A bit inspired by a thread over in the AoR boards discussing Droideka shields. I've come up with an alteration to shield generators to better represent how a shield protects you.

The current rules give you defense, making you harder to hit. Which isn't at all what a shield actually does. Its makes you tougher to hurt, not hit. Both ships and personal scale shields do this.

Shield rules: Some items project an energy field which absorbes incoming damage. Personal Shield Generators provide additional Soak for an individual on top of any Soak mitigated by armor and natural toughness. The soak provided by a shield generator cannot be used against melee attacks. When using a grenade against a foe with a shield generator, the firer may suffer 2 setback die to attempt to make the grenade roll inside the shield. If successful, the attack with the grenade ignores the soak provided by the shield.

Each Shield Generator is its own mechanical system that has a System Strain Threshold, representing its power reserves. When a target with a shield generator takes damage, note how much of the damage was reduced by the shield's soak value. Reduce the damage taken by the shields before reducing it from other sources of soak. The shields get hit first after all.

Example: Pash has a basic soak of 3, plus 2 for his padded armor. He also has a Personal Shield Generator which provides soak of 3. He has a total of 8 soak. If he is hit by a blaster pistol for 10 points of damage he will suffer 2 wounds, and his Shield Generator will suffer 3 system strain. If he had only been hit for 6 points of damage, he would have suffered no wounds and his shield generator would still suffer 3 system strain, as you reduce the damage from the shield first.

When a Shield Generator suffers its maximum system strain, the shield collapses and ceases to provide any more soak until it is recharged. Each full hour of charging removes 5 system strain, a shield generator cannot be restarted till its System Strain reaches zero.

Shields and weapon qualities: The soak provided by personal shields cannot be negated by attacks with the Breech or Pierce weapon qualities. Attacks with the Ion quality completely ignore personal shields.

Example: Pash is unfortunate enough to have been caught in the blast of a Thermal Detonator. The attack causes 17 damage with Breach 1 quality. Pash has a total soak of 8. Normally, Breach 1 would totally ignore his soak, but 3 of his soak comes from his personal shield generator. That soak is not ignored by Breach. So Pash only suffers 14 wounds instead of 17.

Personal Shield Generator: Cost/Rarity: same as in main rules

Soak: 3

System Strain: 10

Encumbrance: 2

Mods: Two Soak +1 mods, One System Strain +5 mod

Advanced Personal Shield Generator: Cost/Rarity: 35,000/9R

There are certain personal shield generators which provide even more exceptional protection than their more common counterparts. Certain models even have the ability to recharge themselves using ambiant energy. Such devices are incredibly rare, and often suffer mechanical problems. At the end of every round during an encounter, the wearer makes an easy Mechanics check with 1 threat die. For every net success, the shield generator recovers 1 system strain. The check is upgraded twice if the shield generator is at maximum system strain. The GM may spend a Dispair to cause the generator to malfunction for the rest of the encounter. The GM may spend 2 Dispair to cause the generator to break and cease working till repaired with a Hard mechanics check.

Soak: 5

System Strain: 15

Encumbrance: 4

Mods: Two soak +1 mods, two system strain +5 mods

I'll post up some news rules for ship shields later.

How does Pierce work in conjunction with this? If it does still work against the derived soak from Brawn, talents and armor then what is the point of it being impervious?

A good suggestion. I have always thought that adding setback dice to simulate force shields just does not do them justice.

In the films it is obvious that shields completely block attacks. At least until the either overload (too many attacks in a short time), or are simply overpowered (like when anakin blows away the droidekas with a naboo starfighter).

Your suggestion does quite a good job of simulating these effects.

I suppose that a star ship shield will tend to regenerate faster because it is directly coupled to a power source.

If he had only been hit for 6 points of damage, he would have suffered no wounds and his shield generator would have suffered 1 system strain.

This does not actually make sense, because it suggests that the soak due to armor etc, works before the shield generator.

This, of course, is not the case. The shield will always be hit first, and soak as much as it can before the wearer is hit.

So, this should probably be changed that the shield will always take 3 strain (as long as 3 or more damage is done).

