Exitium said:
True swordsmen like the kensai (Sword Saint) Miyamoto Musashi were very few and far apart could handle two weapons with ease, often wielding the Katana (a two handed weapon, by default) with ease in each hand.
I heard that he considered two katanas better when fighting several opponents, but for a one on one fight he thought that it was better to stick to a single katana. Heard it from a friend who read it in a book (probably those five rings) - how's that for my credibility?
On the subject of shields, I've grown up with a system where there's a skill to use for blocking, and then a certain amount of damage is absorbed from each blow, and if the damage is higher both the shield and the defender take damage. Thus, as long as the shield only blocks weak enough attacks, it lasts forever. With that system the larger shields blocked more damage, and I suppose that given that the weight of the shield could counter the momentum of the weapon, that's about as realistic as giving a larger shield a higher chance to block. For ranged weapons I think that the shield had a set chance of blocking depending only on its size, or if we used bodyparts, the different shields would cover more and more parts, starting with the shield arm.
Once upon a time when I was trying my hand at designing a combat system for a MUD I decided to go with dexterity for dodging, and strength for shield blocking. That made sense to me, because strength to hold the shield (and to move a heavy shield quickly) seemed to be more important than any delicate manipulating of the shield. Or maybe I just wanted to encourage strong fighters to rely on shields for defense, while agile rogues would prefer to rely on dodging? I guess Ultima V inspired me, because in that game onehanded weapons relied on dexterity, while twohanded weapons relied on strength. Not that it mattered in the end, where my whole party used magic throwing axes.
I love shields though. Once a character of mine put his shield on his back as he fled in panic from a group of orcs with longbows, and as it happened, the game master rolled a lethal critical in the abdomen. But with the shield on the back, nothing happened. The only reason this is (almost) worth mentioning is because we were using the MERP/Rolemaster system, so the chance of rolling a critical in the abdomen wasn't very high at all, especially not a lethal one. One of the others got a critical hit in the calf, so we left him there.
I also hate shields, because of NWN.