Topic: shield bashing

[vieja escuela]

A shield bashing table would be interesting . one That had in all its characteristics. I believe that with the new combat compani?n probably it would be the moment to reflect critic coherent with this  Weapon
 

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

shield bash is resolved on the medium Ram/but/bash attack table. It fits correctly, as far as my game is concerned.

[vieja escuela]

In my opinion the assault of a goat cannot be equivalent to the blow of a shield. One of the two not this one well.(one or de goat or the shield  is not well)

[Arioch]

A shield bashing table would be interesting . one That had in all its characteristics. I believe that with the new combat compani?n probably it would be the moment to reflect critic coherent with this  Weapon

CC has a Bashing Attacks table, which can be used for a shiedl bash, on page 83.

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

In my opinion the assault of a goat cannot be equivalent to the blow of a shield. One of the two not this one well.(one or de goat or the shield  is not well)

My experience with shield bashes tells me that the shield bash is a bit more dangerous than a ram attack from an animal but that's not enough to put YET another attack table in the game.

Besides this, there is no type of weapon that will fit exactly for a shield attack.


A shield may be blunt, wooden and thick or thin, metallic with a sharpened rim. It may have a spike or a boss in the middle, may be round, square, almond or triangle shaped. Its' rim may be spiked and it may even sport long blades in order to be a sword-shield.

Which means that if you want to cover each and every possibilty, either you create a dozen more attack tables or you use the ones that already exist. Either from arms law or from CC.

PS : and besides this, the weight and strength behind a shield bash or a ram attack from a goat is equivalent, in RM rules, to a medium attack. A large one would be a bull's, a small one would be lamb's . There are just 4 degrees of power and both falls in the same range, even if they are not equal in reality.

[vieja escuela]

A large one would be a bull's
I come from Spain and a bull is much more dangerous than any shield that I can imagine

A shield may be blunt, wooden and thick or thin, metallic with a sharpened rim. It may have a spike or a boss in the middle, may be round, square, almond or triangle shaped. Its' rim may be spiked and it may even sport long blades in order to be a sword-shield.
I think the combat compani?n is solution for example:
spiked at Piercing II
big squared or triangle  bashing II if spiked III
sharpened rim in log blades III


 

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

I come from Spain and a bull is much more dangerous than any shield that I can imagine

That was my point : the attack sizes are not meant to be exact but to allow to sort attack types into sizes. So, we agree

A shield may be blunt, wooden and thick or thin, metallic with a sharpened rim. It may have a spike or a boss in the middle, may be round, square, almond or triangle shaped. Its' rim may be spiked and it may even sport long blades in order to be a sword-shield.
I think the combat compani?n is solution for example:
spiked at Piercing II
big squared or triangle  bashing II if spiked III
sharpened rim in log blades III
[/quote]

That was exactly my point

Quiero decir que los escudos son numerosos y que no podemos utilizar una tabla de combat por cada escudo. Utilizar tablas que ya existen es la mejor soluci?n.

[vieja escuela]

co?o alguien que habla espa?ol. menos mal. siento una frustaci?n en este foro.

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

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[vieja escuela]

sorry,

[Emaughan]

You mean,
 lo siento.

[bottg]

As a sheep farmer with Swaledales (pictured below), i can telk you that a Ram is a very dangerous animal.  70-80kg of pure muscle with a big set of horns.  These rams are quite capable of killing another Ram, and i certainly wouldn't get into a pen with one in a bad mood!

If the Ram table assumes a short charge, then it will do a lot more damage than a shield bash, i can promise you that!

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

A shield bash is given by a human who as more lever power, uses a tool made for fighting and is actively trying to kill you and is the same weight, or heavier, than  a ram.

In France, Larp rules prohibit the use of shield for bashing foes. There has been several accidents, including broken jaws, fractured skulls and dozens of broken teeth. Those were shields protected with foam to avoid severe injuries. Nowadays, a guy who bashes someone with a shield is banned from any Larp event on the territory.

[vieja escuela]

XDDD.It is  pure physics, energy of the blow  is the  mass X speed X speed. And the damage of the blow is inversely proportional to the surface. It is clear that the surface of the top of a horn is very low than that of a shield. in the other side the 12 m/s of speed that reaches. It is more of what a human being can obtain with a shield.