But that fact that the shield is hit first has the obvious advantage that the shield can take the "edge" off any pierce damage.

You might not want to refer to it as Soak.... as has been pointed out to me elsewhere Breach 1 ignores 10 Soak, and Droideka shouldn't be getting splattered by lightsabers in 1 hit.

You might not want to refer to it as Soak....

How about we refer to it as Shield...

You might not want to refer to it as Soak....

How about we refer to it as Shield...

I stated in the first paragraph that the soak provided cannot be negated by breach and pierce.

As for why armor reduces it first that's more to represent that such a hit is so weak it barely strains the shields and only a hit able to cause a bunch of damage can actually make it through a shield.

Example: Pash has a basic soak of 3, plus 2 for his padded armor. He also has a Personal Shield Generator which provides soak/shield of 3. He has a total of 9 soak. If he is hit by a blaster pistol for 10 points of damage he will suffer 1 wound, and his Shield Generator will suffer 3 system strain. If he had only been hit for 6 points of damage, he would have suffered no wounds and his shield generator would have suffered 1 system strain.

Using your example Pash has a soak of 5 (not 6; 3+2) and then a soak/shield of 3. Now I think part of my question was answered in that apparently your shield reduces damage before applying personal soak. My question relates to what if the shot had (for instance) a Pierce of 2. In your example of 10 points of damage Pash would end up taking 4 points, which is no different than if he just had more soak. Seems kind of redundant to me.

I'm not sure adding another layer to the soak/defense dynamic is really needed. Here you would have soak/defense/shield, unless you are calling for a complete overhaul and dropping how shields are now, and just having soak and shields. I'm not so sure FFG is looking to do such an overhaul at this time. Maybe in a second edition.

Otherwise it is an interesting concept.

I'm not sure adding another layer to the soak/defense dynamic is really needed. Here you would have soak/defense/shield, unless you are calling for a complete overhaul and dropping how shields are now, and just having soak and shields. I'm not so sure FFG is looking to do such an overhaul at this time. Maybe in a second edition.

Hmmm. That needs some noodling.

Derp, meant to type 8 and the error carried through.

My goal is so that shields don't conflict with cover. Cover giving a setback to hit you makes sense, but a shield doing the same thing doesn't as a shield just makes you more durable, not harder to hit.

Altered the rules so that shield's reduce damage before armor and natural soak.

I actually really like this.

I think it should be made clear that the shield can absorb up to it's 'Soak' (or Shield as has been pointed out elsewhere) in Breach. You alluded to this, but it wasn't made clear. Kind of hinted at, but not outright said, I suppose.
So, a Lightsaber with 1 Breach would take away only 1 point of Shield rather than 10 Soak on a personal scale.

A change like this would make Shields a much more desirable item, though tracking it on top of everything else could be... interesting.

Ship shields: To convert to this system, total up how ever many points of defense a ship or vehicle has in its various arcs. That is its number of shields.

Example: The Firespray System Patrol Craft has Defense 1 in both its Fore and Aft arcs, so it has a total of 2 shields.

At the beginning each round of combat, the pilot, or shield control officer in the case of a capital ship, must allocated all the ship's shield points to its available arcs. During the first round of an encounter, shields are always distributed as evenly as possible among the various arcs.

Each point of shielding present in a particular arc increases the ships armor in that arc by 1 when reducing damage.

Shield Generators and System Strain: Shield generators can only absorb so much damage before the system overloads and needs to reset. Each ship's Shield Generator suffers system strain independently of the ship itself.

A Ship's Shield Generator's system strain threshold is equal to its regular system strain threshold, although they are completely separate.

When a vehicle with shields is hit by an attack, note how many point of damage were negated by the armor granted by the shields. Apply soaked damage to the shields first, and then regular ship armor. For every point of damage that was negated by the shields, the Shield Generator suffers 1 point of system strain. When the System Strain of the Shield Generator reaches or exceeds the threshold, the shields collapse and no longer provide armor.

