FinalHavenLarp.com

I had a strange idea I thought I would put up here.

What if shields were a 5th armor location with AP equal to the damage that can destroy them in one hit?

So, for example, a light/medium/heavy shields would have 5/10/15AP.

When that AP is reduced to "0", the shield bearer has to drop the shield, and continue fighting without it. It's not destroyed at all, though. It can be retrieved at any time to be repaired later with the rest of the owner's armor in the same 5 minutes.

That way a chain of large attacks can wear down a shield to where it's degraded enough that it's not a benefit anymore, just like normal armor, but most combat attacks could never one-shot a shield.

Just a weird thought.

I like it from a realistic stand point. It represents how shields work a little better...But it would be hard to keep track of and shields would break pretty fast with those numbers.

Im kind of confused about that.

so if a shield took 5/10/15 damage in on hit it would be destroyed, or a shield could take 5/10/or 15 points of damage before they are destroyed? Cause from experience the second doesnt work very well in combat.

Shield would be vaporized too fast in combat.

so if a shield took 5/10/15 damage in on hit it would be destroyed, or a shield could take 5/10/or 15 points of damage before they are destroyed? Cause from experience the second doesn't work very well in combat.

Not any more complicated than keeping track of how much AP my armor has left. But I can see situations where it could be complicated, but so is tracking normal damage to armor, then some vorpal to LP, then some to the armor again.

My idea would be that like now a single hit at or over the "damage threshold" of the shield would completely destroy it and require a new one to be built, but enough smaller hits taken on it up to it's "Armor points" would render it unusable as a defense until repaired with craftsman like normal armor.

It would effectively be like if a full suit of heavy armor functioned just like it does now for AP, but could also be "shattered" if hit by an attack that did more than 12 damage all at once.

So wielding a heavy shield would be like getting 15 extra armor points that are tied to just that shield. Say, you use it to block 4 basic critical strikes from an opponent, you have to drop it until a craftsman can do a "repair armor" on it, which wouldn't be a big deal because it would probably be getting fixed along with the rest of your armor.

It would also probably be tied to the 45 soak maximum, which say I use a 15Ap heavy shield as Marcus, even with a 21 base soak I would still be 9 soak under the cap.

The shield buff skills would make the AP of a shield go up just like the damage threshold.

Shield would be vaporized too fast in combat.

Except a heavy shield would take more damage to get to 0AP than a whole suit of heavy, at a hugely lower cost to make.

Like I said, just a goofy thought.

...and what happens when a man at arms has a quality shield thats 31 soak om top of quality armor and the roghly 10 LP and 6 CBR from skills?Thats 61 total soak, but your capping him at 45 and thereby chumping him essentially his Shield skill.
Shields are hard to make accurate to real combat in LARP combat, which is why size is generaaly used as is shatter and disarm(which works on shields in most larps).
I agree with the others its more realistic, but I dont see how to make it logisticlly functional.

The fewer catagories of soak I have to track the better. I'd rather not add 'shield' to the current 'life', 'combat reflexes', and 'armor'.

I totally knew it would be ripped apart, but I thought it was an interesting idea.

I mostly find it a bummer to constantly be forced to run away from even the lowest adversary because there is no way I can overcome a guy carrying a 1lb shield the size of a car door around that's completely invulnerable to any melee damage I can swing without being a master Empath or at the least a 3rd level into a discipline (to swing 'fear' to make all the following attacks against the shield "crush").

I thought it was an interesting way to work around the fact that none of the real-world ways to defeat a shield are far too dangerous to be attempted in a LARP setting. Well, that or those actions could/would physically break some of the LARP shield phys-reps on the field.

...and what happens when a man at arms has a quality shield thats 31 soak om top of quality armor and the roghly 10 LP and 6 CBR from skills?Thats 61 total soak, but your capping him at 45 and thereby chumping him essentially his Shield skill.

Well, to be fair, it's not any worse than my warrior character, Rhul, not being able to use Hold Ground to the most effective until he gets wounded first for at least '5' damage, because otherwise I lose 5LP from the Hold Ground skill as it takes me over the cap because he's already at 40 soak without it....

At least they would still have a shield that is immune to being destroyed in one hit by anything but a shatter or anything over a "30" magic, and having a durable shield requires a boosted greater channel to even destroy.