Steven Barker
First Post
Lets consider a character with 6 AGI (3d6 pool) and Acrobatics 1 (1d6 pool), wielding a one-handed weapon and a medium shield. Their defense would be 14 (from attributes and defense skill) + 2 for the shield, for a total of 16.
How does that defense score change if the shield's quality is increased? There is no rule directly describing how quality effects shields, as their bonus is a flat increase to defense (not a die bonus, which would logically get increased by quality dice). It seems implausible to me that a high quality shield would give +1d6 to the defense pool (which would be +3.5 in the final defense score), in addition to the base bonus which is only +2. That would bring their defense up to 20, with six of it coming from the shield!
I'd assumed that shield quality didn't actually matter for defense, but the rules contain the following lines (on page 63), which have confused me and some other players I'm in a game with:
How does that defense score change if the shield's quality is increased? There is no rule directly describing how quality effects shields, as their bonus is a flat increase to defense (not a die bonus, which would logically get increased by quality dice). It seems implausible to me that a high quality shield would give +1d6 to the defense pool (which would be +3.5 in the final defense score), in addition to the base bonus which is only +2. That would bring their defense up to 20, with six of it coming from the shield!
I'd assumed that shield quality didn't actually matter for defense, but the rules contain the following lines (on page 63), which have confused me and some other players I'm in a game with:
Is some other calculation intended? Maybe +1 or +2 defense per quality level, like higher quality armor gives a modest increase in SOAK? Or is it really intended to be +3.5 per level of quality (making shield size almost completely irrelevant by comparison)?For MELEE DEFENSE, the quality of your weapon or shield can be used in your dice pool (although you cannot benefit from more equipment quality dice than skill dice; see the section on dice pools, later in this book).
For RANGED DEFENSE, the quality of your shield can be used (again, you cannot beneft from more equipment quality dice than skill dice).