From my blog: In Defence of the Shield

QuoteIn classic Dungeons & Dragons a character's shield only reduces their armour class by 1 point. That's not much compared to the protective value of any other sort of armour, and makes the shield of questionable value to a warrior compared to a two-handed weapon or choosing to fight with two weapons at once. Given that a shield is also a fairly bulky, heavy item it also reduces the reasonable amount of treasure a character can expect to bring back from a gloomy dungeon expedition with them.

Historical texts, fantasy literature, and popular films all suggest shields should be more important on the battlefield. Certainly more than the single point of AC as depicted in classic D&D. For my upcoming game I wanted to make shields a bit more useful for the characters - but didn't want to do anything to the game that would slow it down with extra math or book keeping. One of the appeals of classic D&D for me is how relatively light the rules are compared to other editions, and any improvement to the shield that made the rules heavier wasn't going to work for me.

For the past couple of years I've had an off-and-on project to design my own game. (Honestly, how many gamers *don't* have one of those projects?) What follows is an adaption of one of the rules from that game for Classic Dungeons & Dragons.

   A character with a shield may roll a single d4 for one attack causing damage on them per round. If the roll is greater than the amount of damage from the attack, the shield blocks it and no hit points are lost. If the roll is equal or less than the damage, the attack causes the regular amount of hit point loss.

    A character's shield roll may be "given" to a nearby ally if both characters are fighting the same opponent (or group of opponents attacking from the same direction). Characters must declare that they are fighting next to another character before they may share their shield rolls in this way. A single character may not make use of more than 2 additional shield rolls per round - those from the characters fighting to their left and right.

    Magical shields allow a player to roll a dice one step larger for each "plus" they provide. A Shield +1 rolls a d6, +2 a d8 and +3 a d10.

Using this house-rule in my game will make shields much more useful at lower levels when characters with low hit points can use a bit more help surviving their first dungeon crawls. At higher levels the 1-3 point range means the shield won't be blocking much damage, but it will continue to provide the 1 point of AC bonus just like it always has. What I like best of all is that there is no extra math involved in calculating damage, and no need to keep track of how much damage the shield has sustained (both of which I've seen as house-rules).

Being able to give your shield roll to an ally will also create some interesting new ways to approach D&D combat. Shield mates, and even shield walls will be good strategies - both of which have historical precedence. Dramatic moments and characterization during combat are possible for players who like that sort of thing as players will be able to "save" other player's characters with a lucky shield roll.

Constructive feedback welcome, either here or on my site.

Having some 'practice' with shields in 'real' life.. and hey, if you are getting hit full force with a five pound unpadded stick you pretty much can call it real practice without the quotes...

... I'd say D&D has it utterly, bollixedly wrong. Sheilds should provide the vast bulk your armor class from the front and particularly the left side. Helms and gauntlets would appear to be number two, with legs being number three, but close.

GURPs has the block roll, which seems to work well (it DOES appear to be somethign of a contest of skill, with opponents trying to get around the shield one way or the others... though the advantage lies mostly in the shield bearer per shot), which could be applied much as your d4 check without making it too much heavier.  Note however, that you'd really have to take into account the abuse the average sheild takes to really make it work (heavy!), and bucklers, obviously, are much easier to 'get past'... which I'd handle by making the size of the shield be a bonus to 'block rolls', with bucklers and similar blocky items being +0 as a pre-enchanted baseline.

I like what D20 Conan did.   It broke up AC into Parry and Dodge.   A shield was +4 Parry and +1 Dodge.   You added your DEX bonus to Dodge and STR bonus to Parry.    You could only Parry in Melee, but Dodge vs. Melee or Ranged.  

I like making all weapons do D6 in Clasic D&D so I do...

Weapon + Shield = +1 AC
Weapon + Weapon = +1 Attack Bonus
2H Weapon = +1 Damage Bonus

Quote from: Spike;282048Sheilds should provide the vast bulk your armor class from the front and particularly the left side. Helms and gauntlets would appear to be number two, with legs being number three, but close.

Agreed. Given a choice between their leather armour and their shield, I would imagine most Roman soldiers would choose their shield.

Quote from: Spike;282048GURPs has the block roll, which seems to work well (it DOES appear to be somethign of a contest of skill, with opponents trying to get around the shield one way or the others... though the advantage lies mostly in the shield bearer per shot), which could be applied much as your d4 check without making it too much heavier.  Note however, that you'd really have to take into account the abuse the average sheild takes to really make it work (heavy!), and bucklers, obviously, are much easier to 'get past'... which I'd handle by making the size of the shield be a bonus to 'block rolls', with bucklers and similar blocky items being +0 as a pre-enchanted baseline.

Shields are also an offensive weapon and can be used to knock your opponents weapon and/or shield out of the way.  Skill in using a shield would be a factor.  So would size.  And shape.  Ultimately though, I didn't want to add much in the way of game mechanics weight to the game.  The design goals were: avoid extra adding/substracting, and no extra book-keeping.

