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How do shields work?


Moes1980

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Hello. I am new to RuneQuest, and I just rolled up my first character and did a practice battle with a troll-kin and an elf with a bow. The thing is, I am not sure how a shield is supposed to work. For example, it appears that I have a 25 percent chance to parry with my light mace, but with my small shield I only have a 5 percent chance to parry (I have no modifier to parry skill based on ability scores, so I only get the weapon/shield's base chance).  So the question is, why would I ever try to parry with the shield when I have a 20 percent better chance to parry with my mace? Also, does the shield's armor reduction only take effect if I successfully parry with the shield? From the rules, this seems to be the case. So, I can either parry to avoid a blow with a 25 percent chance of success or, take a 5 percent chance to add damage reduction. This seems to make shields sound like a bad idea, so I think I must be missing something here. Can anyone help me out with this? Thanks!

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First, as GM I'd rule that unless you're a Shao Lin Master you'd have no chance of parrying missile fire with a mace; it's just too slow to use accurately or effectively against a missile weapon.  Also, you need to take into account that your skill with the shield will only improve if you pay (in money and time) to train it up or you actually use it in 'real' (i.e. dangerous) situations.  In that character's case, I'd first pay for training the skill to a point where I had some reasonable chance of success, say 20% or 25%.  Then I'd use it when melee comes along.

Remember to use other tactics to maximize your chances of survival while your character is so vulnerable to quick and painful death.  (Well, you're always vulnerable to that, but more so when starting out.)  Battle/Spirit Magic is helpful in this regard, such as Protection, Shimmer, or Healing cast on yourself, or Dullblade cast on your opponent's weapon, assuming that it qualifies as a vulnerable weapon type.  Eventually, you'll gain access to Rune/Divine Magic, but that's down the road.  Nonstandard maneuvers and use of terrain can also aid in survival.  If your opponent is using missiles, don't hang around in one place where he can draw a bead on you more easily, dodge, and look to close to melee range where you can put your pudknocker to effective use and, not so coincidentally, prevent your opponent from using missiles.

Edited by Yelm's Light
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2 hours ago, Yelm's Light said:

First, as GM I'd rule that unless you're a Shao Lin Master you'd have no chance of parrying missile fire with a mace; it's just too slow to use accurately or effectively against a missile weapon.  Also, you need to take into account that your skill with the shield will only improve if you pay (in money and time) to train it up or you actually use it in 'real' (i.e. dangerous) situations.  In that character's case, I'd first pay for training the skill to a point where I had some reasonable chance of success, say 20% or 25%.  Then I'd use it when melee comes along.

Remember to use other tactics to maximize your chances of survival while your character is so vulnerable to quick and painful death.  (Well, you're always vulnerable to that, but more so when starting out.)  Battle/Spirit Magic is helpful in this regard, such as Protection, Shimmer, or Healing cast on yourself, or Dullblade cast on your opponent's weapon, assuming that it qualifies as a vulnerable weapon type.  Eventually, you'll gain access to Rune/Divine Magic, but that's down the road.  Nonstandard maneuvers and use of terrain can also aid in survival.  If your opponent is using missiles, don't hang around in one place where he can draw a bead on you more easily, dodge, and look to close to melee range where you can put your pudknocker to effective use and, not so coincidentally, prevent your opponent from using missiles.

 

 

Well, I didn't think I could parry with a missile weapon with a shield anyway...But even if were just talking about melee fighting, why would I ever bother with a shield when I have a better chance to parry with my mace, and a successful parry with the mace means no damage, whereas I still might take damage even when parrying successfully with the shield. As far as training go, it seems like it would just be better to train up with my mace rather than with the shield, since it starts out better and, again, a successful parry will mean no damage. So I don't know why I would bother training with the shield when I get better defense and better offense at the same time by training up with the mace. 

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You don't parry a missile with a shield; you duck behind it, covering your vital spots (which is boiled down to a parry roll).  And your mace takes damage just the same as a shield does.  Which would you rather be missing in melee:  a shield or your weapon?  You could fight with dual weapons, but then you'd suffer the disadvantage of being vulnerable to missile fire; also, there are limitations to the ability to dual wield.

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4 hours ago, Haimji said:

Hi

Which version do you play? RQ2? RQ3? Because, in RQ2/RQ3 you can't parry and use the same weapon to attack in the same round. So you really need a shield or you dodge.

IIRC, in RQ3 this was changed with errata. You can't use it on the same SR, but you can in the same round. Thus, with a greatsword, you can both attack and parry once in a round. 

