Dwarf Fortress > DF Suggestions
Shields and Wear
SixOfSpades:
--- Quote from: NW_Kohaku on August 17, 2017, 08:07:17 pm ---The shield user skill could also affect the amount of damage that the shield actually takes, since a more skilled user can take blows at more oblique angles.
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Yes, but that's somewhat iffy. Deflecting attacks away from you is always good, but that's what armor is for--most pieces of plate armor have convex curves, so blows will slide right off. Shields, in contrast, were frequently given concave fronts, so that attacks hitting the shield would tend to STAY on the shield, and not glance away & hit something more vulnerable. But yes, a more experienced shield user would know how to deflect safely.
--- Quote from: NAV on August 27, 2017, 09:18:02 am ---Historically, most blades were blocked with the edge of a shield instead of the face.
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If by "blades" you mean swords, that's because most swords aren't heavy enough to go through a shield--so their users weren't trying to, they were trying to stab/cut next to the shield, at vital targets that weren't quite covered. But, if "blades" is expanded to include axes, then that's quite wrong: Axes were used to break wooden shields (and in some cases, the arms holding them) all the time. Unless the shield was made of 2-ply wood with the grains running at right angles to each other, a good axeman could break a shield in 1 blow.
--- Quote from: Migrant on December 27, 2017, 06:16:01 pm ---To my knowledge shields only get worn when you attack with them which is not a very smart thing to do in most cases. Regardless of this, squads use their shields offensively and I could imagine soldiers in fort mode dying because their shields broke, but this does not affect adventurers as players are too smart to break their shields on purpose.
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1. Shields take damage all the time, more often than all other pieces of armor. Any decent warrior knows it's a lot faster & cheaper to replace a shield than, say, a breastplate, and so would block with his shield as much as possible.
2. Attacking with your shield IS surprisingly often a very good thing to do. Shieldbash, pin your opponent's weapon arm against a wall, get it in his face & obscure his vision, jab the upper edge into his throat/jaw, etc.
GoblinCookie:
--- Quote from: SixOfSpades on December 28, 2017, 03:31:50 am ---Yes, but that's somewhat iffy. Deflecting attacks away from you is always good, but that's what armor is for--most pieces of plate armor have convex curves, so blows will slide right off. Shields, in contrast, were frequently given concave fronts, so that attacks hitting the shield would tend to STAY on the shield, and not glance away & hit something more vulnerable. But yes, a more experienced shield user would know how to deflect safely.
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No, armour; all armour is there to reduce damage, it is never a good idea to rely on armour to deflect blows away from you since all armour is generally unable to keep damage from being done to the person below the armour when hit by any reasonably heavy weapon at least reasonably hard. Injury is unpredictable since you do not know exactly what is getting hit and how important it is.
Shields are basically designed to be destroyed and replaced, typically they are made of a mixture of metal and wood (or even cloth), the idea is that the metal makes the wood stronger so it does simply shatter but the wood still gets cut apart during the course of the battle. At the end of the battle you take what is left of the shield, remove the wood, beat the metal frame back into shape if necessary and replace the wood with new wood.
--- Quote from: NAV on August 27, 2017, 09:18:02 am ---Historically, most blades were blocked with the edge of a shield instead of the face. So a wooden shield with a steel rim lasts almost as long as a steel shield. I don't think DF wooden shields have metal rims yet though, so they should get chewed up quickly.
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Wooden shields should probably be made of wood and nothing else. Metals shields should be made of wood+metal, not of pure metal as they are at the moment, nobody ever used pure metal shields in history because they would be both heavy and expensive.
FantasticDorf:
A 'crude' wooden shield is more often than not there to simply absorb and possibly lodge sharp weapons in regards to its (which may change when you get more into the territory of denser woods like glumprong & bloodthorn) materials wheras slightly blunt animal claws & blunt weapons with less of a concentrated contact area (so you don't snap the wood shield in the middle) try to do their best to deflect.
If you hit it full strength with your axe with superior sharpness, its either going to deal a large amount of damage to the shield or get stuck, some more interaction with sharp objects versus a material as to actually breaking it into bits, i mean some of this can be seen already when adamantine interacts to slice metals like iron, but it doesn't actively do anything than rapidly decrease wear in the current game.
Such might require giving armor component properties like a hilt/blade for weapons if you parry & your sword been under extremeties (frozen/hot) or damage snaps or individual fingers in a glove for instance & junk items made out of destroyed armor.
Grand Sage:
--- Quote from: GoblinCookie on December 28, 2017, 07:27:43 am ---nobody ever used pure metal shields in history because they would be both heavy and expensive.
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actually, I would tend to disagree. remember that DF shields are "worn" on the arm, which makes them much more likely to resemble Crusader type shields than round shields. And those were both smaller and, to my knowledge, full-metal.
Bumber:
--- Quote from: Grand Sage on December 28, 2017, 03:50:13 pm ---actually, I would tend to disagree. remember that DF shields are "worn" on the arm...
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No, they're held in the hand. Shield-stacking exploit wouldn't work otherwise.
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