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What are peoples thoughts on bopper shields? The ability to wack a person with a shield and call damage?

in a more combat oriented larp, yeah sure it can be fun.

in the FH system were we have people that dont really like to fight, i know we have some small people out there, and even a small tap by a bigger person could cause some problems.

though i must say it would be satisfying, when the people walk up on you and try to wrap around you shield (yes this does happen, yes its against the rules but it happens, my brother stopped useing a shield because of it.) to just shove them away from you.

If you are gonna have shield bashing you need to have much more stringent rules on shields. Also there is Josh's point about people getting knocked around.

Would you let someone shove another person to the ground? Are you OK with eliminating the charging rules? These are things that need to be considered when thinking about adding shield bashing to any game.

I'm cool with shield bashing if I'm with my friends in the yard. But I wouldn't be at an actual event.

What are peoples thoughts on bopper shields? The ability to wack a person with a shield and call damage?

You can add shield bashing without actual shield contact. The skill would just work like Press but have a damage call and would be a crush like effect and possibly a press or knock down effect(like arctic blast)at the same time. Id say it would have to be a LP skill, since if your bashing your slose enough that getting a charge up finish would be nigh impossible.

Maybe its what you should use when a PC has press skill twice, it becomes bash and does 1 crush and a press.

(yes this does happen, yes its against the rules but it happens, my brother stopped useing a shield because of it.)

Can you point out where going around someones shield to hit them is against the rules? I think your confusing it with "wrapping" which is standing within 2 feet and fitting someone in the back. Wrapping aropund a shield isnt the same.

Wyrmwrath wrote:

(yes this does happen, yes its against the rules but it happens, my brother stopped useing a shield because of it.)

Can you point out where going around someones shield to hit them is against the rules? I think your confusing it with "wrapping" which is standing within 2 feet and fitting someone in the back. Wrapping aropund a shield isnt the same.

yes i was talking about wrapping, and it happens. Some poeple activly stop themselves from doing it, others dont even relise they are, but it happens. I understand that the repsponse to this is:

"just dont count the hits"

but i dont belive in responding to cheeze with more cheeze. then you get GM's coming up to you asking you if your counting hits or what your soak is etc. so we just dont use a shield.

Back on topic
if a shied skill were implimented that allowed you to do damage without making contact such as press, it would be overpowered. right now with a sword you have to make contact, if all you had to do was be close (press) and say the word (press) and the person/people in front of you took the effect (press) in this case the effect being damage (1 shield) you could just hide behind it calling un blockable damage. if it were timed or had a cooldown between uses i could see it, but not just a straight up form of combat.

the alternative is contact, and like i said some people play this game because its a fairly safe, and minimal contact one. if you have people pushing you around with shields it might not be fun for some. There are plenty of larps out there that allow sheild bashing and the like, if people want it they can play one of them.

double post but this sounds like a Rule Sugestion, if only we had a forum for those right. . .maybe one around Rule Questions. . .i wonder if theres space lying around somewere. . .?

Wyrmwrath wrote:Can you point out where going around someones shield to hit them is against the rules? I think your confusing it with "wrapping" which is standing within 2 feet and fitting someone in the back. Wrapping aropund a shield isnt the same.

The issue you two are speaking of is called "Charging" in the book. And if you have a shield between yourself and your opponent, it is not technically charging by the rules (at least, not at this time, that I'm aware of.)

However, safety should still be policed and maintained. If your arms are long enough to swing around a shield and your body is not pressing up against it, AND still getting your 90 degree swings in, then I don't think there's anything wrong with it.

However, if you are pressing your chest up against someone's shield while swinging to get around it, you're likely pushing into them as well, and that act of putting continued physical pressure on another player could be considered Charging, if not called out as an unsafe act (in which case, "Apple" could, or should likely be called.)

Similarly, someone with a shield should not be pressing it against another player continually to physically pin them to a wall/object either, even though that isn't called out as Charging specifically in the book because the shield would still be between them.


As for my opinion about using "bopper" shields to allow for physical shield combat (which I'm assuming was Chris's intention for bringing this up, and not just a mechanic for dealing damage with a shield), I think that it opens up a can of worms for the game that doesn't need to be opened. This is a game where we have to lay rope over arms instead of binding wrists, or laying cloth over eyes instead of actually blind-folding (while these actions are practiced, I can't find where these are actually "rules" in the book.)
To me, Final Haven is not about Combat Simulation, it's about having just enough physical action to show what you're doing, and enhancing that with mechanics to create something more fantastic while still being as safe as possible. Carrying around a 15 pound shield and using your own weight and momentum to strike an opponent (even if you think you are pulling your attack) is going to raise that physicality level of the game to a notch I don't think Final Haven is intended for, nor designed for.
(And if you disagree, imagine Donovan with a large shield he could have assaulted you with, or used to plow through a group of enemies physically with and tell me I'm wrong. )

You also have to realize that in this game, with our particular charging and safety rules, you can't ever have a rule where you can use a shield offensively, for several reasons:

-A realistically heavy shield (one with a wooden core under foam) is like giving a guy extra-heavy boxing gloves to fight with. And that's just the face when it hits. The edge can add more force in a smaller area.

