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Categories
Discussion
Main - Rune Quest
RE: RE:CombatRules+shieldrule
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Author:
Tom Cantine
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Time:
29.01.2003 06:07
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Text:
> > I took a little bit of epee many years ago
>
> What is epee?
One of the three main weapons used in traditional fencing. The others are foil and sabre. The epee is basically a heavier foil, with fewer rules about who can attack when and where a valid hit must land. (In foil, you have to hit the torso, whereas in epee, anything goes except the face, hands and feet.) Both foil and epee are limited to thrusting; sabre is designed for slashing as well.
>
> It seems you're the expert on shield fights, then. I think
> that having a shield makes it equally harder to be both
> thrusted and slashed. You allso have the rule that a shield
> can stop damage even if you fail the parry provided that
> the hit hits on a location where the shield is. (-That's
> why you have to state which locations the shield should
> cover -a daft rule, actually, as the shield is used quite
> actively. Rather, the GM should roll random if the shield
> happened to be where the hit strikes home or not.)
Reread that rule, then. You can hold the shield over a location, OR you can use it to parry -- not both. It's extremely useful when you're far away from enemies with bows, since holding a kite shield over chest and abdoment will keep you relatively safe from their arrows, which can't be parried, and which roll on the missile hit location table.
There's another use of shields I've developed for use with RQ, and that's the shield wall. I wrote up a piece on it a long time ago and posted it to usenet; here's the text, pulled off Google's archive:
Shield walls: I was looking for a way to make the tactics of the ancient
shield wall make sense in Runequest terms, and here is what I came up
with. It takes only very small modifications to the existing rules, and
seems to work pretty well.
First, note that a target who is surprised or otherwise not defending
in any way is attacked on the missile hit location table, and not the
melee table. This is usually a good way to get killed, since hits to the
chest and abdomen can be ugly. However, if you happen to be holding a
hoplon (the hoplites were the guys that carried the shields called
hoplons) over those two locations, you gain the advantage of an extra 18
armour points over your vitals.
Second, make a slight adjustment to the Shielded Hit Locations rules
such that if a bunch of soldiers link shields together in front of them
as a shield wall, then the weapon arm can also be protected, leaving only
the legs and head exposed (and the arm of the poor guy who ends up on the
end of the wall). A one-handed spear can be used to attack over the top
of the shield wall without exposing the weapon arm.
So. This more or less automatically gives everyone in the shield wall
the equivalent of a 65% parry (since 65% of successful attacks will hit a
shielded location). It also means that they can afford to spend a bit
less on their torso and arms, and get a really good helmet and greaves,
so the 35% of attacks that might hurt can be further reduced. This is a
pretty cost-effective way to set up a fighting force of men, especially
if most of them don't have a 65% parry or better.
But here's how it can get even better. The men along the shield wall
are divided into teams of three, all of whom attack the same opponent in
any given melee round. This means that many targets will be left alone in
any given melee round, but it also means that those who are attacked are
much more likely to be hit. Assuming the hoplites are fighting against an
undisciplined band of skirmishers who will try to parry or dodge, and not
another form another shield wall, they will have a surprisingly high kill
ratio. Why? Because with the rule about two combat actions per melee
round, only two of those spear attacks can be parried (and then, only if
the foe has given up any hope of attacking that round). There's a very
good chance that at least one spear will find its mark. (I computed the
expected kill ratios between two equally skilled groups of warriors, one
organized into a shield wall with the three-on-one attack strategy, and
the other in a loose skirmish line and parrying with their shields. They
were equally equipped as well, except that the shield wall traded in
their hauberks and vambraces for better helms and greaves. The shield
wall knocked out three enemies for every casualty it suffered.)
>
> Actually, I have made a house rule on shield. It goes like
> this:
> Most shield have a metal centre with wooden \ skin around.
> The point when fighting with shields is to take the blow
> (parry) with the metal area. A poor parry results in the
> weapon hitting somewhere else on the shiels. One of the
> viking tactics was to try and chop the opponent's shield to
> pieces.
RQ3 actually acknowledges this, which is why a viking round shield is only 10 AP, compared to other more robust designs. But another tactic was to try to get your opponent's sword stuck in your own shield, which happens on a special parry success.
> Therefore the shields have two sets of AP's in my
> houserules
> -one for the metal bit, and one for the other stuff. If a
> hit is not successfully parryed, but still hit on the
> shield (see above), the damage is applyed to the
> pheripheral area (with the lowes AP's) The metal area will
> typically have 8 ap's, and wood, mabye 6, and skin mabye 2
> - 4 Weaved mats mabye 3 - 5, etc. (Up to the GM).
I'm not sure that fits with the basic RQ3 combat model. That is, an attack against a failed parry just won't even hit the shield, going straight to the rolled hit location (which may even be the shield arm, perhaps exposed by the bad parry).
As for the reduced AP values, I don't think that's necessary or accurate. Not all shields have bosses (the metal bit), and the big wooden part IS designed to absorb a pretty serious beating. It doesn't do that just by being solid; in fact, by giving a bit when hit (as well as swiveling a bit around your arm) it drains off a lot of the kinetic energy of the attack.
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Message threads
| Topic: |
Author: |
Time: |
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Tom Cantine
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09.01.2003 08:31
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Bjorn Are Stolen
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20.01.2003 15:55
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Tom Cantine
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23.01.2003 09:08
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Bjorn Are Stolen
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23.01.2003 13:43
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Tom Cantine
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24.01.2003 09:51
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Bjorn Are Stolen
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24.01.2003 11:14
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Tom Cantine
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25.01.2003 07:04
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Bjorn Are Stolen
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25.01.2003 13:58
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Tom Cantine
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26.01.2003 01:18
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Tom Cantine
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28.01.2003 06:24
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Bjorn Are Stolen
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28.01.2003 15:37
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Tom Cantine
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29.01.2003 06:07
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Bjorn Are Stolen
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30.01.2003 13:09
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Tom Cantine
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01.02.2003 04:50
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