Monday 7 November 2022

Script Compilation: Cloaks and Shields

Script Compilation: Cloaks and Shields

And another compilation of video transcripts. Keep in mind that the shield script isn't actually comprehensive, as it was written before Shields Up! got released. You can read the review here.

Cloaks

When I first read through the GURPS skill list, the Cloak skill surprised me. I didn’t really understand how it was used and what for. I had to look some things up, and I found out that people, especially fencers, really did use cloak as something of a shield. It can be used both defensively and offensively, and has many special rules tied to it, but I have only seen it used by a player once. So, let’s check this piece of equipment out and see what’s going on!

Cloak is an Average difficulty skill. Compared to Shield’s Easy difficulty, this doesn’t seem attractive. There are two types of cloaks – the light cloak that weighs 2 pounds, and the heavy one that weighs 5 pounds. A cloak gives you a Block defense, like a shield. A light cloak has DB 1, and a heavy one has DB 2. To use it as a defensive tool, you must hold your cloak in your hand. Just like with shields, readying your cloak this way takes a number of Ready maneuvers equal to the cloak’s DB. Unlike the shields, cloaks are not durable – the light cloak has DR 1 and HP 3, while the heavy cloak has DR 1 and HP 5. At least according to the Basic Set. In GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2, light cloaks have HP 10, and heavy cloaks have HP 13. That’s a big difference!

While it is said that the Shield skill does not take off-hand penalties, it is not said anywhere about Cloak. However, it is said in DFRPG: Adventurers, so there you go. The same book also says that you cannot apply any quality modifiers to cloaks, except for Ornate. DFRPG also has simplified burning rules – if a cloak catches fire, it is ruined in seconds, equal to its weight. Shields Up! expands it saying that a cloth cloak only catches fire if it takes 10+ points of burning damage in one second. A burning cloak gives you -2 to DX, and extinguishing the flames takes a Ready maneuver and a DX roll. 

Blocking is only one thing that you can do with a cloak. What else? You can snap your cloak in the opponents face or block his vision. This is treated as a Feint, but you do not have to use your cloak offensively before you can feint with it. That requirement only applies to shields.

You can also use a cloak to grapple. Roll against Cloak skill to hit; reach is C, 1. GURPS Basic Set tells you to treat it as an unarmed grapple, but GURPS Martial Arts replaces it with the Armed Grapple technique. Cloak is special, however, in that it can be used to grapple at Reach 1, only requires one hand, and defaults to Cloak, not Cloak-2.

If you are using GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling, then grappling with cloaks works differently. The cloak now requires Armed Grapple and two hands to grapple at Reach C, and Armed Grapple defaults to Cloak-2. However, it gets access to the Entangle technique which can be used at Reach 1 and with only one hand, but the effectiveness is halved.

If you are using A New Take on Grappling from Pyramid #3-34, then cloaks also can only be used to grapple at Reach C, require two hands, and Armed Grab defaults to Cloak-2. Grappling with a cloak penalizes some techniques, but gives bonuses to others.

Both GURPS Basic Set and GURPS Low-Tech have cloaks on the ranged weapon table, implying that they can be thrown two yards. They notes refer to the entanglement rules, but the rules themselves say nothing about cloaks. This seems like an oversight, because I found Kromm’s post on the SJGames forums that says that following:

A tossed cloak is a pretty sad entangling weapon, as it lacks weights (like a bolas or a combat net) and the user isn't holding on to apply tension (as with a lariat or a whip). Since the melee effect is "counts as a grapple," I'd make the thrown effect "counts as a grapple," too -- but once it's out of the thrower's hand, its ST is 0, so breaking free is automatic if attempted. The sum total effect is to make the victim waste a turn breaking free, which is only useful when trying to delay someone. To make sure that the foe does waste time breaking free, target an area that will be inconvenient if he doesn't bother -- weapon arm, head (to blind), etc.

