powerg8 said:
I have a reinfoced steel shield with l 863 HP so I never have a problem with the shield breaking so the shield skill dosen't mean much to me.
I use a heraldic shield of some kind, since I think it looks cooler. It has about half that many hitpoints, and I *never* get even close to having it break. It's kind of boring, actually...

I haven't played around with it a lot, but it seems the shield skill points really doesn't matter much. Which is a pity.
So, what I'm thinking is that it could be cool if there was a chance that a
really powerful blow would make you drop your shield. If that happened it would fall to the ground X feet in a random direction from the place you lost it, and you'd have to ride back and use it, like you use the Battle Chest of Holding, in order to retrieve it. Obviously it would be much easier to retrieve on foot, which I don't think would be a problem. Footsoldiers deserve
some advantages.. The point here is that the risk of dropping your shield would be calculated based on the force of the blow and your shield skill. Higher shield skill would translate to the character being able to soak up heavier blows without losing control of the shield. If someone hit a shield I was holding in real life with a couched lance, I imagine the shield would be sent flying (and I most likely with it..

). I would like to see action like this in M&B.
If you want to encourage players who don't use shields to take the skill, you could make the risk of losing the shield based not just on the defender's shield skill level, but his skill compared to that of the attacker. This would mean that a player with decent but unspectacular shield training could manage to thrust aside a lowly forest bandit's shield, but completely fail to do so against a dark knight, and indeed even find himself losing control of his shield under the knight's mighty and skillfully placed blows.
Essentially this would mean someone with a high shield skill level would be good at the following:
a) Minimizing damage to their shield when struck by an enemy
b) Maintaining control of their shield when struck by an enemy
c) Maximizing damage to an enemy's shield when striking it
b) Striking at an enemy's shield in such a way as to make them lost control of it
What are your thoughts on this? Would it be fun, annoying, unneccesarily complex..?
Aethelwyn said:
First, not all shields are made the same. You are an expert with your shield: you hold it, you've examined it, you understand its balance points. You don't have the same privilege with everyone else's shield, though if you got a chance to pick it up and look at it for 15 seconds, you'll get to know it pretty quickly.
That's a good point, but on the other hand, that same argument could be applied to swords, horses or pieces of armor, and yet that doesn't stop one from talking about people having a general understanding of how various aspects of combat work, and quickly adapting to exploit weaknesses in the enemy's armaments and tactics. Specifically, even if no round wooden shields (to pick a design at random) are completely alike, I imagine the vast majority are based on a similar basic design to such a degree that similar tactics would work well against most or all of them. The behaviour of the soldier behind the shield is probably of much greater importance, however, which is exactly why it would be nice to have the algorithm compare the shield skills of the two combatants.
EDIT: Forgot to add - I realize it might not be very realistic (exactly
how unrealistic, I don't know) that you'd commonly be able to knock people's shields out of their hands. It sure would be cool and fun, though.