SDLeary

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At least AFAIK RQ3: a shield can't be used to parry a missile weapon, but it can be used to cover 1 area (small), 2 contiguous areas (medium), or 3 contiguous areas (large shield)+the arm wielding it, in lieu of using it for active parrying.  So, if you are under missile fire, you usually use your shield to protect your head, chest, abdomen (typically in that order) by covering them with your shield, adding the shield's AP to that location, generally making it missile-proof.  This is the primary benefit of a shield, providing a melee-weapon user some protection vs missile fire.

Secondarily, as mentioned above, you're using what amounts to an ablative shield to block incoming blows, instead of your weapon.  Parry badly with your weapon, and you could not only take damage, but lose your ability to attack = double whammy.

Third, RAW RQ3 a viking round shield has the optional ability to disarm on a special - although we never used that rule.

 

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From RQ2, p. 17:

Quote

 

Thus, within a melee, a character's strike rank indicates when he may initiate an attack.  However, he is considered to be performing that attack for the entire round and can do little else except parry and defend.

(Emphasis mine.)

There are other places within the third and fourth chapters where it is intimated, but not this succinctly.  As far as I know, there is no rule stating that you can't 'parry' a missile weapon with a shield.  A large shield is certainly big enough to cover every hit location.

And one other advantage of a shield that I was unclear on:  it blocks but doesn't take damage.  A weapon will take up to 4 points of damage per melee round.

I play RQ2, btw.

Edited by Yelm's Light
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1 hour ago, Yelm's Light said:

From RQ2, p. 17:

(Emphasis mine.)

There are other places within the third and fourth chapters where it is intimated, but not this succinctly.  As far as I know, there is no rule stating that you can't 'parry' a missile weapon with a shield.  A large shield is certainly big enough to cover every hit location.

And one other advantage of a shield that I was unclear on:  it blocks but doesn't take damage.  A weapon will take up to 4 points of damage per melee round.

I play RQ2, btw.

First, IMG you *can* use shields to deliberately parry thrown missiles, but not mechanically 'shot' ones unless they are fired beyond effective range.  There's no such distinction in RAW.

RQ2 RAW a shortsword (AP20) is better for parrying than a shield (AP8-16), except insofar that it will take damage, where the shield won't.  Hell, a throwing dagger (AP12) absorbs as much as medium shield.

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3 hours ago, styopa said:

First, IMG you *can* use shields to deliberately parry thrown missiles, but not mechanically 'shot' ones unless they are fired beyond effective range.  There's no such distinction in RAW.

RQ2 RAW a shortsword (AP20) is better for parrying than a shield (AP8-16), except insofar that it will take damage, where the shield won't.  Hell, a throwing dagger (AP12) absorbs as much as medium shield.

In mine you can block anything but crossbow bolts, including arrows.

But, again, you can't block missile weapons with a shortsword or dagger.  And it's not AP but HP, a subtle but important difference.

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Over the years my Gloranthan fantasy game accumulated numerous BRP rules, being a mishmash of RQ2, RQ3, SB, BGB, and anything else that I was influenced by.

During the last decade the BGB has been the foundation, so in combat every subsequent defensive action (Dodge or Parry) after the first one incurred an accumulative -30% modifier until the defender was unable to attempt further defensive actions.

Within the context above, we ruled that Small Shields granted an additional Parry action which did not accrue the modifier; Medium Shields granted two actions, and Large Shields granted three.

I am unsure if I read this rule from one of the rule sets, or online from a digest/forum, but it stuck for us. It tended to justify why someone would lug around a shield as opposed to just parrying with a weapon. 

I really liked these rules, although I think RQ6 also did a good job with how shields work within the MRQ D100 SRD framework rather than with the classic BRP lineage framework.

I'll be interested to see how Shields work in the next edition of RQ.

 

 

 

 

Edited by Mankcam
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17 hours ago, Haimji said:

Hi

Which version do you play? RQ2? RQ3? Because, in RQ2/RQ3 you can't parry and use the same weapon to attack in the same round. So you really need a shield or you dodge.

 

 

Hi, I am playing RQ2, as I just bought it. What you explain here makes sense (and reminds me of the WFRPG), but then it doesn't appear to be that way in the rules. Although, on pg.28-29, where it talks about how having two weapons means you can attack twice, parry twice, or defend and parry, which seems to suggest that you can only do one of these otherwise. But even so, why not just defend with a second mace in the off hand? Sure, it might break, but I would still have my primary mace. It just seems worth the money for the extra protection. It also doesn't make sense that I would have such a harder time to parry with a shield than a light mace.

