield and had a blast. Will post a ss later.

Now this isn't very obvious because when people think of going for a high dex build they lean to dodge instead of block as a defense skill.

Edit: Here is a nice picture.
A87B07D332C9D26F8283928419E9003B7DD4C9EA

I would love to make this build in DR, which i haven't finished yet, but i don't think the game has this spear. Can anyone confirm me this?
 
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Unwanted

†††

Patron
Joined
Sep 21, 2015
Messages
3,544
I would love to make this build in DR, which i haven't finished yet, but i don't think the game has this spear. Can anyone confirm me this?

Scaurus' spear is quite similar to that one, but you get it quite late in the game
 

mushaden

Scholar
Joined
Aug 12, 2015
Messages
334
I pretty much agree with OP. I found large shield to be better. But small shields can be better for blocking melee (even though their damage reduction is worse, iirc) and your THC chance. You can always switch based on the fight, when there aren't ranged guys.
 

Daemongar

Arcane
Joined
Nov 21, 2010
Messages
4,706
Location
Wisconsin
Codex Year of the Donut
I don't know, man. I seem to understand that huge shields weren't actually used in standard combat, but for brunting assaults. That is, archers shoot - then melee closes and archers stop to prevent hitting friendly assault. Once the initial archer barrage is over, defenders drop giant shields and then fight with spear, sword/whatever with no shield at all.

I put all that up there because I know there is someone here who knows way more than me on the subject. I think moderate benefits and differences between tower and buckler are fine, but huge differences are kind of ridiculous, as they are trying to accurately measure the difference between a set shield and a melee shield, when in game they are both melee shields. (ie: Gary Gygax did it better.)
 

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