Shield DR

[Flowergarden]

Originally Posted by Anthony

I was just assuming that a large shield is a scutum, the medium shield is a kite or larger round shield, and the small shield is something like a targe. You can plausibly reduce all the sizes a bit, maybe 8/5/2.5 square feet, which gets the areal density up to 3 lb/sf, but if Pyramid 3/52 thinks a large shield is 3.5 square feet... it's just wrong.

No, pyramid don't think about large shield at all, it's armor design, not shield design. I just used DR values from it.
I agree on your numbers (kinda, +-lbs).

As I said, small shield gets 2 sq feet (2.2 if no rounding) by the same rules from 3-52 if I make it out of leather, and not wood.

Problem is how size increase works in low tech, you just multiply weight by DB. But it should be size modifier increase (1, 2.25 and 5). So 2.2 sq feet for small, 5 for medium, 11 for large

And kite is still large shield, heater is medium.

Edit: thing I forgot about... Large shields are longer than medium but not wider (scutum has this curves... dunno about that). So supposedly low tech is right and large is just x3 size of small shield. But at the same time it shoud be longer to get +1 size from length alone, so generally speaking the same increase

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Which is why shields are useful at all. Based on what they model, a small shield is around 3 square feet, a medium 6, a large 10, which means with typical materials all of them are only around DR 3 (and no, that's not its resistance to damage -- that's the amount of damage required to penetrate the shield. The rules for overpenetration are pretty much nonsense).

The reason that amount of armor is useful (as opposed to, say, spending the same weight budget on thicker armor) is because the shield is substantially separated from the body. If you drive an arrow or spear point 6" into armor... that's a serious and potentially mortal wound. 6" into a shield, and unless it happens to hit your arm, it's a moderate annoyance that makes the shield harder to use until removed, but isn't directly dangerous. I'm not sure really how to accurately model that -- maybe effectively double its DR?

Conceptually, what you need is an estimate of how much inches it's going to take to go from the shield to the body, with each inch requiring almost as much energy as penetrating the body in the first place. And it's not going to reach the torso unless it does enough damage to obliterate the shield.

Some RPGs assume that when a shield takes a bad hit, it's only the shield that is in danger. GURPS seems to swing the other way, and it's not clear to me that destroying the shield and damaging the user in one hit is that likely an outcome.

EDIT: Okay, so here's how I think it might for "normal" weapons. If the attack was targeting the shield arm, it needs to do double the damage the shield's DR, reducing the damage by like amount. Otherwise assume only the shield is damaged. Whatever overpentration rules exist should mainly be pertinent to bullets or spells only.

[Flowergarden]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

Conceptually, what you need is an estimate of how much inches it's going to take to go from the shield to the body, with each inch requiring almost as much energy as penetrating the body in the first place. And it's not going to reach the torso unless it does enough damage to obliterate the shield.

Some RPGs assume that when a shield takes a bad hit, it's only the shield that is in danger. GURPS seems to swing the other way, and it's not clear to me that destroying the shield and damaging the user in one hit is that likely an outcome.

EDIT: Okay, so here's how I think it might for "normal" weapons. If the attack was targeting the shield arm, it needs to do double the damage the shield's DR, reducing the damage by like amount. Otherwise assume only the shield is damaged. Whatever overpentration rules exist should mainly be pertinent to bullets or spells only.

But you don't need to obliterate the shield. You only need to strike hard enough. At least after shield hits, your arm feels pain, and can have bruisings. On human level you won't break an arm by that (probably, shield was created to protect against humans), but gurps is generic, so it needs to take creatures with high ST in equation. And yes, you probably need to destroy a shield to cut through. But not to do blunt trauma.

And there is no difference between trying to hit shield arm and hitting shield for any other reason.

[Varyon]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

Once you penetrate a shield, hitting the person behind it is kind of a separate thing. Does it hit at all? How much energy did it lose penetrating the shield? How much does it lose due to the chaos of its new trajectory? Can it reach far enough to hit the person?

