(TFT) how in the world does a shield make an arm harder to hit?

[PvK <pvk@oz.net>]

It's so weird - my ISP's email server has been rejecting this email for some reason. It has some insane perverted algorithm that guesses if the body looks like spam to it, and if it does, it rejects.

I haven't GM'd TFT in many years, and don't remember if there is an official answer to the question of whether an aimed shot to a shield arm or other body part has damaged reduced by a shield or not. I don't remember how we played it. I can see playing it either way:

1) Since there is no rule I can remember or easily find that says shields have no effect against aimed shots, one could assume that they do. The damage reduction from shields seems to me not about every blow penetrating the shield, but an abstracted reduction to damage, which might apply even to an aimed shot to the shield arm. I think this is actually the most correct rules-lawyer answer.

2) Since the -6 penalty is hard for most characters to overcome, and I think it means you got around the shield, I can see a "making sense" argument that shield protection should not be counted in aimed shots, and someone might argue for maybe even any aimed shots. I can see the idea, but I don't think it was intended nor the most consistent way to do it.

As for flails wrapping around shields, I see your point but I think your proposal goes way too far in actually making it a disadvantage to have a shield. A flail might wrap around, but I don't think hitting the arm by wrapping around a shield would actually be easier that hitting an arm without a shield on it. And a larger shield would be easier to hit itself, but hitting it would not guarantee a hit on the arm behind it. I think GURPS does a decent job of giving flails a -1 to hit with in general, and then enemies a -2 to defend against using a shield, and a -4 to defend with by parrying. No adjustment to dodge or retreat. TFT lacks a parallel active defense, so it wouldn't be easy to apply this. But you could have an adjusted table for flails, such as:

No shield: -4
Buckler: -4
Small shield: -5
Large shield: -6
Tower shield: -7

-2 more may halve Joe's chance, but it doesn't halve Kemetlin's chances. ;-)

PvK
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