I’m not sure how this interacts with the rule that if the grappler’s ST is lower than half of the target’s ST, then it counts as an encumbrance, not an actual grapple. But let’s treat cloak as a special case.

GURPS Low-Tech also lists some uses for a cloak – it protects you from the elements, can act as a sleeping blanket or a makeshift tent, gives +4 to Holdout to conceal items, and a heavy cloak even can act as an arrow curtain.


Shields

If you come from the D&D background, you will be pleasantly surprised. While in D&D, shields used to suck, in GURPS it is the opposite. Shields are simply great, and in this video, I will tell you everything you need to know about shield and even more.

Shields in GURPS give you an active defense – Block. Your Block score equals to your Shield skill/2 + 3, rounded down. Shield is an Easy difficult DX-based skill that has four mandatory specialties: Shield, Buckler, Force, and Guige. All of them default to one another at -2. What’s the difference?

Shields, as in shields used with the Shield specialty of the Shield skill (yeah, I know, this might be confusing), are held in place with straps. They are slow to put on and take off, but you can also hold something in your shield hand. Also, your shield is harder to unready, but I will talk about that later.
Bucklers are held in the hand. Your hand is occupied, but readying a buckler is a single Ready maneuver.
You might ask me why the Force specialty even exists. How does the material composition affect the way you use the shield? It does not, but force shields are held differently. They are worn on the wrist, leaving the hand completely free to do anything you want. Force bucklers, however, are used with the Buckler specialty.
Guige is a specialty introduced in GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2. A guige is a neck strap that can be used to use a shield with no hands at all! I will talk later in the video about this complicated topic.