 

Sure, a weapon might break, but it sounds like the rules are saying that you have to either 1: do all the damage equal to its hit points in a single blow or 2..) do at least 4 points of damage for that damage to carry over to subsequent rounds, but will still go away after the fight if the weapon didn't actually sustain enough damage to break. The mace has 20 hps so I am not too worried about it breaking. 

 

To me, it seems like what would make sense is if the base bonus of 5 percent for the small shield was added to my parry skill with the mace. So then I have a choice, either parry with a mace at my normal 25 percent, risking a weapon break, but avoiding all damage on a success, or parry with a shield at a +5, with a success meaning that I get to apply the shield's damage reduction. I am kind of surprised that there is no errata in the new edition to better explain how this works.

Seems like everyone has their own system or mishmash with later versions and/or BRP to solve it. I was kind of hoping that this reprint would of had errata for this kind of stuff...

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12 hours ago, Yelm's Light said:

From RQ2, p. 17:

(Emphasis mine.)

There are other places within the third and fourth chapters where it is intimated, but not this succinctly.  As far as I know, there is no rule stating that you can't 'parry' a missile weapon with a shield.  A large shield is certainly big enough to cover every hit location.

And one other advantage of a shield that I was unclear on:  it blocks but doesn't take damage.  A weapon will take up to 4 points of damage per melee round.

I play RQ2, btw.

 

 

According to the rules, as far as I can tale, my mace needs to take 20 points of damage to break. The mace needs to take at least 4 points of damage from a single hit to carry over to the next round. And, as far as I can tell, the rules seem to suggest that if the weapon does not break, all damage against it goes away after the combat is over. it is almost like instead of HP the weapon should be described as having stress points. Or, maybe outside of combat you are able to repair the weapon, or something. I don't know. The rules, as I seem to understand them, just makes no sense. I should have a better chance to parry with a shield, not worse, and shields should certainly have a chance of breaking, especially wooden shields. 

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I just rode RQ2 rules book, i found nowhere Shield start at 5% parry. Its 15% in RQ3.

Be careful with 2 weapons : your skill with mace in wrong hand will start at 5% not the same than right hand and dex needed must be increase by 50%!

Remember you can use shield as extra armor and a shield never break !

 

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56 minutes ago, Haimji said:

I just rode RQ2 rules book, i found nowhere Shield start at 5% parry. Its 15% in RQ3.

Be careful with 2 weapons : your skill with mace in wrong hand will start at 5% not the same than right hand and dex needed must be increase by 50%!

Remember you can use shield as extra armor and a shield never break !

 

 

Thank you so much, this helps a lot!

 

First, the base 5 percent chance to parry is under the table  "Shields Statistics Table" on pg31. It is 5 10 and 20 percent for small, medium, and large shield respectively. 

So I could not wield a mace in my offhand anyway as I don't have the dex! But, for the sake of working this out, if I try to parry with mace in off-hand, it would only be 5 percent, just like my small shield (my character has no parry bonus from abilities). Ok, that makes a little bit more sense. If I have two maces, and assuming that I did have the dex, I can:

1) make two attacks, no parry, at 30 and 5 percent.

2) attack with primary for 30 percent and parry at 5 percent

3). Attack at 5 percent and parry at 30

If I have a mace and shield, then I can attack at 30 percent and parry at five, and that's it.  

So basically, it will be the same parry chance but, the mace might break. The shield won't break, but it only offers damage reduction rather than granting a full miss.. Also, I take it that if I succeed on a parry while the attacker misses, I won't do damage  the attacker's weapon like I would do when parrying with my mace. 

 

But, I don't have the ability to wield two maces so, my real options then are:

1) Wield a mace and shield, with 30 percent attack and 5 percent parry

2) Give up my attack in order to parry at 30 percent with my main hand mace- a much better defense option but, I basically miss a turn and risk breaking my weapon.

 

Is this correct? This would make more sense, because then if I used a medium shield I would get a 10 percent chance to parry rather than 5, and so then I would have a better chance of parrying with the shield rather than my offhand mace (my character doesn't have the strength to use a medium or large shield, poor Fredrick!). 

Of course, this only works if I am right in interpreting the rules to mean that you can only attack or parry with a single weapon in a turn, and not both (unless you have 100 percent skill in either action, as explained under splitting attacks). This really seems to make the most sense to me based on the wording for how to handle wielding two weapons, unless that wording is meant to capture the split attack action for characters with 100 percent skill in a weapon/split parry when you have 100 percent in parry, but I don't think so. 

