Slime Squisher
Posts: 341
Joined: Wednesday, 14th September 2011, 10:10
Shield reform proposal discussion
But what about melee shield bearers? I'm trying here to make some adjustment without do too many of them.
Main problem: shields become less useful the more hits are targeting the character
Proposed solution: with increasing SH skill, characters become more and more able to judge which blows to block with the shield, letting go glancing blows that are likely to be absorbed by amour. In game terms, SH is not checked against if maximum damage of the hit after AC calculations does not exceed a percentage of max HP (let's say 10%, adjusted for SH skill). Special cases may be adjusted for certain brands (not blocking exploding at all, blocking needles and posion-branded regardless of damage, if the projectile is branded, block it to be on the safe side).
Rationale: if a yaktaur and a kobold are firing respectively bolts and darts at you, you won't trying to block darts at all if you aren't going to be hurt by them, even if the kobold fires first.
The mathematics involved can be adjusted as well if need be, and a percentage progression for SH skill can be written down (at low SH skill you're going to block anything anyway), eg. 0 SH: you try to block 100% of incoming attacks, 1 SH you block anything which is going to hurt you, at skill 27 you block only major threats -say something over 20% HP - unless there's only one opponent).
This change is going to show some synergy between Armour and Shields skills.