Okay, I feel like you're under the impression that I'm arguing with you over this, when I'm not, so... I'm gonna stop replying to this thread. It seems to just be confusing you.

7 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Yes, and? Tank Armor also absorbs damage to the tank from attacks. Your point? I've worn not only military armor, but I was also involved in Medieval recreation back in the day, and had a number of opportunities to wear plate and padded armor as well as a "combat archer". Even though the weapons we used weren't lethal, they could hurt you, and I had been hit on numerous occasions, and the armor I wore absorbed that damage. It didn't prevent me from getting hit.

I did say it was pointless military experience. But since you bring up tanks, I trust you are familiar with the concept of sloped armor. What happens quite often when a projectile strikes armor at an angle? It gets deflected, but some of the impact still gets absorbed. Much like a glancing blow on plate armor. Of course, you know this already.

7 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The FFG rules are also consisitent with how we see armor and shields function in the movies. Armor soaks up damage fro m direct hits to the target whereas we see energy shields stop shots from even coming close to the target.

So, stopping as shot is not soaking it? Because the dictionary definition of deflect is "to turn (something) aside especially from a straight course or fixed direction". Again, you have defeated your own argument.

7 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

Yes, it would, because that is not how we actually see the shields work on screen or in the lore. And yes, the Gungan shield on Naboo does work the same as the one on Scarif. The only difference is the level of power each has.

The shield on Naboo lets the droids pass through. An x-wing crashes against the shield on Scarif. It's possible that the Naboo shield only let the droids pass through because they were moving slowly, but if the Scarif shield worked the same way, it'd be something of glaring weakness and kind of contradicting the statement that the rebels were trapped underneath it. Regardless, the main point of that argument is that those shields didn't deflect anything, they just absorbed the impacts. Soaked them up, if you will.

17 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

I did say it was pointless military experience. But since you bring up tanks, I trust you are familiar with the concept of sloped armor. What happens quite often when a projectile strikes armor at an angle? It gets deflected, but some of the impact still gets absorbed. Much like a glancing blow on plate armor. Of course, you know this already.

So, stopping as shot is not soaking it? Because the dictionary definition of deflect is "to turn (something) aside especially from a straight course or fixed direction". Again, you have defeated your own argument.

The shield on Naboo lets the droids pass through. An x-wing crashes against the shield on Scarif. It's possible that the Naboo shield only let the droids pass through because they were moving slowly, but if the Scarif shield worked the same way, it'd be something of glaring weakness and kind of contradicting the statement that the rebels were trapped underneath it. Regardless, the main point of that argument is that those shields didn't deflect anything, they just absorbed the impacts. Soaked them up, if you will.

The shields on Naboo lets the droids through because they move very slowly. An X-wing is moving very fast. That’s the difference. Not only that but the shields around Scarif are much higher powered. No starship or speeder moves at essentially walking speed, which is pretty much what it would take. Regardless, both shields prevent hits from reaching their targets rather than soaking damage.

The key difference between the shields and tank armor (or any armor for that matter) is that even the angled armor on a tank is still only absorbing damage. So the tank is still taking an impact which the armor must soak. As you said yourself even as the shot is turned away it still takes damage, damage that the armor must soak, if possible.

4 hours ago, Dunefarble said:

I never said the movie portrayal was lazy storytelling. In the films, the 'players' (characters) have a set of information that they make decisions based on. Do we, as observers, need a complete chain of thought explanation? No, we have other cues that let us know that some level of familiarity with the 'mechanics' are in play. BUT as PCs in our own campaigns? Yes, we need to know the specifics that our characters would know in order to make similar plans and decisions. Your example -

13 hours ago, penpenpen said:

if you don't really want to bother with rules, its fine to say "you don't have any weapons that could penetrate the shield, you'll have to think of some other way"

-is a perfect demonstration of why it's important. Why don't we have weapons that can penetrate it? What's the difference? How is the difference achieved? This information is important in order to come up with a plan, and 'because I say so' isn't useful to either the mechanical OR the narrative game play. 

Of course you need to provide a narrative reason, at least to the extent the characters should have knowledge of it, such as "It's a planetary shield. It's too powerful for the weapons you have.". Or you could call it out "Your weapons should be able to at least have some chance of penetrating, but for some reason they're having no effect. Something strange is going on here.".

My point is, if the PCs encounter something like a planetary shield, it'd be odd to just treating it as giving defense dice. You could of course give it some kind soak rating/trauma threshold to grind it down, but it's also an excellent opportunity to let/force the players to think outside the box to figure out solutions (such as pushing a stricken star destroyer into the shield gate structure, and rolling a bunch of triumphs in the attempt and catching another star destroyer in the attempt) or use it to set up interesting tactical scenarios (to disable the shield, you need to pass through it to engage the generators, but the close range puts you within range of the gungan energy balls, negating your range advantage).