Quote from: Spinachcat;282055I like making all weapons do D6 in Clasic D&D so I do...

Weapon + Shield = +1 AC
Weapon + Weapon = +1 Attack Bonus
2H Weapon = +1 Damage Bonus

I'll be posting my house-rules for 2H Weapons and 2-weapon fighting on my blog in the next day or so.  The reason I didn't end up using 2H = +1 dmg (although I thought about it!) was that it meant all Battle-Axes would do d8+1 instead of d8 and Two-Handed Swords did d10+1 instead of d10... which I just didn't like.  Probably a silly reason, but there ya go.

Have you thought about doing it the other way round and penalizing non-shield use? Since shields are so prevalent and important.

Just throwing ideas out randomly into the ether:

- A shield gives a 1 point bonus to AC while not using a shield incurs a 1 point penalty.
- Not using a shield means all melee attacks which hit do full damage (e.g. 8 for a d8, 6 for a d6, etc.).
- When firing a missile weapon at someone without a shield you have a +2 bonus to hit.

I think penalizing non-sheild use misses that it's perfectly possible to fight sheildless and do quite well at it. Its EASIER by far to use a shield, regardless of skill level, mind you...

Quote from: Spike;282112I think penalizing non-sheild use misses that it's perfectly possible to fight sheildless and do quite well at it. Its EASIER by far to use a shield, regardless of skill level, mind you...

I was thinking that if shields are the standard and the most important piece of battlefield protection, then even if it's possible to fight well without one you're going to be at a disadvantage of some kind, given that probably everybody else is using one.

After all, if you fight without a weapon in D&D you can still fight well - you just do subdual damage, which is basically a penalty for being unarmed. This is the same thing - just a penalty for being unshielded.

I think a more accurate penality would be expressed in attacking.  Depending upon the granularity of the combat round you would have to express it as either a penalty to hit OR sacrifice iterative attacks for 'defensive' weapon usage.  Obviously making weapons attck OR parry (which is really a form of blocking...) is too punative and doesn't leave room for the riposte

I concur that D&D most definitely Gets It Wrong, and RPGs in general follow this lead.

Quote from: Spike;282116I think a more accurate penality would be expressed in attacking.  Depending upon the granularity of the combat round you would have to express it as either a penalty to hit OR sacrifice iterative attacks for 'defensive' weapon usage.  Obviously making weapons attck OR parry (which is really a form of blocking...) is too punative and doesn't leave room for the riposte

D&D combat is pretty abstract - it's a minute in length - so parrying, riposte etc. is generally something I wouldn't touch with a bargepole.

The reason why I favour penalizing non-shield use is that it makes combat a bit quicker and more bloody. If shields become too useful (I dunno, a 2 or 3 point bonus to AC instead of 1, say) they'll make fights take that much longer. I think my way makes things more bloody and desperate, which I prefer - YMMV etc.

Quote from: noisms;282110Have you thought about doing it the other way round and penalizing non-shield use? Since shields are so prevalent and important.

Yes, but I thought it would unfairly penalize someone using a polearm, quarterstaff, 2-handed sword, battleaxe, etc.

Generally you'll have players choose:
* Weapon + Shield
* Weapon + Weapon
* 2-Handed Weapon

I want each to have it's own advantages.  Penalizing not using a shield could actually make it more complicated when you factor in those other two.

Over the years, I took a couple stabs at making shields more significant: damage absorption, use the rules/bonuses from % of cover, et cetera.

These days, since I'm running original (white box) D&D, I'm less concerned about the small bonus to AC; bonuses in OD&D are harder to come by and thus much more significant.  I did adopt Trollsmyth's shields shall be splintered rule, though.  I like the simplicity and the benefit it gives to carrying a shield.

Quote from: Philotomy Jurament;282141I did adopt Trollsmyth's shields shall be splintered rule, though.  I like the simplicity and the benefit it gives to carrying a shield.

I liked the simplicity of Trollsmyth's rule -- but I didn't like the idea of shields smashing apart all the time.  It's a bit too epic/cinematic for my tastes. Certainly metal (or magic!) shields wouldn't smash apart like that.  I also like the idea of sharing shield rolls with allies, and being able to defend against missile weapons, which isn't possible with splintering shields rule.

I personally like Warhammer's shield rules.  They like others mentioned here use the shield to provide a substantial parry bonus.  Plus you can also use the shield as an offhand weapon.

Quote from: Stuart;282134Yes, but I thought it would unfairly penalize someone using a polearm, quarterstaff, 2-handed sword, battleaxe, etc.

Generally you'll have players choose:
* Weapon + Shield
* Weapon + Weapon
* 2-Handed Weapon

I want each to have it's own advantages.  Penalizing not using a shield could actually make it more complicated when you factor in those other two.

Yeah, but wielding a 2-handed sword or battleaxe already has an advantage to balance off the penalty: you do a shitload of damage! So for that matter does wielding two weapons.