Taking Cover behind a shield

oneofmanynameless · 02-28-2021, 11:21 PM

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. Generally this only remains true if you plant the shield on the ground, and usually it fully blocks view. The roman's and the greeks in particular liked to close ranks so that they could lock their shields, plant them, and cover their heads in order to protect against volleys of arrows or sling pellets. While 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. This wouldn't really matter unless you had a weird science or magic shield with enough cover DR to actually stop a bullet. DB 3 shields could cover the majority of your body if used this way (everything if you are stationary, all but your feat if you're not); while DP 2 and DB 1 shields would provide cover for proportionately smaller hit locations. If you provide your head cover in this way you'd reasonably be blind to anything in the direction your getting cover from unless your shield is transparent (like a plastic riot shield), and actually be blind to a wider arc in that direction then the arc from which you're effectively covered.

I see people want to do this sort of thing all the time with shields, particularly supers and heroic knights, and sometimes even against explosive fireballs or a dragons cone breath. The knight taking cover behind their shield from a dragon's cone of fire breath weapon is a fairly classic fantasy image. But I can't find rules anywhere for how to handle this! Am I overlooking something in basic set? Martial arts? Low-tech? If not, how would you want to handle this sort of thing? Can you duck behind the cover of your shield as an active defense? What defense is that against!?! Can you pre-emptively deploy your shield as cover? What maneuver is that?

Varyon · 03-01-2021, 06:19 AM

I don't think there are any rules for this, honestly. This might work as a special option for Block, which "uses up" your Retreat - a successful roll against Block allows you to use your shield as cover against an attack (and works against further attacks from the same direction until your next turn). This disallows further attempts to Block until your next turn, and any other defenses while in this "stance" are at -4 (optionally, you can break the stance when making another defense, removing the cover but reducing the penalty for that defense to only -2 - or maybe even removing the penalty outright). On the bright side, the cover works against attacks that normally cannot be Blocked, such as firearms, beam weapons, cones, explosions, and possibly some area effects. It's also more effective against attacks from weapons that exceed your BL - such automatically break your stance, but the Cover DR still applies. If you suffer knockback, falling automatically breaks your stance, and if you keep your feet with MoS 0 or 1, you also break your stance (MoS 2+ means you maintain it). DB 3 shields give full cover; I'd need to take a look at the other shields to come up with guidelines for them, but they'll give some degree of partial cover (against cones/explosions/AE's, partial cover would probably reduce wounding by some percentage, or maybe just add the shield's cover DR to the Torso). Posture might have some influence - dropping to crawling might let DB 2 give full cover, while dropping to prone might let even DB 1 give full cover.

A character can instead opt to take cover on their turn, as a special option for All Out Defense. This avoids the need to make a Block roll against an attack, but also means you have to set the arc that is covered before you are attacked. As a benefit, I'd probably treat the character as having twice their normal BL (making it harder for a heavy attack to break their stance) and give +50% to their knockback threshold (for an HP 10 character, this means a threshold of 12 instead of 8).

Anyway, that's a rough draft idea, which might give you a jumping-off point to coming up with your own option.

kenclary · 03-01-2021, 07:25 AM

Quote:

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.

Aside: such shields are realistic, at least in a modern setting. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ballistic_shield

Mister Negative · 03-01-2021, 07:36 AM

One of the benefits of 'taking cover' behind a shield versus a dragon's fiery breath would be for improving your Large Area Injury DR.

This is normally calculated as Torso DR/2 + Lowest DR/2. On a knight, the eyes would probably be unarmored. If you get your torso and head behind the shield, the fire would have to penetrate your shield, so you could add your shield Cover DR to both torso and eye DR (effectively adding your shield Cover DR to your Large Area Injury DR).

I don't think I've seen any explicit rule breakdown of that, but it seems reasonable following the rules for Large Area Injury, and shield Cover DR.

tbone · 03-01-2021, 08:03 AM

Shields as cover? Here's a house rule for ya, good for active blocking and passive protective cover as well:
https://www.gamesdiner.com/rules-nug...lds-and-cover/

And this, for maximizing that cover by crouching down and making yourself small behind your shield:
https://www.gamesdiner.com/rules-nug...elds-and-size/

Polkageist · 03-01-2021, 08:31 AM

Low-tech p113 and Basic Set:Campaigns p407 covers cover, which is what a shield that you're hiding behind becomes.

It's kinda finicky and not terribly useful for an on-the-go, independent adventurer in a dungeon.

