Shields How Do You Make Them Useful

I would like to get some thoughts on house rules fro making shields a viable option. As they stand now they are of little use.

Our rule set:
1. 5+ armour save in close combat
2. second hand weapon gets -1 to hit and not critical hits
3. reduced armour negating effects of critical hit tables
(4. we gave bucklers a 6+ armour save in close combat)

It works really fine for us.

We make them 5+ in close combat as well. We have not nerfed the second weapon option, though.

This is a common question related to weapons and armour. I think I've answered it twice in the last week alone! The stickied thread on dual wielding probably covers this also. Sometimes it is worth doing a search.

We have house rules very similar to SerialMoM...
1) Shields and bucklers get an additional +1 armour save in close combat (meaning bucklers now have a 6+ armour save in close combat).
2) Off hand attacks are at -1 to hit and +1 to parry.
3) Reduced armou ofr negating effects of critical hit table by making 3-4 grant only a -1 armour save modifier instead of negating armour entirely.
4) Related to this is we gave body armour a post battle save against serious injury equal to the armour save it provides (so light armour gives a 6+ save against serious injury). This is not available to toughened leathers and other clothing that provides armour saves.

Does HR 1 combine with HR 4?

No. Shields do not improve the post battle save against serious injury. Improving body armour has made shields more attractive though as light armour and a shield now provides a 4+ armour save in close combat (and a 5+ armour save against shooting) and a 6+ save against serious injury in the post battle sequence (i.e. a 1 in 6 chance of not needing to roll on the serious injury chart when the warrior went OOA) all for only 25 gold crowns.

not a fan of making body armour save vs. injuries. this penalises heroes that cannot use armour.

in the realm of "simple fixes" i much prefer halfing the pice. light armour 10gc, heavy armour 50gc, -1 init

Funny how we all choose different options for these minor fixes.

We have gone for +1 to armour saves, so a shield on its own grants a 5+ save to armour whether missile or CC, and dual wielding is -1 to hit for all attacks unless you take the combat skill "Dual Wielding"

We don't have armour giving injury roll saves and we haven't adjusted armour prices.

shotguncoffee wrote:

not a fan of making body armour save vs. injuries. this penalises heroes that cannot use armour.

in the realm of "simple fixes" i much prefer halfing the pice. light armour 10gc, heavy armour 50gc, -1 init

I understand what you are saying. However, any improvements to body armour penalises heroes (and henchmen) that cannot use armour.

I keep forgetting that we have a Dual Weilding skill to negate off-hand penalties similar to what was mentioned by qboid.

Thanks for the replies so far. So the rational so far seems to be take accuracy away from the 2nd hand option and add armor bonus to shields. The armor save on its own is not incentive enough then?

no, the +1 AS vs +1 attack is not enough.

how about:

TWO HAND WEAPONS:
May Re-roll 1 dice 'to hit'.
Cannot cause critical wounds (until a skill is gained)

SHIELD AND HAND WEAPON
5+ save (negations starts at S4 as always)

GREAT WEAPON
+2 S, -1 Init.
Instead of Striking Last, strike in Initiative Order, even when charging

I like the initiative order concept for great weapons. And the -1 initiative seems appropriate. But how would this be applied to flails and morning stars?

My players are a little suspicious of house rules, so all I did was allow shields to provide a 6+ save in close combat that cannot be modified. So at least when you have a shield, you always get a save.

RationalLemming wrote:

This is a common question related to weapons and armour. I think I've answered it twice in the last week alone! The stickied thread on dual wielding probably covers this also. Sometimes it is worth doing a search.

We have house rules very similar to SerialMoM...
1) Shields and bucklers get an additional +1 armour save in close combat (meaning bucklers now have a 6+ armour save in close combat).
2) Off hand attacks are at -1 to hit and +1 to parry.
3) Reduced armou ofr negating effects of critical hit table by making 3-4 grant only a -1 armour save modifier instead of negating armour entirely.
4) Related to this is we gave body armour a post battle save against serious injury equal to the armour save it provides (so light armour gives a 6+ save against serious injury). This is not available to toughened leathers and other clothing that provides armour saves.

Regarding the post battle save...

We give anyone with heavy armour equivalent or better armor save a reroll on the serious injury chart. We concluded that not getting to roll on the chart was boring. Nearly all our favorite heroes are the result of rolling several interesting results on the serious injury chart. You warband isn''t really bad@$% unless the enemy is trying to avoid the crazy guy with one arm.

aviphysics wrote:

You warband isn''t really bad@$% unless the enemy is trying to avoid the crazy guy with one arm.

