>>Ratherdashing: Has there ever been any thought given to splitting the Shield Usage skill? It'd add a few more skills to the the very lacking Armor skillset, and maybe open up for some differentiation between shield types.

Is this suggestion primarily for TDP farming, or is there another reason behind it? I really don't see how the armor skillset would be improved by splitting one shield skill into two shield skills plus yet another mastery skill. (For the most part, the game is consolidating weapon and armor skills, not splitting them.)

If GMs want to further differentiate between the existing shield sizes, there's no reason they can't already do that.

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Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall rank!

sortable list of all Trader-owned shops and inventory: http://www.elanthia.org/TraderShops/

armor and shields: https://elanthipedia.play.net/mediawiki/index.php/Armor_and_shield_player_guide

On the same token, the techniques you'd use when fighting with a rapier vs fighting with an axe are MUCH different, but we use the same skill for those weapons here. I wouldn't go poking too hard for realistic representation there.

I think different shield types do need to be delineated more in function, especially medium shields, but I do not think separate skills is the way to do it.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

>Small Shield - Good for melee. Not so good for ranged. Low hindrance.
Medium Shield - Great for melee (better than small). Not so good for ranged (but still better than small). Moderate hindrance.
Large Shield - Not great for melee. Very good against ranged. High hindrance.<

This is already how the shield types work...

I sort of like the original idea. Just as we have different skills for small and large weapons because you would essentially use them differently. I could see separate skills for small and large shields. Perhaps what a shield mastery skill could do is allow you to use your small shield better at missile and large shield better at melee. Like medium weapons, I'd just keep medium shield as part of the small shield skillset or even make its functionality an average of small, large, and mastery.

I have always found it odd that the skill to use my 520 stone pavise shield is the same as a 30 stone small shield, yet different armor types require different skills.

--Just a Squire

Riveted to the metal is a small copper plaque depicting a shield crossed with a longsword overlaying a field of thirteen stars. Encircling the design are the words, "Many Faces - One God."

>>> Small Shield: 100% melee, 80% Missile
>>> Medium Shield : 98% melee, 90% Missile
>>> Large Shield: 96% melee, 100% Missile

I am aware of those numbers. They aren't really enough to make anyone choose to use a medium shield though. My understanding is that even those who can wear medium shields choose small instead. Personally, I think it should be more like:

Small Shield: 100% melee, 80% Missile
Medium Shield : 100% melee, 90% Missile
Large Shield: 80% melee, 100% Missile

>>>> As for medium shield, if Barbarians didn't have a penalty to wearing medium shield and using a bow I guarantee you I'd be wearing one as would most all other barbs.

I thought that Barbs were using small shields because the hindrance of a medium shield more than offset the benefits of a more protective shield. It is interesting to me to hear that it is the stick bow penalty that is the issue.

>> I thought that Barbs were using small shields because the hindrance of a medium shield more than offset the benefits of a more protective shield.

This is also the reason I have always heard cited for using a small shield over medium. You want as little hindrance as possible on a shield, broadly speaking, even if that means sacrificing some protection on the upper end.

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Thayet
@thayelf // http://thayette.tumblr.com

"But you must know that if corruption is powerful enough, it's not corruption at all — it's law. Unspoken, unwritten, but law." — Robert Jackson Bennett, City of Stairs

>>The only reason I left it at 100% is because the shields are already less protective. If you wanted them to be less effective in their stronger area it makes more sense to reduce their stats rather than making both stats less than 100% effective.

Ah yeah, I hadn't considered that, but it makes sense.

Training shields would still be completely passive, and it would be exactly like armor for the people that train armors by swapping greaves instead of wearing clown-suits. Also, I'm fairly certain there is a hard limit on the total number of skills in the game, which is part of the reason music skills were consolidated to make room for crafting and weapon skills were consolidated to make room for more magic skills, tactics, and defending. If we really want to argue realism, the same skill lets me masterfully play bagpipes, a fiddle, and a drum, and sing an aria. I think a better option might be to roll brigandine armors into plate or chain, since brig/lp has always had a bit of an identity crisis, and create a new armor skill for active shield use.

Assuming the penalties are multiplicative, arm-worn small shields are only 60% as effective as large shields are at stopping ranged attacks (before figuring in the actual protection values), and people still arm-wear small shields. The convenience from having an open left-hand is too significant to pass up, and combat requires shield use unless you want to hunt only creatures with no ranged attacks. If the goal is to see more variety in shield use, tweaking numbers on the back end isn't going to change behavior. When even high-level paladins are arguing about the effectiveness of a small shield vs a large shield, something other than numbers needs to change.

My suggestion would be:
Let everyone wear small and medium shields on their arm.
Make medium shields strictly better than small shields for protection, and reduce or eliminate the penalties to using a two-handed weapon with a small shield.
Let armor secondaries arm wear all shields, with little-to-no penalties with two-handed weapons and medium shields.
Let paladins arm-wear large shields without penalty.
Reduce the maneuverability hindrance from shields, so that large shields are strictly better than small shields at high ranks.

Now small shields have a niche for armor-tert guilds that want to use 2-handed weapons and for anyone that cares about stealth, medium shields have a niche for armor-terts that use only 1-handed weapons and armor-secondaries that use two-handed weapons, and large shields are for paladins and armor secondaries that don't use two-handed weapons.

Then create a list of shield maneuvers that vary based on the size of your shield. For example, bull rush, which is like shove but it causes damage and leaves your opponent at melee range, or shield wall, where you trade a massive defense bonus for a large offensive penalty, and attacks against you drain more fatigue.