The primary use of shields is defense. You can attempt Block as an active defense against a melee attack, thrown weapon, projected liquid, or muscle-powered missile weapon. By default, you cannot block bullets or beam weapons, but there is the cinematic Precognitive Block skill in Pyramid #3-9 that allows you to do that. You can only block attacks from the front and shield-side hexes. If you retreat, you get +1 to Block. Enhanced Block advantage costs 5 points per level for shields, if you want to improve your ability to block further. If an enemy is attacking your weapon to break it or disarm you, you cannot block that attack. Blocks against flails are made at -2, not -4 like parries. If you are using only the Basic Set, you can only block once per turn. GURPS Martial Arts expands the rules, allowing multiple blocks at a cumulative -5 penalty per block. These penalties are halves and rounded in the negative direction for characters with Weapon Master, but not Trained by a Master.
If you have the Shield-Wall Training perk, then you can sacrifice your block defense to block an attack on an ally standing beside you.
Not only does a shield provide an active defense, but it also improves all other defenses. If you have a ready shield, emphasis on ready, add its Defense Bones to any Dodge, Parry, or Block against any attack that came from in front of you or from your shield side. The fact that a shield’s Defense Bonus improves your Block defense with the same shield often seems confusing to new players. Defense Bonus typically ranges from 0 to 3, but it is possible to get a larger bonus with magic and certain optional rules that I will mention later.
If you wield two shields, the Defense Bonuses do not stack, but you can block twice per turn without penalty, and the arcs of allowed directions of blocking and application of the Defense Bonus are expanded.
Speaking of readying shields. Shields take a number of Ready maneuver to ready equal to their Defense Bonus. Bucklers are treated as weapons, so they always take one second to ready, so you won’t be able to ready a DB 0 buckler instantly.
If you are holding a shield, the hit location penalty of your shield hand becomes -8 instead of -4, and the hit location penalty of your shield arm becomes -4 instead of -2. It’s not said anywhere in the books, but if you have foot manipulators and are holding a shield in your foot, then this should apply to shield foot and shield leg, respectively.
However, shields also have some negative effects. First, shields hamper you in close combat. Any attack you make in close combat – except for the initial slam, attack, etc. when you first move into the foe’s hex – has a penalty equal to the Defense Bonus of your shield! Any DX roll you attempt in close combat after your first turn of close combat has the same penalty. It takes a one-turn Ready maneuver and a successful DX roll to get rid of your shield in close combat.
Also, this is something people often get mad about and for a good reason. There’s a shield-related penalty hidden on page 547 of the GURPS Basic Set that is not mentioned anywhere else. If you are holding a large shield, that is a shield with Defense Bonus 3, you take a -2 penalty to all melee attacks. It’s not stated in the rules, but I believe that this penalty is not applied to attacks with the shield itself. GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2 suggests an optional rule – make this a penalty equal to the shield’s Defense Bonus, but apply it to all shields. I think that is reasonable. The Shield-Wall Training perk negates this penalty.
By default, shields cannot be damaged. The optional Damage to Shields rule on page 484 of the GURPS Basic Set makes it so if your shield’s Defense Bonus makes the difference between success and failure on any active defense (not just block), the blow struck the shield squarely, and may damage it. These rules involve additional bookkeeping, as you have to track the integrity of your shield, and you will have to familiarize yourself with the Overpenetration (p. B408) rules, but I think that this rule is essential in low-tech games. Without it, I believe that shields might just be too good. GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2 adds that a buckler damaged to the point where it has no HP left may still be used as a dueling buckler with DB 0. These rules might be necessary if you are expecting to encounter firearms and overhead attacks, as those cannot be blocked by shields, but can provide cover.
Shields can be used offensively. You can bash with your shield at Reach 1. You attack with your Shield skill and do not take the usual -4 penalty for using the “off” hand. You can also use your shield to improve your slam. This attack is called shield rush and uses your Shield skill to hit. Work it out as a normal slam, but add the shield’s Defense Bonus to damage, and the shield takes damage, not you. You can still fall down though. One thing about the shield rush that is written not in the shield rush section for some reason, is that it cannot be used with bucklers! You can also Feint with your shield, but only if you have attacked your enemy with your shield before. GURPS Low-Tech adds that feints with shields that are strapped to the arm are at -1.
You can shove with shields as per Shoves with Weapons on page 112 of GURPS Martial Arts. The Shoves and Tackles perk can improve your shield shove and shield rush. The same page describes rules for striking at shields and grabbing them. Bucklers, just like weapons, can be struck for a disarming attempt, but with some extra penalties. I find it interesting that if you attack a shield, the enemy can only dodge or block, but if you try to grab a shield, then the enemy can also parry. A grabbed shield cannot block and does not provide Defense Bonus. If the shield is strapped to the arm, then the wielder gets +4 to attempts to break free. The Hook technique allows the user to hook a shield and unready it using very similar rules.
GURPS Martial Arts: Technical Grappling reworks grabbing and hooking rules for the Technical Grappling system, but also has some things that seem reasonable for the normal grappling system. For example, if you try to grapple the enemy and he blocks it, but if his margin of success on his block roll is equal to or less than the Defense Bonus of the shield, then you may elect to grab the shield instead. I guess this is an extension of the normal Defense Bonus rules, but this can be used even if you do not use the Damage to Shields rule.
Now let’s go back to the GURPS Basic Set, because there’s something that sometimes doesn’t work very well with shields – critical misses. This is actually something that has come up in one of my games. If you attack with your shield and roll a critical miss, and then get a result that says that you either drop your weapon or have your weapon fly from your hand, what happens to a shield that is strapped to your hand? It can’t really be dropped that easily, so I just treated it as becoming unready.

Before I get to the actual shields, I also want to tell you about the guige use. A guige is a neck strap that is present on most medium and large shields, and its use is discussed in GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2. Shield on a guige cannot be used for shield bashes or shield rushes. There are two ways of using guige in combat.
1. No hands. You can block with a shield hanging on your guige hands-free. You use the Shield (Guige) skill to do that, and your blocks are at -3. You leave the shield hanging over one side of your body. Specify the side when you ready the shield. You have both of your arms free, but you cannot parry or make wild swings to your shield side. Also, I assume that for the purpose of overpenetration, any hit that penetrates the shield damages the original target, not the arm or hand.
2. Grabbing hold. If you have a free hand, you can grab your shield with a Ready maneuver. You can block at no penalty, but your hand is occupied. If the shield have multiple grips, use the appropriate Shield specialty. Changing grips requires a number of Ready maneuvers equal to DB.