Realistically, sure, but in GURPS a penetrating hit on a shield automatically hits the wielder. An argument can certainly be made that the hit shouldn't be automatic, however. A simple resolution is to say that, if the attack punches through cover en route to the target, you need to reroll the initial attack roll to see if it still hits and use the worse result. Note this will make things like Arrow Curtains much more effective, as in addition to their modest +1 DR they'll also tend to impose roughly a -2 to hit (needing to succeed twice is equivalent to rolling at -2 for most skill levels). If desired, you could add in some complications - success by only 0 or 1 on the second roll means you hit a random location rather than whatever you were aiming for (due to deflection), the second roll is at a penalty if it lost a lot of damage to penetrating the shield or a bonus if it lost very little*, etc. Critical Hits would be exempt from the necessity of a reroll. You may want to add in a check prior to the reroll to see if the shield arm was hit, as in that case you aren't going to see deflection have much of an impact on if it were hit or not (maybe if the attacker had MoS 3+ on their initial attack they can choose to have the arm take the hit?).

*A possible scheme might be +4 if it lost up to 10% of damage, +3 up to 20%, +2 up to 30%, +1 up to 40%, +0 up to 60%, -1 up to 70%, -2 up to 80%, -3 up to 90%, and -4 for anything higher (at 100+%, of course, the shield completely stopped the attack and a reroll isn't necessary). A more simplistic option is just +2 up to 40%, -2 for anything over 60%.

Originally Posted by Anthony

The reason that amount of armor is useful (as opposed to, say, spending the same weight budget on thicker armor) is because the shield is substantially separated from the body. If you drive an arrow or spear point 6" into armor... that's a serious and potentially mortal wound. 6" into a shield, and unless it happens to hit your arm, it's a moderate annoyance that makes the shield harder to use until removed, but isn't directly dangerous. I'm not sure really how to accurately model that -- maybe effectively double its DR?

This would be difficult to handle accurately without making things overly complicated, yeah. I think your simplification of simply doubling effective DR when it's a long penetrator (arrow or spear rather than a bullet) is probably fine. For hand weapons that can be argued to be too short to actually get through the shield and strike the body, maybe triple DR instead to account for the fact you've basically got to stab through to the hilt and then shove the shield into their body. Arguably, the foe should be able to resist that - maybe let them roll for half thr (maybe with a +1 for those with Shield at DX+2 or higher) and subtract the result from what penetrated, instead of using triple DR?

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by Flowergarden

But you don't need to obliterate the shield. You only need to strike hard enough. At least after shield hits, your arm feels pain, and can have bruisings. On human level you won't break an arm by that (probably, shield was created to protect against humans), but gurps is generic, so it needs to take creatures with high ST in equation. And yes, you probably need to destroy a shield to cut through. But not to do blunt trauma.

Tremendously high ST would use the general rules for overpenetration, as I noted. But it should be truly overwhelming force. On the scale of normal humans, it shouldn't ever really matter.

I don't think cutting entirely through a shield with an axe and cutting the person wielding it with the same blow is a realistic or even cinematic outcome. That's maybe a critical hit.

And there is no difference between trying to hit shield arm and hitting shield for any other reason.

There is in the sense that I don't think hitting a shield with a spear and then having it go through and stab the torso is a thing that humans in human scale combat.

[Flowergarden]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

Tremendously high ST would use the general rules for overpenetration, as I noted. But it should be truly overwhelming force. On the scale of normal humans, it shouldn't ever really matter.

Many people play fantasy games... So it does matter.
And what do you mean by overwhelming force? Normal human with tip heavy weapon, striking another normal human with a shield wouldn't be a pleasant experience that would lead to bruises and maybe cracks in bone (also depending on shield and armor of the defending person of course).

Originally Posted by pawsplay

I don't think cutting entirely through a shield with an axe and cutting the person wielding it with the same blow is a realistic or even cinematic outcome. That's maybe a critical hit.

I agree on this one, it should be shield destruction or at least damage more than DR+HP
Again, it's shield dependant. Some shields are light and thin, and can be easily cut by bladed weapons. Mostly if you strike the rim. (I don't want to think about all this possibilities, because I hate rolling dices 15 times on 1 attack)

Originally Posted by pawsplay

There is in the sense that I don't think hitting a shield with a spear and then having it go through and stab the torso is a thing that humans in human scale combat.