Along that vein, a riposte maneuver would be nice, where you could actively use parry to counterattack your opponent under certain circumstances.

>Since the changes to how defenses are rolled and evasion is no longer king, a more protecting shield outweighs a miniscule hindrance (armor and steal) hit. <

Except it doesn't seem to. As I've reported briefly elsewhere, Rekon (somewhat) and I tested with a variety of shields comparing the number of times hit using small vs. large shields at melee. Regardless of the small shields used (lumium and damite ceremonials, diamond-hide small) vs. large shields (damite tower and pavise shield) we would get hit less using the small shields. When hit using a small shield, they would be a bit harder of a hit, but overall the damage done received over time was higher using a large shield at melee. This wasn't tested with medium shields, so it is possible there's a difference there, but I am not sure why there would be.

--Just a Squire

Riveted to the metal is a small copper plaque depicting a shield crossed with a longsword overlaying a field of thirteen stars. Encircling the design are the words, "Many Faces - One God."

>I'd still like to know whether it is intended that 96% of a vardite pavise shield (8/23 protection) doesn't perform as well as 100% of a small diamond-hide shield (2/13 protection). While Kodius did confirm that "small shields are better at melee, and large shields are better at missile," he did not address that specific question.

I did read your previous posts on the subject back when you posted them Lennon and you have my 100% respect (over many many years too boot). However, I'm with Isharon in wondering about the penalties associated with melee vs ranged attacks and how much 100% vs 96% at melee affects the tests. Also, when you add on if the shield is arm worn or not this would exacerbate the results I would think. All this in play is why I'd take a 98% melee/90% missile medium shield over a 100% melee/80% missile small shield if I didn't have a stick bow penalty because I, as a barb, could arm wear a medium shield with two-handers/bows and suffer no penalty (from either). The overall protection over time fighting melee and blocking missiles would appear to be worth a minor increase in hindrance. With PVE the stick bow penalty is negligible when fighting at level at about the same time that one can switch from optimum armor (light in my case) to a higher hindering setup.

I was a paladin for one day before switching to barbarian back in the spring of 1996 when I started DR. I'm happy with my choice but sometimes I wonder...

You all are troopers!

Rhadyn da Dwarb - Blood for fire!

>>the hard wall against wearing large shields is my gripe. armor terts and secondaries just can't do it.

Honestly, modern combat being what it is, this is pretty much a non-issue. Using a large shield with the attached hinderance is a very poor idea for non-paladins, and many make a case for even Paladins to NOT use the big honkin' shields.

Additionally, you aren't barred from the use of the large shield, you just have to hold it. Same can be said about LE/LB weapons. Anyone can use them, only a barbarian can use them in the offhand. Big deal? Nope, but it's along the same lines as shield stuffs.

Samsaren

>but armor terts and secondaries can mechanically put on plate and fight in plate with no issue.

I don't know if I'd characterize it as 'no issue' when wearing plate a tert is functionally restricted to accessory pieces. Put full plate on an armor tert and mostly you just take (a lot) more damage! It is my vain hope that someday the armor/evasion dichotomy can be revised to something more flexible and frankly more intuitive.

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Re: Life mana Spell preps

You raise your hands in the air. You wave them like you just don't care. Somebody says, "Hey!" Somebody says, "Ho!" Somebody screams.

>>I know plenty of successful warmies who wear bunches of plate.

Doesn't hindrance only affect evasion and stealth? And in 3.0 aren't all defenses contested equally now? If both of those are the case, one would expect that an armor tert could wear the heaviest of plate armors, and stance entirely parry and shield, and get hit no more often than if they were wearing all light armor, and stanced evasion and parry, or evasion and shield.

>>Doesn't hindrance only affect evasion and stealth?

After further digging (the main articles on combat and hindrance on the wiki seem pretty lacking in this regard, which is what I was going off of), it seems that I am definitely wrong here. The best I could find though is this post from Kodius 3 years ago.

>>After some digging this is what we currently have:

>>Evasion: Takes overall hindrance (armor + shield) and this value penalizes the stat bonus to evasion skill by a large amount, and evasion skill by a smaller amount.
>>Parry: Overall hindrance penalizes skill bonus from weapon balance and stats, shield hindrance penalizes parry ranks.
>>Shield: Shield hindrance penalizes stat bonus to skill.

>>So I think the error here is shield should be using (overall hindrance - shield hindrance) to determine the penalty to shield skill. Its hindrance penalty is too small currently. We'll see, not in any rush to fix this just yet.

Who do you have in mind, Munch?

I train plate but I'd never use it for anything serious.

Mazrian

have in mind? nuffin, i use damite heavy for everything i have one of. head neck chest back tummy. light plate on arms and legs, chain on eyes, brig on hands. high hindrance, various levels of armor skill under 220 shield 270. small shield.


You feel certain that a damite breastplate appears to impose fair maneuvering hindrance and fair stealth hindrance, offering:
great protection and incredible damage absorption for puncture attacks.
very great protection and incredible damage absorption for slice attacks.
high protection and incredible damage absorption for impact attacks.
moderate protection and moderate damage absorption for fire attacks.
moderate protection and moderate damage absorption for cold attacks.
high protection and exceptional damage absorption for electrical attacks.

If you were only wearing a damite breastplate your maneuvering would be insignificantly hindered and your stealth would be lightly hindered.
But considering all the armor and shields you are wearing or carrying, you are currently highly hindered and your stealth is greatly hindered. so 3 armors, chain on eyes brig on hands plate everything else.

if i would get hit, i'd get hit if i were in chain, just hurts less

-Munch-