[vieja escuela]

If a shield multiplies by 10 the surface of the zone of impact of a horn. And the mass of the ram can to multiply by 10 that of the shield. Then the the speed to the square should be 100 times major in the human being in order that they were equal the results

[Rasyr-Mjolnir]

Pssst......

It's a game... It was never meant to be a wholly accurate representation of reality.

 

[vieja escuela]

We, the rolemaster players, always presume of that the rolemaster is faithful to the reality
And I think that  it isn?t very difficult to correct it, though it is?nt indeed very important

[Emaughan]

Pssst......

It's a game... It was never meant to be a wholly accurate representation of reality.

And a great game it is!

Vieja escuela (old school) is living up to the name and I agree that one of the reasons I love Rolemaster is that it does come closer to reality (in a fantasy game with magic, dragons, demons and undead) then any other system - without getting too clunky.  Many optional rules mean many possible ways to adjust the game to ones taste. 

Now for my two cents on the Ram debate.  When I was on a LDS mission in Peru, we often encountered tethered Rams.  We learned quickly as missionaries to avoid those Rams as they were VERY territorial and packed a wallop if they got you.  In spite of this, sometimes we could not resist the urge to take off our coats and practice our "bull" fighting skills which improved with time, but I had a nasty bruise on my legg thanks to a glancing blow.

Fenryl is right though, someone armed with a sheild can do damage.  A shield bash is not just using the "flat" of the shield but more often the edges.  When a blow is parryed with a shield, the opponent may be open to a blow to the gut/ribs/face with the edge of the shield (your right about physics - now though you are dealing with a much smaller surface area with a greater deal of force/momentum behind it).  In close combat, a shove from the shield can then lead to an opportunity for an upper cut to the jaw  - again with the edge.  I agree that a bash using the flat of the shield will, at most, give an unbalancing crit, but a good blow from the edge, that can cause some real damage.

[markc]

 I have started watching the HBO show Rome and I payed close attention to the enactment of battle in the first episode as the result of this topic. I do not know if it is an accurate reinactment but it held my attention.

 On the realism note, I like RM because IMO it has or seams to have a bit more realism in it then other games. I know there are areas of unrealism but I like thoes areas over how other RPG games represent them.

 This is also one area that I think a weapon art or fighting art would do well representing. I know thier is some info in the RM2 arms companion about fighting in a line but IMO that DB bonus was high for untrained cooperated line fighting. But IMO a trained unit in which each line fighter supported the others whould IMO be a great source of DB to almost all fighters. Maybe I will work on a CC fighting art or a MAC fighting art.

 BTW, War Law also has some interestig rules for formation fighting.

MDC

[Fenrhyl Wulfson]

TO put the emphasis on some point developped by Markc

A shield bash is made with the rim of the shield, or the boss, or a point. If you just slam the shield on your foe you won't wound him, for sure.

A human fist can break a bone and kill instantly if the strike is well aimed, a shield just has the same effect, with more mass and more resilience.

Besides this, if you compare a ram headbutt while charging, compare it to a shield bash while charging. From what i've seen, I don't want, ever, to receive a shield bash from somene who was charging me in the head, throat or belly. I love my life and I expect it to be long and fruitfull

PS : results from 10 minutes of fight with blunt shields and swords (the shields were light metal, the rim was not sharpened) and no armour at all.

Me : Forearmes badly bruised, my own shield managed somehow to slam my left arm and I ended up with a blue wrist. The sword itself left me 5 red marks on the chest.

Partner : skin bruised and cut in the elbow pit from a shield bash. Sword strike in the belly left him a nice, red horizontal mark from one side to another, another shield bash punched him in the face (I held it back when i felt the contact, mind you) and the left side of his face turned red and blue quite quickly.

Why do we fight unarmored, at our own risks ? Because even with blunted, sparing weapons, we can send our opponent to the hospital in pretty bad shape. We ned it to fight with a sense of danger, know our distane, measre the strength inthe blows. This way, we can learn to "feel the steel" ("sentir le fer") which is a very important part of armed combat, and gain what in RMSS is called the "combat awareness". We do it under control of arms masters.