Unbreakable Shield, Breakable Wielder

[whswhs]

Normally, a shield doesn't act as armor. That is, you don't put it up as a barrier normal to the vector of the attack and see if the attack can pierce it; rather, you use it to deflect the attack. Its function is as a way to Block and not as a source of Damage Resistance. So the failure mode is that the shield didn't deflect the attack. Maybe you didn't get it in the way, maybe it wasn't at the right angle, or maybe the attack was forceful enough to knock it aside.

[Tallor]

Thanks everyone! Got a lot of answers on this one. :)

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by whswhs

Normally, a shield doesn't act as armor. That is, you don't put it up as a barrier normal to the vector of the attack and see if the attack can pierce it; rather, you use it to deflect the attack. Its function is as a way to Block and not as a source of Damage Resistance. So the failure mode is that the shield didn't deflect the attack. Maybe you didn't get it in the way, maybe it wasn't at the right angle, or maybe the attack was forceful enough to knock it aside.

This isn't about failure; making your Block roll by your shield's DB or less says the shield took the full hit instead of deflecting the attack, and that's the scenario in the OP.

[Dammann]

I agree that there should logically be some maximum to the damage you can deflect with a shield. Can I redirect the damage from a 15 foot giant swinging a boulder headed club? A tank shell? At some point, no matter how fast I am, the attack does more damage than I can redirect due to my limits of strength.

[Anaraxes]

The angle of impact and momentum of the striking object would tell you how much force you get through the shield, and thus the knockback you'd take.

Of course, you don't actually know that angle. So you'd probably be better off just with some factor based on MoS of the Block roll.

[Nereidalbel]

Originally Posted by Anaraxes

The angle of impact and momentum of the striking object would tell you how much force you get through the shield, and thus the knockback you'd take.

Of course, you don't actually know that angle. So you'd probably be better off just with some factor based on MoS of the Block roll.

Block already includes this: If MoS > Shield DB, you deflected the attack. If Mos < DB, the shield took a direct hit, and you are subject to Knockback/Knockdown, depending on the swing.

[Anaraxes]

Originally Posted by Nereidalbel

Block already includes this

I mean an impact high enough that "deflected" itself matters on a success. The mentioned tank shell, perhaps, though the massive club might work better -- or a supers-style brick. If you successfully "deflect" an attack, and change its path, then it deflects you right back. For human-scale melee weapons, the miss is what matters, and the side effects are assumed to be small enough to be negligible. For extreme cases, the side effects themselves matter, even when that's far less energy or momentum change than the total possessed by the incoming weapon.

The existing DB rule doesn't account for that, as it has zero momentum transfer on anything but the most marginal success. (It's also not especially accurate, since DB is related to the size of the shield, not its angle or how well it was employed, but that's not particularly worrisome in this case.)