) and I do actually love the sword and board gameplay and hope it can be balanced enough soon that I can return to it. the only one of these mechanics I have used is shatter, because its just convenient, no better way to make an NPC just go away then destroying their weapon. some pre FH 3.0 rules actually had a very nice balance between sword and board, single weapon/two hander, and dual wield. however a lot of changes happened last minute that destroyed the balance and some of this can still be seen in the 3.0 beta. if you read a skill and it looks really bad or useless, it was probably left over from a mechanic that was going to be used but is no longer in use (level 3 shield skill as example)
what we were left with was shield being in the strongest state they have EVER been in throughout FH's history and only getting better compared to 2.0 when they were supposed to get balanced. 2 handed had a glimpse of some love that was destroyed and now requires a single full path and couple full disciplines to work effectively (don't try it, not worth it) and dual wield losing out to claws officially because of lack of redefined weapon sizes, though to be fair claws requires to second level skills and that is silly, the skills and types should have simply been balanced better.
all this is before specific examples of bad disciplines or paths (Rest in piece Valkyn'Vi)
but I digress, this thread of tough love and abuse is dedicated specifically to those named in the title, shields, shatter, and crush.
Shield categories are even more confusing and convoluted now then they were before (I cannot fathom how you could have accomplished it but you did) at least size based on person was easy to check and notice on the fly. Fh is supposed to be a simple system this is just silly. we were also at the point in 3.0 where you could have gotten rid of small, medium, and heavy shields altogether in favor of a much more simple and streamlined system. . .you nope'd your way out of that one too.
removal of shield soak was something I advocated for and supported, and it happened, awesome. but the refusal to remove crush immunity from an easy to get potion that in and of itself is in a mechanic that has room for loads of cheating put shields in a stronger position then they were in FH 2.0.
then we come to shatter, because of shields pretty much having blanket immunity to crush now (-_-) shatter has become the sole means to deal with them (more on shatter later) making shields a very pass / fail weapon type to use. you either are able to use them and are god for the encounter laughing at all damage and impacts on your impenetrable slab of magical concrete door. . .or it gets shattered right away because NPC's see it, just don't want to deal with it, and shatter your ass off no matter how many shield tags you go through until you get the point. . ."oh I guess they don't like my shield". . .this becomes all the more obvious when they don't shatter armor. . .or weapons. . .but when someone walks up with a shield guess what's coming?
we had blanket immunity to vorpal on armor in the past, this was removed because it was bad for the game, same thing needs to happen to immunity to crush. if you want to make a discipline that has a 4th level skill that lets you resist crush, go for it. but crush serves a critical role in FH to specifically and solely counter some combat strategies in FH, there should be nothing like Strength of the Defender in the game. it has broken shields and led to the rise of shatter spam.
if crush was once again a counter for shields the amount of shatter calls would go down, the consistency of sword and board combat would go up, and shields would be mechanically balanced (that stupid size thing needs to die in a fire though)
Shatter.
Shatter Is an un-fun mechanic, in no way is it ever fun to get hit with a shatter (NPC or PC) have your weapons, shields, or armor destroyed, then told to continue the encounter (-_-) the reason it has not been changed to reflect the other burn style effects is cause shields and crush have got so screwed up. shatter should not outright destroy things, it should drop the targets armor down to "0" just like scorch and stagger do to EP and CR respectively.
PS: dual wield and claws need to be balanced better, that is all.
-Ark <3