Halo Hiatus? The Shields Quandary!
It’s been a while since my last Halo post, and I want to apologize. Ever since my last Halo post, Armour, Shields, & Stress, Oh My!, I’ve been beating around new ideas. Well, trying to fix what I perceive as broken, in any case.
What’s Broken?
That’s a good question, and an easy one to answer: shields. I’m not happy at all with how I did them. Well, let me rephrase that. I’m not happy with how complex I made them. FATE is supposed to be simple and fast. What I did to shields is not simple, nor is it fast. It doesn’t fit.
Why Shields are Important
It may seem like a really minor thing to get hung on, and it’s true to a certain extent. Shields play a minor part in combat, but how they play that part is very intertwined.
First and foremost, shields reduce incoming damage. And, with time, replenish. However, they are very vulnerable to charged plasma pistol shots and EMP grenades from the grenade launcher.
These are three minor but important interactions. How do I faithfully represent that?
Ideas so Far
Right now, I’m leaning towards the following work-arounds:
- Shields are an aspect
- A Second stress track that absorbs hits
- Ablative damage reduction
- A block
Shields as an Aspect
This is at the top of the list right now. It’s simple, you have an aspect that you can tag once per encounter for free, and helps you reduce incoming damage. It’s not as true to the source material, since you don’t have a “shield bar” that gets depelted. However, it interacts with the other issues well.
With both the EMP grenade and the plasma pistol, you can tag for effect to not let the target use their shields for an exchange. Also, all it takes is a manoeuvre—probably with the systems skill—to “recharge shields” to allow you to use them again!
A Stress Track
Basically how Strands of FATE does things, or Bulldogs! minions. It’s a stress track that absorbs hits. So if you’re hit with a 3-stress attack, you fill in the first three boxes. Once all the boxes are empty, maybe throw in a Shields down mild consequence.
As above, taking an action can renew the shields. Whether it’s a systems roll like on my previous post, or a simple ” tag an appropriate you can’t hit me this exchange aspect for effect to refresh your shields.”
Ablative Damage Reduction
I definitely do not like this option. I’m trying my hardest to avoid straight damage-reduction. However, I’m going to include it here for completeness.
How it works is it acts like an armour/shield rating. However, since your shields can deplete, the rating drops as it gets used. So if you have a shield rated at 4, for example, the first time you’re hit the damage is reduced by 4, but your shield rating is also reduced by 1. So the next attack is reduced by 3, than 2, than 1. After that, your shields drop.
However, I’m not sure how exactly to have that interact with plasma pistols and EMP grenades. Also, like I said, I want to avoid using damage reduction.
A Block
This is how magical shields work in Dresden and, being that it’s a big influence, it bears contemplating. The biggest down-side to using a block is that you really can’t model the degradation well. It’s either up or down.
Another down side is that players (and GMs) don’t like to miss. Sure, it’s part of the rules and should work well, but there’s something fulfilling seeing your opponent mark off a stress box instead of hearing “well, their shields block your attack.”
However, I did kind of have an idea on how to draw stress into it. Whenever the block works, mark off a stress box for the shields. Every time it’s hit, the shield generator takes stress, and after enough stress it dealt, the shields fail!
TL;DR
As you can see, I’m really not sure about how to go about this. If anyone has any advice I’m all ears! Also, there was an ongoing discussion over at RPGnet. However, it seems to have faltered and died.
