Age of Decadence Shield Feedback Requested

Iron Tower’s Vince D. Weller has kicked up a new thread requesting feedback on how to handle some shield-related issues in Age of Decadence.

The original concept was dodge vs armor. “Hard to hit, easy to kill” vs “Easy to hit, hard to kill” (including the middle ground, of course). Shields changed the balance, making the armored opponents with shields both hard to hit and hard to kill.

Artful dodgers are still a viable build, but they are a much harder, less forgiving build. The problem doesn’t exist for 2handers because that’s where the original system shines brightly, so we need to fix shields.

The issue, as I see it, is that shields are:

– mostly indestructible (only a successful axe strike can split a shield, anything else just bounce off it; pilums and AP ammo can ignore shields, but it doesn’t seem enough).
– have Block bonuses (to differentiate between different shields and offset/justify higher to-hit penalties of larger shields).

So, while shieldbearers should fear axemen and be weary of AP ammo-carrying rangers, most of the time shieldbearers have nothing to worry about, which aint right. So here comes suggestions #1: shield hit points.

1) Shields get hit points. Bigger shields have more HP, smaller shields have less. Axes still have a chance to split a shield with a single attack, all other weapons would have to hack shields to pieces slowly. The purpose of a shield is not to “shield” you from harm forever and ever (or until the first axeman), but to buy you 3-5 extra turns. The bonus to Block will be replaced by a penalty, tied to the condition of your shield.

If your shield is at 100%, the penalty is 0. After that the penalty is 1% for every 2% of shield’s damage, i.e. shield with 80% of hit points (for example, 16/20) will have a 20/2=10%  (proper %, not points) penalty to block, shield with only 40% HP left (32/80) will have a 60/2=30% penalty to block.

2) Shields get DR. Blocking an attack no longer blocks all damage. You block what you can, the rest goes through. We considered and discarded this option in the early design stages, thinking that the rest will simply be absorbed by the armor, but perhaps that’s not the case and some damage will make it to your soft body hiding under all that metal. Something is definitely better than nothing, and some damage is better than invulnerability.

3) Shields get both HP and DR.

Thoughts?

My vote is for hit points, damage resistance, and the occasional decapitation-by-shield during combat that will make anyone think twice about carrying one.