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1 hour ago, Moes1980 said:

According to the rules, as far as I can tale, my mace needs to take 20 points of damage to break. The mace needs to take at least 4 points of damage from a single hit to carry over to the next round. And, as far as I can tell, the rules seem to suggest that if the weapon does not break, all damage against it goes away after the combat is over. it is almost like instead of HP the weapon should be described as having stress points. Or, maybe outside of combat you are able to repair the weapon, or something. I don't know. The rules, as I seem to understand them, just makes no sense. I should have a better chance to parry with a shield, not worse, and shields should certainly have a chance of breaking, especially wooden shields. 

RQ2 again, p. 26:

Quote

Weapons absorb damage on a cumulative basis:  4 points of damage taken in 1 melee round will stay with the weapon throughout the fight and be added to any further damage it may take.

 

1 hour ago, Haimji said:

I just rode RQ2 rules book, i found nowhere Shield start at 5% parry. Its 15% in RQ3.

Be careful with 2 weapons : your skill with mace in wrong hand will start at 5% not the same than right hand and dex needed must be increase by 50%!

Remember you can use shield as extra armor and a shield never break !

 

Medium Shield is listed at 10% and Large Shield at 20% in the "Special Basic Chances" section on p. 19 in RQ2.  Small Shield isn't listed, so it defaults to 5%.

Edited by Yelm's Light
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2 minutes ago, Yelm's Light said:

RQ2 again, p. 26:

 

Medium Shield is listed at 10% and Large Shield at 20% in the "Special Basic Chances" section on p. 19 in RQ2.  Small Shield isn't listed, so it defaults to 5%.

 

 

Ok, I think the wording for weapon damage confused me, I didn't realize it was giving an example with the "4 points of damage carries over to the next round." But now I get it, so yes, once my mace takes 20 points, it is ruined, as simple as that. Thank you!

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4 minutes ago, Yelm's Light said:

RQ2 again, p. 26:

 

Medium Shield is listed at 10% and Large Shield at 20% in the "Special Basic Chances" section on p. 19 in RQ2.  Small Shield isn't listed, so it defaults to 5%.

 

My PDF lists it as 5....Maybe it is because I am using the new re-release pdf version.

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6 hours ago, Haimji said:

 and a shield never break !

The problem is that on the battlefield the opposite tends to happen. Many historical sources hint at the fact that combatants expected to come back without their shield from a battlefield, or that some duels were intended to last "two or three shields". In other words, shields were considered more disposable than weapons.

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1 hour ago, RosenMcStern said:

The problem is that on the battlefield the opposite tends to happen. Many historical sources hint at the fact that combatants expected to come back without their shield from a battlefield, or that some duels were intended to last "two or three shields". In other words, shields were considered more disposable than weapons.

Oh, yeah... It's true that real weapons could break but it depends on the era. In the ol' Runequest, shield are mostly with metal armature but the largest is made from wood or leather so destruction is obvious (sword impaling and getting struck shield rule is born from this). Having 2-3 shields carried by allied are usual, 4 wheels cart or chariot are ideal !

In later era, when metal working are better (like loskalm and fronela) shield are full metal (front side) with wooden back. In french pre-medieval and earliest medieval Era, shield were stronger than most weapons so battles usually ended with men bashing their enemies with shield only because all swords were broken. So Shields can be almost indestructible (I'll die of fatigue long before).

In the same case, the film of "lord of the ring" gave an experimental answer : Most of the swords used could only resist up to five battles simulations, they usually getting destroy cause of the "vibration". To prove their theory, they insert an epoxy (platic to absorb vibration) in the handle of the sword and theirs swords could finally make it for a whole year of the filming...

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3 minutes ago, MJ Sadique said:

In later era, when metal working are better (like loskalm and fronela) shield are full metal (front side) with wooden back. In french pre-medieval and earliest medieval Era, shield were stronger than most weapons so battles usually ended with men bashing their enemies with shield only because all swords were broken. So Shields can be almost indestructible (I'll die of fatigue long before).

This sounds rather new to me. Pre-medieval France means basically Viking age, and in fact Normandy was a Viking land at the time. Some shields had metal rigging (Norman kite?), but many were just round wooden circles with leather protection (sometimes). I have never seen any all-metal shields except bucklers in any museum collections. The metal part was the boss (and archeloogical troves are full of metal bosses that are the only remain of a wooden shield), and that's all.

Battles ending in shield bashes because all swords were broken are completely new to me, too. Where did you get that quote from?

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