As for ship shields, which we rarely see do much discernible difference (x-wings do get blown out of the sky space just as easily as TIEs), defense dice work just fine for the most part, as it has some chance of stopping a hit cold (causing enough failures for the shot to miss) or reducing damage taken (reducing excess successes with failures, or using threats to reduce excess advantages that could have been used to activate abilities like linked, or causing critical hits).

3 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The key difference between the shields and tank armor (or any armor for that matter) is that even the angled armor on a tank is still only absorbing damage.

Nope. It is also deflecting and redirecting it, at least when a hit bounces.

5 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

So the tank is still taking an impact which the armor must soak. As you said yourself even as the shot is turned away it still takes damage, damage that the armor must soak, if possible.

So you're on board with soak and defense on armor now? Good that you agree.

7 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The shields on Naboo lets the droids through because they move very slowly. An X-wing is moving very fast.

I literally just said that. I also said its beside the point as they behave differently from ship shields as they let no hits through before they go down. Gosh dang it Tramp, read what you reply to!

On 1/18/2019 at 11:00 PM, penpenpen said:

Of course you need to provide a narrative reason, at least to the extent the characters should have knowledge of it, such as "It's a planetary shield. It's too powerful for the weapons you have.". Or you could call it out "Your weapons should be able to at least have some chance of penetrating, but for some reason they're having no effect. Something strange is going on here.".

My point is, if the PCs encounter something like a planetary shield, it'd be odd to just treating it as giving defense dice. You could of course give it some kind soak rating/trauma threshold to grind it down, but it's also an excellent opportunity to let/force the players to think outside the box to figure out solutions (such as pushing a stricken star destroyer into the shield gate structure, and rolling a bunch of triumphs in the attempt and catching another star destroyer in the attempt) or use it to set up interesting tactical scenarios (to disable the shield, you need to pass through it to engage the generators, but the close range puts you within range of the gungan energy balls, negating your range advantage).

As for ship shields, which we rarely see do much discernible difference (x-wings do get blown out of the sky space just as easily as TIEs), defense dice work just fine for the most part, as it has some chance of stopping a hit cold (causing enough failures for the shot to miss) or reducing damage taken (reducing excess successes with failures, or using threats to reduce excess advantages that could have been used to activate abilities like linked, or causing critical hits).

How would it be weird? They're targeting a city, base, or other location on a planet. The shield provides Setback dice to hitting said target because it's blocking those shots, preventing the city from being hit.

On 1/18/2019 at 11:08 PM, penpenpen said:

Nope. It is also deflecting and redirecting it, at least when a hit bounces.

So you're on board with soak and defense on armor now? Good that you agree.

I literally just said that. I also said its beside the point as they behave differently from ship shields as they let no hits through before they go down. Gosh dang it Tramp, read what you reply to!

The tank is still being physically struck. As such, kinetic energy from the impact is still transferred to said target, which the armor has to absorb, even if the actual projectile is redirected. As such, the armor is still absorbing damage from a shot that has hit its target. This is because the armor is directly attached to and is a part of what it protects. This is true with tanks, starfighters, captial ships, personal armor, etc.

By contrast, shields surround what they protect in a "bubble", which prevents that target from being hit at all. The shields aren't directly attached to or worn by what they protect, and the shot has to get through the shields to even reach its intended target.

2 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

How would it be weird? They're targeting a city, base, or other location on a planet. The shield provides Setback dice to hitting said target because it's blocking those shots, preventing the city from being hit.

Except the big shields block 100% of all shots thrown at them, nothing gets through. Due to their portrayal, it's a bit more vague with ship shields. So using the defense dice mechanic would be unsuitable if you want to reproduce the same narrative, or simulated, effect. In this case, staying consistent to a specific mechanic just shoots you in the foot, as it doesn't do what you need it to do.

Also, that argument is critically flawed, as I could say the same for tank armor. It should provide defensive dice because it blocking shots from hitting the crew and internal components. In practical effect to weapon impacts, big shields are shown to be as solid as physical armor. For that matter, the argument:

2 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

it's blocking those shots, preventing the city from being hit.

could even be applied to body armor, if you swap "city" for "body", "wearer" or "inner organs".

2 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

The tank is still being physically struck. As such, kinetic energy from the impact is still transferred to said target, which the armor has to absorb, even if the actual projectile is redirected. As such, the armor is still absorbing damage from a shot that has hit its target. This is because the armor is directly attached to and is a part of what it protects. This is true with tanks, starfighters, captial ships, personal armor, etc.

The shield is also being physically struck. As they are projected be shield generators physically attached to the ships, this means the ship is too. Of course, the as portrayal of shields is a bit vague, I'm not going to go dig around for dialogue whenever we see a ship shook by impact to try to find out if the shields were down for that particular impact as it's bound to prove nothing.

