Shields

>>50390268
GURPS. In GURPS, shields are really good as long as a one-handed weapon can get through opponents' armor, but against someone in heavy plate you really start to need the power of a two-handed weapon (or enough skill to successfully target gaps in their armor).

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In my opinion you need to write your own.
systems rules are generally shit.

I wrote out one that works for my group for dark heresy 2.0 which basically give you basically a separate pool of wounds with a different Armour rating for the shield, and had the shield automatically take any hits to the locations it passively covers (left arm, half of torso) (evens hits your torso, odds hits the shield) with also the option to parry in melee

The shield cannot lose more wounds than it has in armour rating in any single hit, if a hit does more damage and pen combined than the shield has in Armour rating X2 all extra damage goes through and hits the user ignoring your armour rating as armour rating do not stack in that game, the logic being if it can pass through a block of stone, your leather ain't stopping it.

So for example, using a heavy wooden shield (armour rating 6, wounds 18) and being shot in the torso on a 67 (odd number) the bullet from a Heavy stubber (deals 1D10 + 4 pen 3) VS a .75 cal dense core bolter round (1D10+5 pen 5) tearing

Heavy stubber rolls a 5+4, deals 9 damage with 3 pen.
This shot end up blowing a hole in the shield, lowering it's wounds to 12, but not harming the wielder as the bullet lost it's momentum and was no longer able to deal any meaningful damage.

Bolter rolls 2D10's and takes the highest one (rolls a 3 and a 7, takes the 7) 7+5 deals 13 damage pen 5.
This shot blows a hole clean through the shield lowering it's wounds to 12, and explodes as it impacts upon him dealing him 6 damage (of which he may still deduct his toughness bonus from)

>>50390545
Sorry those stats are for a Arbiters riot shield, not a wooden shield, my mistake.

(Heavy wooden shields are AR 4 Wounds 12)

>>50390268
I actually like Dark Heresy's way of doing it. They add to your armour for certain bodyparts (head and one arm, so about 50%) and they're better at parrying blows but you can still use them as a weak melee weapon in a pinch.

Problem is that they're overshadowed by just dual wielding two weapons since the damage potential is just ridiculous. Best defence is a good offence and all that. The bonus to parrying is also only slightly better than a balanced weapon.

To fix it, I'd buff the parrying boost slightly (to +20) and make a number of shield-related talents. Something like a shield bash where you recieve a bonus to stunning if you use a shield. Or something that increases damage resistance against certain attacks. Just give the players more options, really.

>>50390628
I tend to give all light one handed weapons the agile trait, all one handed weapons +20WS and all two handed (or heavy) weapons +10 WS as a balance.

Bucklers are the easiest to parry with giving you +20WS, agile, and +15 to parry but only cover one arm, while a tower shield would only give you +10WS and +15 to parry but cover your whole left side

I guess that depends on how simple you want the system to be. Should both armor and shields increase a character's probability to evade an attack as is the case with D&D, or should blocking / evasion be determined only by the use of a shield? In the latter case, armor would probably have a simple damage reduction value instead of adjusting armor class. But that tends to make shields mandatory, which is something you don't want.

>>50390545
>look at all these maths!

This couldn't possibly be any more autistic, Anon. What GM would seriously want to run all this shit?

>>50391150
I am the GM.

And I Am Autistic, I understand sometimes people get overwhelmed by maths.
However, I feel these rules make sense, and lead to interesting things happening such as shields breaking in combat.
When I implemented these rules I found shields being used more often and it didn't negatively effect the overall balance of the game I was going for.

As well as this there were narrative and role-playing benefits to the game and I felt a little maths doesn't make the game worse.

>>50390268
Try SoS. All of the Riddle of Steel derivative games have really good rules for shields and melee combat in general. Probably the best desu.

I did a quick hack for shield use in Call of Cthulhu/BRP, for a medieval CoC one-shot.

IIRC, CoC lets you block/parry with a weapon by making a weapon skill check. Then the weapon you're blocking with takes the damage of the attack. (Minus its own hardness/armor.) So I made Shield its own weapon skill, with a high base percentage, like 50%. So when Dagon is about to decapitate the knight PC, he rolls Shield to block. When he succeeds, the shield takes Dagon's fuckhuge claw damage--and gets instantly smashed. But the knight lives another round.

Don't know how BRP or something like Cthulhu Invictus handles it. If I do more medieval Cthulhu I'll look those up.

In my system, shields have a set value of Armor (Which reduces damage done to it) and Structure (Which is the shield's HP). When you fail to dodge an attack, you can spend 2 Action Points to defend yourself with the shield, which takes the attack for you.

If the shield's structure reaches 0, that's it. It's destroyed and unusable.

>>50390268
>How do you make shields good without making them essentially mandatory?
By making the other options equally good. Two weapons fighting, two-handed weapons, a single weapon, distance options and spells...

>>50391867
I think the problem is that if shields are too weak nobody would use them. But if dual wielding is much better then nobody would bother with sheilds. Since defense and offense can't be measured against one another it becomes hard to balance.

>>50391150

It's honestly not that autistic if you look at the shield as basically a static entity akin to a hireling, or a non-animate golem whose main purpose is to provide cover and take damage for you.