-Dropping the weight gives the shield less mass to throw around, but then becomes idiotically more effective because of the blocking surface + ability to do damage + faster to swing around. It's one of those situations where two of the three abilities is OK, but not all three in combination.

-Allowing more contact with a shield on the part of the shield-user can't be legal without more contact possible by anyone attacking. I.E. If you want to hit me with a shield, I want to be able to "Sparta Kick" it, as that's the best offense, other than hooking a shield with the edge of another, which can be even worse. All that adds possibility for injury.

Now, that being said, in a more physical LARP, like Dagorhir/Belegarth, that's fine. When I played those games, they also had nearly no limit on how hard you could swing a weapon. I also saw way more legitimate injuries after a year in that climate than 4 years with FH/WH.

-A realistically heavy shield (one with a wooden core under foam) is like giving a guy extra-heavy boxing gloves to fight with. And that's just the face when it hits. The edge can add more force in a smaller area.

Nothing in the rules says a shield phys rep HAS to be heavy wood. Couls as easily be made out of a plastic round sled and be very light.


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Dropping the weight gives the shield less mass to throw around, but then becomes idiotically more effective because of the blocking surface + ability to do damage + faster to swing around. It's one of those situations where two of the three abilities is OK, but not all three in combination.

See above

-Allowing more contact with a shield on the part of the shield-user can't be legal without more contact possible by anyone attacking. I.E. If you want to hit me with a shield, I want to be able to "Sparta Kick" it, as that's the best offense, other than hooking a shield with the edge of another, which can be even worse. All that adds possibility for injury.

Its already been pointed out t hat the skill would not MANDATE actualy hitting the target PC/NPC with the shield phys rep any more than the PRESS skill mandates it.

Some bopper LARPS allow shielf bashing anyone ever go to such a LARP..ho did it play out?

Wyrmwrath wrote:Its already been pointed out t hat the skill would not MANDATE actualy hitting the target PC/NPC with the shield phys rep any more than the PRESS skill mandates it.

If I'm reading Chris's question correctly, he was not asking just about mechanics; he wanted to know if we wanted to use "bopper" shields to strike each other physically and do offensive damage with them mechanically as well.

Had he wanted to ask just about adding a mechanical change to the game, he likely would not have brought up the "bopper" shields. And as his latest question asked about other LARPs that do use shield-bashing, I think that the conversation should be kept to his intent of the question.

Some bopper LARPS allow shielf bashing anyone ever go to such a LARP..ho did it play out?

I played Amtguard when a friend in Ohio ran a chapter. they use all foam shields that you can bash with, there werent any problems with them other than the fact the all foam shield is much clumsier than the ones typicaly seen at a LARP. They are harder to control, but are all foam so are harmless.

no one was ever knocked over or accidentally body blocked since those playing are just more aware of potential injuries and adjusted their fighting styles.

Had he wanted to ask just about adding a mechanical change to the game, he likely would not have brought up the "bopper" shields. And as his latest question asked about other LARPs that do use shield-bashing, I think that the conversation should be kept to his intent of the question.

Is that REALLY what you think? good to know. Now stop patronizing. He podted here to DISCUSS the idea, proposing alternative is part of what happens during a discussion...MMMMkay?

play nice guys or i willl bop the both of you

Once, in Belegarth, I saw a guy go down onto his back and turtle under his shield. Then a guy ran up the shield like a ramp to get over him. It was all legal.

Once, we were fighting a bridge battle (a span of ground being delineated by highway cones). We found a nice tactic was to get a guy the size of Matt, give him two shields, and let him run like a bulldozer through the enemy lines, our squad following in the wake to clean up.

A good shield to shield tactic was to get the edge of yours behind the edge of theirs, and rip it down and to the side, exposing the core of the body for a one-hit kill (we used Kings rules)

I say leave the combat at a LARP (not just ours) at weapons-only, with the rule where you can't be closer together than the shortest weapon in the combat or it's charging. It's the simplest when dealing with safety.

Adding actual in-damage with shields (other than press) does this: all the shields end up being super-light so they are as fast as possible, and effectively become super-wide super-effective swords.

The safety guy is scared of this, but the player likes the idea.