In short, shields that are big and tough enough to work as cover aren't really used as shields in the "provides a DB in melee" sense, but as a chunk of material that you move around to hide behind. One could argue that a shield with a DB of 3 is barely big enough to count as cover and probably isn't tough enough either without becoming too heavy to use in melee (modern materials notwithstanding). Certainly not for a DB 2 or less shield, it's just too small to cover your whole body (see BS p407 for what partial cover does).

So you want to use your shield as cover. It's not a pavise. Crouching down and holding it so that it's protecting you is an action (maybe 2, depends). Now you're stationary, the shield no longer provides a defensive bonus (it's just an object right now) and you're occupied with holding it. On the upside, any ranged attacks coming in will hit the shield and not you. If the shield is too small to cover your whole body then anything sticking out can be hit per normal rules for sticky-outy bits. Like most things it's a trade-off, and if there's a lot of things gonna come flying at you it could be a really good idea.

oneofmanynameless · 03-01-2021, 09:29 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Varyon

I don't think there are any rules for this, honestly. This might work as a special option for Block, which "uses up" your Retreat - a successful roll against Block allows you to use your shield as cover against an attack (and works against further attacks from the same direction until your next turn). This disallows further attempts to Block until your next turn, and any other defenses while in this "stance" are at -4 (optionally, you can break the stance when making another defense, removing the cover but reducing the penalty for that defense to only -2 - or maybe even removing the penalty outright). On the bright side, the cover works against attacks that normally cannot be Blocked, such as firearms, beam weapons, cones, explosions, and possibly some area effects. It's also more effective against attacks from weapons that exceed your BL - such automatically break your stance, but the Cover DR still applies. If you suffer knockback, falling automatically breaks your stance, and if you keep your feet with MoS 0 or 1, you also break your stance (MoS 2+ means you maintain it). DB 3 shields give full cover; I'd need to take a look at the other shields to come up with guidelines for them, but they'll give some degree of partial cover (against cones/explosions/AE's, partial cover would probably reduce wounding by some percentage, or maybe just add the shield's cover DR to the Torso). Posture might have some influence - dropping to crawling might let DB 2 give full cover, while dropping to prone might let even DB 1 give full cover.

A character can instead opt to take cover on their turn, as a special option for All Out Defense. This avoids the need to make a Block roll against an attack, but also means you have to set the arc that is covered before you are attacked. As a benefit, I'd probably treat the character as having twice their normal BL (making it harder for a heavy attack to break their stance) and give +50% to their knockback threshold (for an HP 10 character, this means a threshold of 12 instead of 8).

Anyway, that's a rough draft idea, which might give you a jumping-off point to coming up with your own option.

Quote:

Originally Posted by tbone

Shields as cover? Here's a house rule for ya, good for active blocking and passive protective cover as well:
https://www.gamesdiner.com/rules-nug...lds-and-cover/

And this, for maximizing that cover by crouching down and making yourself small behind your shield:
https://www.gamesdiner.com/rules-nug...elds-and-size/

The combination of these things fully answers my question of how to handle this well. Thanks guys!

Plane · 03-01-2021, 01:29 PM

Quote:

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).

Quote:

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.

Quote:

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.

02-28-2021, 11:21 PM	#1
oneofmanynameless Join Date: May 2012 Location: New Hampshire, USA	Taking Cover behind a shield 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. Generally this only remains true if you plant the shield on the ground, and usually it fully blocks view. The roman's and the greeks in particular liked to close ranks so that they could lock their shields, plant them, and cover their heads in order to protect against volleys of arrows or sling pellets. While 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. This wouldn't really matter unless you had a weird science or magic shield with enough cover DR to actually stop a bullet. DB 3 shields could cover the majority of your body if used this way (everything if you are stationary, all but your feat if you're not); while DP 2 and DB 1 shields would provide cover for proportionately smaller hit locations. If you provide your head cover in this way you'd reasonably be blind to anything in the direction your getting cover from unless your shield is transparent (like a plastic riot shield), and actually be blind to a wider arc in that direction then the arc from which you're effectively covered. I see people want to do this sort of thing all the time with shields, particularly supers and heroic knights, and sometimes even against explosive fireballs or a dragons cone breath. The knight taking cover behind their shield from a dragon's cone of fire breath weapon is a fairly classic fantasy image. But I can't find rules anywhere for how to handle this! Am I overlooking something in basic set? Martial arts? Low-tech? If not, how would you want to handle this sort of thing? Can you duck behind the cover of your shield as an active defense? What defense is that against!?! Can you pre-emptively deploy your shield as cover? What maneuver is that?

