What If's

[Nelkie]

How would the following situations work?

A person with a shield is feared and than is hit with a 30 boom in the shield. Is the shield destroyed and the person takes 30 damage? Or is the shield just destroyed?
The way I read the rules is the shield is destroyed and the person takes the 30 damage.

I'am a warrior that activates hold ground and than gets hit with 1 vorpal posion. What happens?
The way I read the rules the person becomes posioned, losses the hold ground skill, and drops to zero life. If this is true, this is an easy way around someone holding ground.

[GM_Chris]

You are right about the first one and wrong about the second, unless the person has no armour left.

[Nelkie]

Why does armor matter when it is vorpal damage? Please explain.

[dier_cire]

"All effects that deal damage to the front are reduced to 1"

That would turn "1 vorpal poison" into "1". Course by this same logic, "30 magic" would also become "1". Now, would this conversion come before or after a shield is destroyed?

If after, then would hold ground abilities be considered one step lower than resists? (since it's commonly accepted you can resist magic a 30 boom to your shield.)

If before, then hold ground and defensive matrix probably should swap spots as any basic warrior in full armor would be way too powerful in a cave (for a basic level character). Either that, or add "melee" to the reduced to 1 statement.

Also the line "you cannot used another charged or activated skill..." by activated does this mean life point (aka no resists)? Why not just say life point if this is so? And again, why do we have a blanket life point statement and then in every skill that is affected by it, there is a disclaimer? Certain life point combos are being eliminated (parry/resist while defensive matrix) by the balnket line.

[cole45]

I was not aware that damage types were removed with Hold Ground. That seems a little counter intuitive. And as far as poison killing someone with hold ground, I say, GOOD. It's a nice balancing factor(it is a basic warrior ability.). Also if you take a normal thirty boom to a shield, I don't think the damage should be reduced. Otherwise Hold Ground becomes way too powerful.

[GM_Chris]

Actually the resit being used when an effect hits your shield is a carry over from carps. The non caprs players never thought that and I agree with them.

Basically you cannot use one of your resists to resist an effect to your shield, if you could do that then witch hunter is better than men at arms.

[cole45]

Well, Witch hunter would be better against MAGIC than Man-At-Arms. Which is the point of witch hunter isn't it? But I agree on the Resist. The shield gives you way to much of an advantage if you can resist effects against it. (and I'm a shield fan.)

How about Immunities? What if you were immune to magic, and it hit your shield? I know this is a rare, NPC only issue.

[Onimaster]

The key here is the question... "What calls surge through a shield."

If a warrior is holding ground and a boom hits his shield doing a numerical damage it impacts the shield itself and does not surge to the player. Therefor the shield is hit and possably destroyed. If a non-numerical call hits a shield it surges and doesn't effect the shield at all.

Equipment follows it's own rules, and unless a player skill states it applies to that equipment it only applies to the player/character, and his/her equipment are not considered a symbiotic single being.

For example: When Sethrial jumped in front of a 30 boom to save Nuk he threw his arms out and let it hit him in the center of his chest yelling 'resist,' and not blocking it with his shield.

At least, that's the impression I got talking with Chris on the subject.

[dier_cire]

Now, I'm starting to think the whole shield blowing up thing is a bad idea. Shields having special rules just seems like a waste to me. A weapon is just an exension of your body that doesn't take damage. A shield is an extension Except if it takes x, then it is it's own 'thing' and is destroyed. This is only for this particular call and you may use resists to counter everything else (otherwise shields become completely gay)... Since it is x, you can't resist (though you could if it were your weapon )

It just seems very counter intuitive that one particular call cannot be resisted while all others can. What happens if I'm fighting one of those bugs and get hit for "30 crush" on my shield? Can you parry it or is that call non-resistable too? Since we have no set effects for skills, what if your resist magic was just dodging the energy? Then for your particular effect should resists work? Same goes for parry.

What happens if the item has an enchantment that is a resist magic? Would it only work if it was to save the item?

Now how would it work if say it was a funky arcane bolt flying at you for 10 magic vorpal? If it hits the shield you live, but if it hits your weapon you die?

Oh, and thanks Aaron for opening up this can...

[GM_Chris]

30 crush to a shield would be a parry to stop you from taking 30 since it is a surge effect and a blown up shield.

[cole45]

You can can still parry crush as it would surge through the shield. (and hit you.) Crush deals no damage to the shield. Vorpal crush would also bypass the shield.

One of the issues with shields is that they designed to be an expendable resource, so they do not get the same protections offered to Weapons. Shields are currently unaffected by disarm, and shatter as well. It makes sense to keep shields with different rules than weapons. Making them behave like weapons is possible, but they are just NOT weapons. As long as shields have a fixed rule set, it's fine.

[Nelkie]

Hey, I just going over the book and found a couple open ended questions. I now understand the hold ground reduce calls to 1 damage if it is a damage call. Could an assasin call vorpal posion so a damage call is not given and the person holding ground becomes posioned?
As for resists, I believe a shield should be part of a person and you can resist effects that hit it no mater what. Keep it simple I say so you limit confusion on the battel field or you will have many expections to the rule as stated by eric.

Than the only time a damage effect surges through a shield is if it a crush effect or the person has been feared, and if the number is higher than the shield value, it is also destroyed.

I also agree witheric that hold ground and defense matrix should be swaped based on power.

[GM_Chris]

Defensive matrix is WAY better than hold ground if we swapped them and you were outside you would probably feel differently.

I always laugh when a person hold ground outside because I just dont bother attacking them.

Well I guess it could be argued that you can resist with a shield and we can discuss that.

Oh and you cannot bat packets out of the way with a weapon

[WayneO42]

I think the easiest way to explain the shield things is:

Any call with a number that hits a shield affects the shield only (Except for Crush) and cannot be resisted by the character holding the shield. Any call without a number is considered to surge through a shield and can be resisted by the character.

As for the "Vorpal Poison" call, NO. To make Poison more clear, it should be written as:

When a character is hit by a poison call that deals atleast 1 damage to their life points, i.e. they have no armor points or they are hit by a "x vorpal poison" call, the character is considered to be poisoned. A character may also be poisoned by drinking a poison potion. When poisoned the character can no longer activate any charged skills or skills that use a life point. In addition if the character is using such a skill it is dropped.

[dier_cire]

Any call with a number that hits a shield affects the shield only (Except for Crush) and cannot be resisted by the character holding the shield. Any call without a number is considered to surge through a shield and can be resisted by the character.

My main problem with this is why do we even need this? To limit it so people can't use resists? Is the ability to use a shield and resist magic an actual break?

Also, no one answered the question about the magic vorpal... And parrying a 30 crush results in the shield still going away seems like some really backwards logic. You block with your weapon (the common concept of parry) and your shield that wasn't hit, explodes?