Hm, I would disagree, because in gurps humans can pierce (sorry, I mean impale) full plate harness right into the middle of the plate.
Jokes aside, stabbing or shooting arrows through shield (except carrying arm of course) isn't something you can do with medieval weapons (don't know about a thing gurps calls "light shield", which still should keep arrows stuck, because why else you would create them).
With a spear thou, you can push speartip and shield into the enemy, or randomly hit carrying arm (on 1-2 independent of the shield size for some reason (I would probably say its on 4-DB or less))

I like the idea of doubling DR to penetrate with arrows/spears. At the same time, Low Tech cover DR numbers are big enough, so realistic arrow damage (yes, I know gurps arrow damage is not that realistic) wouldn't penetrate them most of the time.
So maybe pierced DR but not pierced cover DR is arrow getting stuck? While center is reinforced so DR is kinda uniform(or attacks to hand need to go only through DR not cover DR, which kinda made the difference between armor and shields even less). Especially, knowing that to damage shield with arrows you need to penentrate it a lot, not scratch.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by Flowergarden

Jokes aside, stabbing or shooting arrows through shield (except carrying arm of course) isn't something you can do with medieval weapons

To a large degree this is because shields, like armor, are designed against specific threats, and for much of history the design threat was in fact arrows.

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by Flowergarden

Many people play fantasy games... So it does matter.
And what do you mean by overwhelming force? Normal human with tip heavy weapon, striking another normal human with a shield wouldn't be a pleasant experience that would lead to bruises and maybe cracks in bone (also depending on shield and armor of the defending person of course).

I mean like a nine foot tall ogre swinging a ten pound mace.

Taking a hit from an axe, from a human, across the shield, may not be pleasant, but I don't think it's likely to be a telling blow. I would expect, absent some kind of critical hit, the shield would most likely split, but absorb most of the blow. In fact a lot of shield use is predicated on such a possibility. Also, at that power level, I wonder about the shield being able to Block.

I think you have to dig pretty deep to figure out cases where GURPS tracks bruising from blows that don't penetrate (Low-tech covers blunt trauma while wearing armor on p. 102), and even once you factor those in, I think a blow that shatters a shield and injures the wearer is likely a corner case. And what about shields with a metal boss?

I'm not sure the DR given for shields is all that generous; a good shield usually has at least some curvature, is typically laminated and cross-grained, and often has a cover or surface that absorbs energy. I think a shield might be more durable in combat than, say, sitting on a table being hit with a spike. But that's also true of armor.

Even requiring double the DR to overpenetrate seems stingy to the shield wielder, even a heavy axe that could easily do 8+ damage is going to struggle to struggle to injure the bearer if the shield is struck. Taking into account realism, and also how weapons are commonly portrayed in movies and such. I think the shield's HP should be treated as the main obstacle to overpenetration. Until the material is penetrated, the force just isn't going to transfer efficiently.

Also historically, a reinforced wooden shield was often considered enough of a primary defense, but against heavy weapons that only need to double the stated DR, it wouldn't be sufficient.

[Anthony]

Originally Posted by pawsplay

I'm not sure the DR given for shields is all that generous

A medium shield in Basic is listed as DR 7/40, which means it takes 18 points of damage to punch through it and 8 points to even damage it. That's grossly overrated; shields are durable enough that it's generally not a useful tactic to try and destroy them, but they're by no means indestructible with handheld weapons (at normal strength) and effective against firearms up to light rifles.

[pawsplay]

Originally Posted by Anthony

A medium shield in Basic is listed as DR 7/40, which means it takes 18 points of damage to punch through it and 8 points to even damage it. That's grossly overrated; shields are durable enough that it's generally not a useful tactic to try and destroy them, but they're by no means indestructible with handheld weapons (at normal strength) and effective against firearms up to light rifles.

At that rating, a fairly normal person could hack away at one with an axe, but not a sword. Which sounds... accurate.