If you are holding a shield of any size, then you can use the same hand to hold another item, such as a dagger, a bow, or a torch. However, this item won’t be ready. If you are holding a shield or buckler with DB 1, however, you may have both items ready. In that case, both Shield and weapon skills are at -2, and weapon attacks take the normal off-hand penalty.

Let’s take a look at the actual shield tables. There are two of them in GURPS Low-Tech – one that lists all the characteristics for defensive use, and one in the weapon table for offensive use. There’s not much here to talk about- you can see that shields are not expensive, but most are heavy. The HP and cover DR parameters might require recalculation if you customize your shield. One shield of note here is the TL4 dueling long shield – this one can be used with the Hook technique.
However, there’s something that feels wrong about these tables. Why is there no minimum ST to wield a shield? This is something that is often pointed out by new players, and I believe that it’s an oversight. Christopher Rice houseruled a minimum ST table based on the one from GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2. I will show it on the screen and link the post in the description. That post also has a new Fast-Draw (Shield) skill.
Did you know that you can also throw shields? The rules for that are in GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2. You throw the shield using the Thrown Weapon (Disc) skill at -4 to hit that can be bought off with a Hard technique. You deal your normal thrusting or swinging damage, but I assume that it is always crushing except for rimmed shields – you do not throw them spikes-first. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 8: Treasure Tables adds shields specially balanced for throwing that do not take this penalty.

How can you customize shields? GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2 has some options. You can add a buckler grip to a normal shield or the other way around. You can attach blades to the grip of a buckler, which will allow you to attack with it more effectively than when wielding a knife in the shield hand. You can remove the boss, add a boss to a shield that didn’t have one, make a conical boss, or a long spike. Guige can be removed to make the shield lighter and cheaper. A metal or metal-rimmed shield can have a rim blade. In addition, you can add disarming spikes, a lance cutout, or a lantern hook.
What if you want to resize your shield for a small or a large character? Even GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2 doesn’t have full rules for that, but Pyramid #3-34 does. That article also has rules for adjusting the Defense Bonus for posture. The same rules, but somewhat expanded can be found on that article author’s blog – I will link it in the description. I will also link a long post about using shields as cover. It is complicated, but I think it is worth a read.
What about quality modifiers? Those in Low-Tech do not mention shields explicitly, but we do have quality modifiers for shields in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 1: Adventurers. You can have a Balanced shield for +1 to skill, a dwarven shield that improves damage and doubles weight, meteoric shield that improves damage and resists magic, a mirrored shield for fighting medusas and reflecting Sunbolts, an orichalcum shield, an ornate shield, or a fine shield. No Very Fine shields for some reason. GURPS Low-Tech Companion 2 also adds some composition options for light shields, tough shields, and metallic shields.
Lastly, I want to mention some shield-related advantages and perks. I’ve already mentioned Enhanced Block, Shield-Wall Training, and Shoves and Tackles, but there are some more. The Sacrificial Block perk that I found in DFRPG Adventurers, but can’t seem to find it in GURPS, allows you to block at attack directed at an ally behind you. Hold the Line perk from Pyramid #3-118 improves this further by allowing you to block an attack directed at an ally anywhere within a yard of you. The Shield Familiarity leveled perk from the same Pyramid article lets you ignore the close combat penalty for shield usage. That article also has the Weapon Master (Shields) advantage with some interesting benefits. GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 11: Power-Ups has the Shield Mastery power-up for knight that improves their defense against large-area injury. Finally, Pyramid #3-4 has an article with defensive imbuements that can work on shields.


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