3 hours ago, Tramp Graphics said:

By contrast, shields surround what they protect in a "bubble", which prevents that target from being hit at all. The shields aren't directly attached to or worn by what they protect, and the shot has to get through the shields to even reach its intended target.

Again, that argument is flawed, because by the same argument it would be reasonable to just add defense dice if I were to try to hit a tank crewman in a fully enclosed tank. After all, he is also surrounded by a shield (of solid armor) that prevents him from being hit, that he isn't directly attached to. You could even make the same argument for someone inside an enclosed bunker.
Also (again) , the big shields we're talking about doesn't make it harder to hit the planet/gungan army behind them, it makes it more or less impossible, unless you have something powerful enough to breach it or wear it down. I mean, if all shields should be portrayed by defense dice, how in the name of George would you portray something like the rebels trying to bring down the shield gate through sheer firepower (ie not dropping Star Destroyers on it) at Scarif. They're not aiming at something behind it, and they obviously aren't shooting through it...

On 1/20/2019 at 4:35 PM, penpenpen said:

Except the big shields block 100% of all shots thrown at them, nothing gets through. Due to their portrayal, it's a bit more vague with ship shields. So using the defense dice mechanic would be unsuitable if you want to reproduce the same narrative, or simulated, effect. In this case, staying consistent to a specific mechanic just shoots you in the foot, as it doesn't do what you need it to do.

Also, that argument is critically flawed, as I could say the same for tank armor. It should provide defensive dice because it blocking shots from hitting the crew and internal components. In practical effect to weapon impacts, big shields are shown to be as solid as physical armor. For that matter, the argument:

could even be applied to body armor, if you swap "city" for "body", "wearer" or "inner organs".

The shield is also being physically struck. As they are projected be shield generators physically attached to the ships, this means the ship is too. Of course, the as portrayal of shields is a bit vague, I'm not going to go dig around for dialogue whenever we see a ship shook by impact to try to find out if the shields were down for that particular impact as it's bound to prove nothing.

Again, that argument is flawed, because by the same argument it would be reasonable to just add defense dice if I were to try to hit a tank crewman in a fully enclosed tank. After all, he is also surrounded by a shield (of solid armor) that prevents him from being hit, that he isn't directly attached to. You could even make the same argument for someone inside an enclosed bunker.
Also (again) , the big shields we're talking about doesn't make it harder to hit the planet/gungan army behind them, it makes it more or less impossible, unless you have something powerful enough to breach it or wear it down. I mean, if all shields should be portrayed by defense dice, how in the name of George would you portray something like the rebels trying to bring down the shield gate through sheer firepower (ie not dropping Star Destroyers on it) at Scarif. They're not aiming at something behind it, and they obviously aren't shooting through it...

No, because the shields prevent the city, or planet's surface from getting hit at all. That's Defense. Defense is a measure of how hard it is to hit something. Soak is a measure of how hard it is to damage something that has already been hit. Shields make it harder to hit a target. Armor makes it harder to damage a target.

As for tank armor. The armor is a part of the tank itself. For the armor to do its job, the tank first has to take a hit. Ergo, the armor is absorbing the kinetic energy imparted by the round fired at it while potentially turning the actual round away. There is still damage done from that impact that the armor needs to absorb. The same for body armor. Body armor absorbs damage. A weapon doesn't have to penetrate the armor to cause damage. Even if an attack is "deflected", there is still the impact of the blow which can still potentially cause bruises or even broken bones. As such, it's a matter of how much of the damage that the armor can soak that's most important, not whether the armor can "deflect" the shot.

I must say I like the "Shields as soak" idea better than what we got. It fits the lore better, movie lore included, to have Shields help improve a ship's armor, for several reasons. We rarely ever see a shielded fighter go down in one shot in Star Wars media unless it's from the very unlikely event of a capital ship blast, it usually takes several shots from anti-fighter cannons or the cannons of other fighters, whether it be several individual hits or twin/tri/quad shots all hitting at once. This also follows with unshielded fighters like the TIE fighter going down so easily from even a single shot, while even ones with weak shields last much longer. It would also make fighters and shields more viable in general, since as it is they tend to vaporize or shut down in 2, 3 rounds at the most, taking 1 or 2 HT or SST per hit at most 3 after counting successes would make them last longer. It would also improve the worth of Ion weapons considering they could be used to deactivate shields and thus improve damage for successive attacks.