03-01-2021, 06:19 AM	#2
Varyon Join Date: Jun 2013	Re: Taking Cover behind a shield I don't think there are any rules for this, honestly. This might work as a special option for Block, which "uses up" your Retreat - a successful roll against Block allows you to use your shield as cover against an attack (and works against further attacks from the same direction until your next turn). This disallows further attempts to Block until your next turn, and any other defenses while in this "stance" are at -4 (optionally, you can break the stance when making another defense, removing the cover but reducing the penalty for that defense to only -2 - or maybe even removing the penalty outright). On the bright side, the cover works against attacks that normally cannot be Blocked, such as firearms, beam weapons, cones, explosions, and possibly some area effects. It's also more effective against attacks from weapons that exceed your BL - such automatically break your stance, but the Cover DR still applies. If you suffer knockback, falling automatically breaks your stance, and if you keep your feet with MoS 0 or 1, you also break your stance (MoS 2+ means you maintain it). DB 3 shields give full cover; I'd need to take a look at the other shields to come up with guidelines for them, but they'll give some degree of partial cover (against cones/explosions/AE's, partial cover would probably reduce wounding by some percentage, or maybe just add the shield's cover DR to the Torso). Posture might have some influence - dropping to crawling might let DB 2 give full cover, while dropping to prone might let even DB 1 give full cover. A character can instead opt to take cover on their turn, as a special option for All Out Defense. This avoids the need to make a Block roll against an attack, but also means you have to set the arc that is covered before you are attacked. As a benefit, I'd probably treat the character as having twice their normal BL (making it harder for a heavy attack to break their stance) and give +50% to their knockback threshold (for an HP 10 character, this means a threshold of 12 instead of 8). Anyway, that's a rough draft idea, which might give you a jumping-off point to coming up with your own option. __________________ GURPS Overhaul

03-01-2021, 07:36 AM	#4
Mister Negative Join Date: Jan 2006 Location: Most definitely alone	Re: Taking Cover behind a shield One of the benefits of 'taking cover' behind a shield versus a dragon's fiery breath would be for improving your Large Area Injury DR. This is normally calculated as Torso DR/2 + Lowest DR/2. On a knight, the eyes would probably be unarmored. If you get your torso and head behind the shield, the fire would have to penetrate your shield, so you could add your shield Cover DR to both torso and eye DR (effectively adding your shield Cover DR to your Large Area Injury DR). I don't think I've seen any explicit rule breakdown of that, but it seems reasonable following the rules for Large Area Injury, and shield Cover DR. __________________ Build a man a fire and he's warm for the night. Set a man on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.

03-01-2021, 08:03 AM	#5
tbone Join Date: Aug 2004	Re: Taking Cover behind a shield Shields as cover? Here's a house rule for ya, good for active blocking and passive protective cover as well: https://www.gamesdiner.com/rules-nug...lds-and-cover/ And this, for maximizing that cover by crouching down and making yourself small behind your shield: https://www.gamesdiner.com/rules-nug...elds-and-size/ __________________ T Bone GURPS stuff and more at the Games Diner: http://www.gamesdiner.com Twitter: @Gamesdiner \| RSS: here ⬅︎ Updated RSS link \| This forum: Site updates thread (occasionally updated) (Latest goods on site: GLAIVE Mini levels up to v2.4. Update to melee weapon design tool, with more example weapons and commentary.)

03-01-2021, 08:31 AM	#6
Polkageist Join Date: Sep 2007	Re: Taking Cover behind a shield Low-tech p113 and Basic Set:Campaigns p407 covers cover, which is what a shield that you're hiding behind becomes. It's kinda finicky and not terribly useful for an on-the-go, independent adventurer in a dungeon. In short, shields that are big and tough enough to work as cover aren't really used as shields in the "provides a DB in melee" sense, but as a chunk of material that you move around to hide behind. One could argue that a shield with a DB of 3 is barely big enough to count as cover and probably isn't tough enough either without becoming too heavy to use in melee (modern materials notwithstanding). Certainly not for a DB 2 or less shield, it's just too small to cover your whole body (see BS p407 for what partial cover does). So you want to use your shield as cover. It's not a pavise. Crouching down and holding it so that it's protecting you is an action (maybe 2, depends). Now you're stationary, the shield no longer provides a defensive bonus (it's just an object right now) and you're occupied with holding it. On the upside, any ranged attacks coming in will hit the shield and not you. If the shield is too small to cover your whole body then anything sticking out can be hit per normal rules for sticky-outy bits. Like most things it's a trade-off, and if there's a lot of things gonna come flying at you it could be a really good idea.