Quote from: noisms;282157Yeah, 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.

Actually, the Battleaxe by-the-book (Moldvay) does the same amount of damage as a Sword, even though it's 2-handed.  There's really no advantage to taking the Axe, except maybe it costing a little less.

No rules provided for fighting with 2 weapons either.

Trouble is, shields were abandoned in the late medieval/early Renaissance era because they didn't add that much to full plate, while penetrating plate armour took specialised two-handed weapons.  And that's the default era D&D models - if anything shields are overpowered in conjunction with plate armour.  The problem is at the other end of the scale, where a naked orc's AC 10 is only AC 11 with shield.

Solution would be something like giving shields a cover AC bonus that does not stack with torso armour; eg 50% cover +4 AC; add +1 each for helm and limb armour.   Or take the Runequest route and give shield-users a Parry roll.

That actually makes some sense to me, S'mon, though it does seem a bit fiddly.  Even just wearing cuir boille (Sp?) breastplate it takes quite a solid hit to even register, and torso (and left arm, really) hits are damnably rare unless someone gets behind you.  

Now, with a two hander, hits were a bit more likely, but then you have to take into account the intimidation factor they have on the field. That extra reach and the speed with with a good user can employ it is pretty impressive even when DEATH is not on the line (never trust a scicilian...)... which leads to excessive fiddliness....

Oh: and shields broke. Its not cinematic, its a fact when you had a man portable object being whaled on by some motherfucker swinging like he was chopping wood... arms broke under them too.  It ain't a magic doorstop.

Quote from: Stuart;282161Actually, the Battleaxe by-the-book (Moldvay) does the same amount of damage as a Sword, even though it's 2-handed.  There's really no advantage to taking the Axe, except maybe it costing a little less.

No rules provided for fighting with 2 weapons either.

Where did those goal posts go? You're the one who brought up fighting with two weapons in the first place, not me! In any case, it seems perfectly reasonable to suggest that fighting with two weapons allows you to do more damage than fighting with one + shield.

You're right about the axe though. That's an issue with the axe rules, I think. Battle axes had their advantages that should be simulated. Another thread though, maybe.

There is some confusion here noisms.

Stuarts original post suggests that he is designing his own game based off of classic D&D, so there is no garauntee that any given rule will be ported from any given version of classic D&D.

Of course, Stuart also is the one you quoted saying that Moldvay doesn't recognize that two handed weapons do more damage, which I think fails the 'five year old test'.... then again kids these days...

Quote from: S'mon;282163Trouble is, shields were abandoned in the late medieval/early Renaissance era because they didn't add that much to full plate, while penetrating plate armour took specialised two-handed weapons.

Or a rapier under the arm... or a musket. ;-)

Quote from: S'mon;282163And that's the default era D&D models - if anything shields are overpowered in conjunction with plate armour.

It's only recently that I realized Gary's focus on Polearms suggests this. I don't think it's something that's completely obvious from a lot of the artwork and other material in the books. Early Renaissance introduced a lot of things to the battlefield - eg. Cannons were quite common - that doesn't seem to "fit" with most people's ideas about D&D.  At least not mine.  The pseudo-medieval of the Lord of the Rings movies seems more common, I think.

@Spike:  I've added rules for 2H and X2 weapons - largely inspired by Philotomy's rules.

Keep it simple.

Shields add +2 AC and +1 to hit.

Subsequent arguments aside, I really like the rule in the OP.  If you stick with it, maybe varying the die depending on shield size would be a neat enhancement.

I like a lot of the other suggestions, too.  Just goes to show how flexible the old war wagon that is the D&D rules can be.

I have to say that I think it makes much more sense for shields to offer a defensive bonus than armor, since shields can actually be used to block an attack.  Armor, on the other hand, would actually make it easier for an opponent to hit (this is one of my gripes with all forms of D&D).  Just a suggestion, and this might make it too bulky, but you could have a better defensive bonus apply to shields (or even different bonuses for different types of shields), possibly lower the defensive bonus for armor, and apply your idea of rolling to reduce damage to armor instead of shields (i.e. maybe 1d2 or 3 for leather, etc.).
The Third Kingdom system gives shields a bonus to defensive Challenges but gives armor an A/B quality -- essentially a certain amount of damage that different types of armor absorbs.
Just a thought.

Todd

This rule is actually adapted from my own game system, and in that I do have armour working more like you suggest Todd.  Shields are about *not* getting hit, armour is about stopping you from dying *when* you get hit.

Back to the OP, it's been a good while since I've played or read the OD&D rules.  But it seems like only rolling 1d4 to see if you block means most attacks would never be blocked if OD&D uses strength bonus for damage.  

But beyond that why not just subtract the die roll from the damage done.  So if the attacker does 6 damage and you roll a 4 you only take 2 damage.  The shield still helps in absorbing/deflecting some of the damage.

Quote from: kryyst;282312But beyond that why not just subtract the die roll from the damage done.  So if the attacker does 6 damage and you roll a 4 you only take 2 damage.  The shield still helps in absorbing/deflecting some of the damage.

Math is for squares. :cool:

Seriously though, I think there should be more math in the system and less math at the table whenever possible.

Quote from: kryyst;282312Back to the OP, it's been a good while since I've played or read the OD&D rules.  But it seems like only rolling 1d4 to see if you block means most attacks would never be blocked if OD&D uses strength bonus for damage.  

You wouldn't even bother rolling if the attack did 4 or more points of damage.  So when you'll really see this being used is at low-levels, when combats are much shorter in length.  At higher levels, when combats take longer to resolve, it won't come into play very often -- which is a good thing!  You don't want combat made longer than the players want it to be.  At low levels, when every hit could kill your character, I think players will be more accepting an extra dice roll.  At higher levels, when it doesn't *really* matter... they might not.

It's also weighted more in favour of the players, since they're more likely to have bonuses on their damage rolls (either from strength or magic) compared to most of the monsters they'll encounter (who generally just roll a larger dice, rather than have bonuses).  A PC with 16 strength attacking with a sword does 3-10 damage (d8+2) meaning an opponent only gets the shield roll if the player rolls a 1 for damage.  An Orc or Goblin attacking the player with a spear does 1-6 damage (d6) meaning the player gets a shield roll 1/2 of the time.

Players will be making shield rolls more often than the enemies they're fighting.

So basically by your rules shields are pretty much utterly useless.  Gotta say your OP shield rule really poor.

Quote from: kryyst;282319So basically by your rules shields are pretty much utterly useless.  Gotta say your OP shield rule really poor.

So basically from your comment you thought they were already utterly useless anyway.  So no big change to the system, or feel of the game. Awesome.

\m/