Example: the Krayt Fang is a YT-1300 freighter with a total of 5 Shield points. Her SS threshold is 20, and so her Shield Generator's SS threshold is also 20. Currently, the Fang has 3 of her shield points applied to her Starboard side. Her starboard side is then hit by a TIE fighter's medium laser cannons, causing a total of 7 damage. The Fang's total armor on the starboard side is 7, 3 from the shields and 4 from her basic armor plating. The Krayt Fang suffers no damage, but her shield generator suffers 3 points of system strain. She won't be able to sustain such a beating for much longer!

Ship Shields and weapon qualities: Weapons with the Ion quality ignore the soak provided by shields. In addition, when ever a ship suffers system strain from an Ion weapon, the ship's shield generator also suffers an equal amount of system strain.

The armor points provided by shields cannot be reduced by the Breach quality. Only reduce armor provided from armor plating and other sources.

-New vehicle action-

Recalibrate the Shields:

Pilot only: No

Silhouette: Any

Speed: Any

This action may only be attempted by a vehicle with shields. Using this action, any player character who makes a successful mechanics check may remove one point of system strain from the Shield Generator per net success on the mechanics check. Difficulty is determined by table 7-2 on page 233. Use the ship's system strain and NOT the Shield Generator's system strain.

-Ship Modification alteration-

Reinforced Shield Generator:

Base modifiers: +1 shield point.

Modification options: Two additional +1 point of shield's mods.

Hard Points required: 2

Price: 3,800 credits

Basic Shield Generator:

Many individuals seek to add shield generators to vehicles which do not come with such devices standard. Although these devices are quite bulky and take up much space on vehicles not built with shields in mind. May only be added to vehicles with Silhouette 2 or greater that do not already have shields.

Base modifiers: +2 shield points

Modification options: None

Hard points required: 2

Price: 2,000 credits times the Silhouette.

Clarified personal shield rules in regards to Breach and Pierce and added ship shield rules.

What do people think?

But... shields already reduce damage. 1 black reduces an attack's damage by .33, and increases the difficulty of critting by .33. They just do so in a less consistent way than armour, but also add a chance the attack will fail entirely due to the shielding.

If you wanted to tweak shields to be 'depletable', you can just have each successful hit on a shielded target reduce their shields by 1, and let people use the Boost Shields action to restore 1 lost shield point per 1 system strain, or if full then boost. Make ion hits reduce shields by 2 if desired.

Nah, not really. They make you harder to hit in the current system. They don't do a flat out damage reduction, which better represents them.

The current system would make sense if they were, say, holo-fields which project multiple false images of the target.

Clarified personal shield rules in regards to Breach and Pierce and added ship shield rules.

What do people think?

I like what you have, but someday I'd like to revisit how the ship components are structured, and look at how shields are handled from a more holistic view. There are a few ways to do this, one might be as follows. A subset of the profile might look like this (these aren't actual numbers, just examples):

T-65 X-Wing

Power Plant Recharge Rate: 1

Power Plant Max Reserve: 3

Speed: 3

Max Speed: 4

Shield Points: 2

Max Shield Points: 3

Weapons and Damage: 4 Laser Cannons, Damage 5, Max Damage 6 Linked 3, etc

In this case, you can go your Speed (3) and have 2 Shield Points allocated, and do Damage on a hit. But if you go Speed 4 you're taking 1 point out of your reserve. If you're out of reserve, you can continue at Speed 4 but you have to reduce a point from either shields, or Max Damage. When all these are exhausted, you can't go Speed 4 anymore. Of course, you can shuffle things around as you like, so you could drop to Speed 3 and use your Recharge to either build up your reserve, or start increasing your shields (by 1 per turn) or your Laser Cannon damage (by 1 per turn up to Max)

Same thing applies to the other components. Basically, any time you're using one of the Max stats, you have to pull from the Power Plant reserve, or from some other component. Mods and Talents could still come into play of course.

That's a very rough example above, but I think a system like that would help capture that "our shields are gone, boost the power!" or "reroute all power to the main engines!" stuff that we hear in the movies and TCW. Power management is a big part of the genre, and is completely missing in the game.

