TL3 shields work as cover vs modern rifles?

[Icelander]

Originally Posted by The Resistance

By the way, are the TL7 plastic riot shields (option in Characters) and the Force Shield (also in Characters) completely okay as-is? How about the other shields from High-Tech?

The Force Shield is *shrug* superscience, so who cares? It's as good as you want it to be and any stats will have zero relation to any realistic metric.

As for the High-Tech shields, those look realistic enough. Can stop rifle bullets, but are usually penetrated by anything higher or if the enemy is using AP rounds.

Generally, if Characters has a given technology that is also present in a more focused gear catalog book, use the latter stats if you want realism and accuracy and the former if you want a 'best guess simple model' at the time 4e was first conceived.