Taking Cover behind a shield

[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. 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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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]

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.

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!

[MrFix]

GURPS supports this natively for Ballistic Shields in HT. Simply treat it as cover you can move. HT shields have DR and HP statistics, but no details on coverage. If LT shield is large enough, you can use it the same. Hash coverage out with gm

[Ulzgoroth]

Originally Posted by MrFix

GURPS supports this natively for Ballistic Shields in HT. Simply treat it as cover you can move. HT shields have DR and HP statistics, but no details on coverage. If LT shield is large enough, you can use it the same. Hash coverage out with gm

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

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by oneofmanynameless

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

Additional options for handling the passive cover granted by shields can be found here. Kromm's response (post #9) has a really good, slightly-simplified version, which I'd actually recommend over what I posted in the thread. In there, I suggested that "turtling" could expand the cover to include one additional hit location, although letting a DB 3 shield instead basically cover all hit locations fully probably isn't broken as an option, there.