Nah, not really. They make you harder to hit in the current system. They don't do a flat out damage reduction, which better represents them.

The current system would make sense if they were, say, holo-fields which project multiple false images of the target.

General sensation: Like it.

Maybe some specific weapons/effects can Pierce/Breach shields (or even ignore like ion, just what you said).

Also I have to say that I like that rule (we were considerating something similar that adds Soak/Armor too), but also this slows down the game.

If in your sessions you don't care so much about time in encounters, this rule can be great

Clarified personal shield rules in regards to Breach and Pierce and added ship shield rules.

What do people think?

Yes, that is now much clearer. I think the mechanic is now simple enough to be practical.

Nah, not really. They make you harder to hit in the current system. They don't do a flat out damage reduction, which better represents them.

The current system would make sense if they were, say, holo-fields which project multiple false images of the target.

Mechanically, they reduce the damage you take from an attack with a chance to negate it entirely. That is what is happening. It sounds like you're getting caught up on the specifics of what's rolled when as if this was a simulationist game.

Nah, not really. They make you harder to hit in the current system. They don't do a flat out damage reduction, which better represents them.

The current system would make sense if they were, say, holo-fields which project multiple false images of the target.

youre right and wrong. They make you harder to hit but they also reduce damage. Remember if a setback die from the sheild generates a failure but the attack still hits then it hits for less damage than it would have without that generated failure. In other words I think the setback dice added from sheilds and armor represent the shot being more likely to glance or otherwise bounce off the sheild/armor. After all it doesn't make sense otherwise as no armor would then justifiably be able to add any setback dice since no armor would likely be making you faster or harder to target (quite the opposite actually)

I tend to agree with BadMotivator that setback dice simulate cover or bad conditions (e.g. bad visibility) much better than they simulate the effect of a shield.

A shield really just absorbs damage very much like armor.

What we must not forget is the "diminishing returns" effect of adding setback dice (or any dice). What I mean is, the first one has a much greater effect, then the second, and so on. After you have added about 5, additional dice are having like a 2% or 3% effect on your chance to hit, and this tends to 0% as you add more. I just don't think this is how shields, which can be built powerful enough to stop just about any attack, work.

In addition, if you already have a large dice pool (e.g. YYYGG), then adding a setback dice has much less effect than if you have a small pool (e.g. YG). (To be exact, 1 setback dice reduces the chance to hit an average difficulty with a pool of YYYGG by 4.5% and a pool of YG by 9%).

For me, this does not make sense, because why would the effectiveness of your shield be effected by the skill of the attacker?

I understand the designers in wanting to keep things simple. And I also understand that an RPG is not a perfect simulation.

But in this case, I think that they did not capture the spectacular effect (and importance) of a force field that you see in the Star Wars movies.

You might not want to refer to it as Soak....

How about we refer to it as Shield...

How cunning!

The main problem with setback dice is that they are unreliable. 2 out of 6 times that die is going to come up blank. Something that would make a standoff against Jedi shouldn't fail to impact the result 1/3 of the time.

While I think the Reflect rules would work just fine in these situations I am glad that there are people who think Shields need to be represented in a better way. I would also apply the same concepts to Vehicle shields.

Shield with Reflect mechanic? Mate, you are a genius! Love it.

I have to study the impact but the first sensation is pretty good

While a setback die might technically have an effect of reducing damage, its simply not anywhere close enough to show what the shields do in the fluff.

Fluffwise, a shield is basically impenetrable till it goes down. Yet in the game a single X-wing can basically ignore the shields on a Star Destroyer and just go to dealing straight damage. Not much mind you, but the shields are doing a negligible job in terms of stopping it.

Similarly, anyone rolling 2-3 yellow dice for shooting isn't really going to care if their target's got a shield.

The truly silly thing is that hiding behind a big stone pillar is exactly the same as having a personal shield in the current system of defense. And they don't stack. When really a personal shield should be far superior to hiding behind a stone pillar AND they should totally stack. With the pillar making it harder to hit, and the shield making it harder to damage.