Taking Cover behind a shield

[MrFix]

Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth

That's exactly what I'd call not supporting it...

Its in line with cover rules - GM sets coverage of that pebble, brick stack, crate or tree you're hiding behind.

[Plane]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

Many shields (particularly DB 3 shields) are large enough to fully take cover behind such that attacks from particular angles cannot hit you without passing through the shield.

Yep, and even for lower-size shields which can't provide full cover for your whole body, they could certainly do that for at least certain body parts, if you have the foresight of predicting where your attacker will aim.

LT114 lists "frying pan" as being DB1 as an Improvised Shield for example, yet it's plausible you could hold it in front of your face to prevent frontal face/skull shots, as Sterling Archer discovered

Doing that sort of thing is going to impede your vision of the shooter though, so you might not notice stuff like the shooter deciding to switch their target to your leg (probably faster than you can move your frying pan down: Zombies 44 rates cast-iron skillets as being 5 pounds, heavier than most pistols) so it pays to use that opportunity to duck behind more extensive cover (as happened in above example).

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

you couldn't reasonably move a shield to block a bullet, you absolutely could point your shield at someone with a gun and adopt a posture such that the shield was providing you cover against their fire.

If I already were holding a buckler at shoulder-level, I could actually see it being easier (faster, less energy) to drop that buckler in front of my thigh than to move my my thigh out of a bullet's path.

The problem is moreso "how do I know my Left Thigh is the shooter's target?" in either case.

I might do a more flamboyant "shooter is aiming somewhere at my lower body so I'm going to hop into an adjacent hex" kind of dodge, which wouldn't require perceiving shooter's target/intent so specifically...

But on the same note, if I had a larger DB2 shield instead of a buckler, I wouldn't need to perceive which thigh was targeted, I could just block the majority of my lower body with that bigger tool.

I think gravity matters more than we account for though: you can lower a buckler from face-level to knee-level faster than you can raise it from knee-level to face-level, simply because in one hand gravity is helping (triceps can assist gravity to get it into position faster) and in the other it's impeding (biceps fighting gravity, probably pre-fatigued from lugging it around for several minutes beforehand)

TG37's Force Posture Change kind of approaches that in giving a bonus to the maneuver if you're willing to fall down to a lower posture to try and drag down an opponent, and penalties if you're trying to pull yourself up.

I'm thinking that would be cool to adapt also to blocks/parries involving lowering or raising a weapon from a previously established height.

We even sort of see that with dodges via the "Dive for Cover" in basic set for ranged, or "Dive" in Martial Arts for melee giving bonuses.

B402's "Combat at Different levels" might also be seen as relating in some way. Fighters at higher levels (3ft) presumably get a bonus to active defenses because the lower fighter is assumed to be fighting gravity... though if that's the case it should matter more against heavy weapons than light ones.

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

This wouldn't really matter unless you had a weird science or magic shield with enough cover DR to actually stop a bullet.

Cover DR still matters even if it doesn't completely stop an attack, since it reduces the damage which gets through.

B484 defines DR+HP/4 which is consistent for Homogenous,.. so 287 ranges from 2lb Light Shield giving a Light Shield giving cover DR of 10 to 25lb Large Shield giving cover DR of 24

LT116 ranges of 3lb (cover DR of 5) to the 16 and 22 pounders giving a cover DR of 10.

The biggest change seems to be in the HP shields have.

B483's "detailed HP calculation" or B557's "Object hit point table" ... suggests 20 HP for a 16lb homogenous, 24 HP for 27lb. LT goes slightly beyond that (25 and 27 hp for 16lb and 22lb scutums) but not WAY beyond it like Basic Set did, which took B558's "GM may alter HP for unusually
frail or tough objects" clause very far.

I expect the way-high-HP basic shields (compared to slightly-high HP low-tech shields) were probably made from something akin to M53 Essential Earth>Stone metal like Fantasy's Oricalchum ... though maybe to a lesser degree since that's meant to triple HP and DR while the Basic Set shields (compared to fantasy) seem to have double the HP and same DR.