I do agree that serious injuries add a lot of flavour to a warband and trying to keep a warband afloat and competitive that includes heroes with serious injuries can add extra fun challenges to the game. Your argument alone is probably enough for me to discuss this further wth my gaming group.

RationalLemming wrote:

aviphysics wrote:

You warband isn''t really bad@$% unless the enemy is trying to avoid the crazy guy with one arm.

I do agree that serious injuries add a lot of flavour to a warband and trying to keep a warband afloat and competitive that includes heroes with serious injuries can add extra fun challenges to the game. Your argument alone is probably enough for me to discuss this further wth my gaming group.

I should add that making it heavy armor or equivalent armor save keeps the option open for almost all warbands. It didn't' seem fair to us to lockout warbands that have no access to heavy armor. Of course, Scaven are a blight on this earth to be wiped out on site so it can be argued either way.

Ah, but light armor and shield would be a "heavy armor or equivalent" so those runty rats could game a re-roll under your house rule.

We increased the armor save for every armor by 1 and introduced the handweapon+shield bonus in cc. Additionally we removed the ability to cause critical hits from daggers.

Now we have with light armor and shield 4+ against range and 3+ against melee attacks. Against daggers it is 2+ without crit chance. This way many people use shields as a good way to improve their defence.

We disgarded the reroll for the postgame injury-table after a first try, because we had many warbands who couldn't use (heavy) armor. It was a to strong bonus for gromrilwearer.

Also it makes blackpowder weapons more appealing, because they have armor piercing.

Saranor wrote:

We increased the armor save for every armor by 1 and introduced the handweapon+shield bonus in cc. Additionally we removed the ability to cause critical hits from daggers.

Now we have with light armor and shield 4+ against range and 3+ against melee attacks. Against daggers it is 2+ without crit chance. This way many people use shields as a good way to improve their defence.

We disgarded the reroll for the postgame injury-table after a first try, because we had many warbands who couldn't use (heavy) armor. It was a to strong bonus for gromrilwearer.

Also it makes blackpowder weapons more appealing, because they have armor piercing.

which is why you make it heavy armor or equivalent armor save. That way nearly all warbands can take advantage.

We had two posessed and one undead warbands in the last campaign. Posessed and ghouls couldn't wear any armor...
The same with flaggelants and slayers.

If your going this rout of the armour providing a re-roll on the injury table then you could go one step further and create a new item available to all heroes.
30 gc, allows for a re-roll on the injury table post game.
you now have a means that all heroes can take advantage of this rule and not unbalance warbands by giving those who don't use heavy armour now can... and there is the fluff of it too.

Pervavita wrote:

If your going this rout of the armour providing a re-roll on the injury table then you could go one step further and create a new item available to all heroes.
30 gc, allows for a re-roll on the injury table post game.
you now have a means that all heroes can take advantage of this rule and not unbalance warbands by giving those who don't use heavy armour now can... and there is the fluff of it too.

That is an interesting idea. Maybe just add it to the rabbit's foot and bump up the cost a little. Rabbit's foot does seem a little cheap anyway at only 10GC and reusable. Maybe make the rabbit's foot 30 GC and you get to re-roll one of the dice but not the other. Add the stipulation that it cannot be used with the extra save from armor.

Of course it would totally go against the fluff for slayers to use rabbit's feet in this way.

aviphysics wrote:

Pervavita wrote:

If your going this rout of the armour providing a re-roll on the injury table then you could go one step further and create a new item available to all heroes.
30 gc, allows for a re-roll on the injury table post game.
you now have a means that all heroes can take advantage of this rule and not unbalance warbands by giving those who don't use heavy armour now can... and there is the fluff of it too.

That is an interesting idea. Maybe just add it to the rabbit's foot and bump up the cost a little. Rabbit's foot does seem a little cheap anyway at only 10GC and reusable. Maybe make the rabbit's foot 30 GC and you get to re-roll one of the dice but not the other. Add the stipulation that it cannot be used with the extra save from armor.

Of course it would totally go against the fluff for slayers to use rabbit's feet in this way.

Very interesting idea Pervavita. I agree with you, aviphysics that Troll Slayers would need to be restricted from using that option. They don't want to cheat death - they want to embrace it with as much glory as possible.

if you were to make the Rabits foot extend to the wound chart then there is no need to have armour effect it.
Other wise you give those that can buy armour a new advantage: they get the re-roll after OOA AND get to use the rabits foot in the battle.
It should be a new talisman/charm if you wanted this.