As ships go up in size the armor and shields tend to increase proportionally, as a result fighters begin to need to jockey to weaker parts of the bigger ship's shields and/or use torpedoes to be able to do any damage at all. This also fits the lore, as fighters (plot protected protagonists, their lucky breaks, and their "crazy enough to work" plans aside) are mainly only of much good against small ships like the Falcon or other fighters, being useless against large ships like the ISD unless the fighters had torpedoes or managed to bring down their shields first. With Capital ships like the ISD they need fighters to hit them with a good half dozen or so torpedoes to go down, and against another Capital ship it's a long slugfest with neither getting through the other's shields much and gradually chipping away at each other until one finally took the other down, or again the shields go down or use torpedoes to finish it off. Using shields as more soak has it follow what we see in the movies and especially the EU much more closely.

The issue of course being that this drags out the fights, which a lot of people it seems don't like the system for vehicle combat to begin with.

7 minutes ago, immortalfrieza said:

I must say I like the "Shields as soak" idea better than what we got. It fits the lore better, movie lore included, to have Shields help improve a ship's armor, for several reasons. We rarely ever see a shielded fighter go down in one shot in Star Wars media unless it's from the very unlikely event of a capital ship blast, it usually takes several shots from anti-fighter cannons or the cannons of other fighters, whether it be several individual hits or twin/tri/quad shots all hitting at once. This also follows with unshielded fighters like the TIE fighter going down so easily from even a single shot, while even ones with weak shields last much longer.

People keep bringing this up, but it usually only rings true in the rpgs, some of the video games, and the EU books that started out heavily based on the x-wing games.

As for the films and the animated series, x- and y-wings don't seem much more durable than tie fighters.

23 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No, because the shields prevent the city, or planet's surface from getting hit at all. That's Defense. Defense is a measure of how hard it is to hit something. Soak is a measure of how hard it is to damage something that has already been hit. Shields make it harder to hit a target. Armor makes it harder to damage a target.

As for tank armor. The armor is a part of the tank itself. For the armor to do its job, the tank first has to take a hit. Ergo, the armor is absorbing the kinetic energy imparted by the round fired at it while potentially turning the actual round away. There is still damage done from that impact that the armor needs to absorb. The same for body armor. Body armor absorbs damage. A weapon doesn't have to penetrate the armor to cause damage. Even if an attack is "deflected", there is still the impact of the blow which can still potentially cause bruises or even broken bones. As such, it's a matter of how much of the damage that the armor can soak that's most important, not whether the armor can "deflect" the shot.

This is all very interesting, Trampy, but I think you've managed to lose yourself in your own argument.

Unless you're actually advocating that the gungan army, or the planet Scarif, should have been injured by the non-penetrating impacts on their respective shields? From a rules perspective, that is.

1 minute ago, penpenpen said:

This is all very interesting, Trampy, but I think you've managed to lose yourself in your own argument.

Unless you're actually advocating that the gungan army, or the planet Scarif, should have been injured by the non-penetrating impacts on their respective shields? From a rules perspective, that is.

No. The shields prevented the Gungan army from being hit by the Trade Federation's droids, just as the Droidika's shields save them from getting hit, and the Scarif shields prevent Scarif Base from being hit. That's the purpose of shields.

15 minutes ago, immortalfrieza said:

I must say I like the "Shields as soak" idea better than what we got. It fits the lore better, movie lore included, to have Shields help improve a ship's armor, for several reasons. We rarely ever see a shielded fighter go down in one shot in Star Wars media unless it's from the very unlikely event of a capital ship blast, it usually takes several shots from anti-fighter cannons or the cannons of other fighters, whether it be several individual hits or twin/tri/quad shots all hitting at once.

You must be watching different movies than I.

In the Battle of Yavin most X-wing and Y-wings don't take many hits at all to kill. And in Rebels we see a ship visibly taking hull damage even though it's shields are still up.

In Star Wars shields are really inconsistent. Sometimes they block shots completely, sometimes they seem nearly worthless.

You might be able to have the Shields as Soak work, but it would be tricky to make work and you'd probably have to rejigger some weapons and base hull numbers to make it all balance out right.

But really, it seems like most of the complaints about shields aren't really about shields, but about Starfighter survivability. Basically the likes of X-wing, Rogue Squadron, and Battlefront got everyone used to fighters packing powerful Trek-styled shields. There's really not enough material to confirm such an assumption, but as a mechanic for those games it made sense.

If anything FFG's take, while perhaps not perfect, did something pretty groundbreaking for Star Wars gaming... it made the TIE Fighter totally justifiable. By making shields not that great, it explained why the TIE Fighter didn't bother with them, and even made it a useful game mechanic in that Minions don't have the Action Economy to muck about with shields all that much anyway.

And that's really half the issue when talking Fighter Survivability. In video games you control the vertical and the horizontal. You can make the TIE Fighter totally unplayable, and as such not worry about if it's lack of shields is a huge deal, only if it can do what you need it to do when the player fights against it.

In an RPG, you have to look at the TIE fighter and say "What happens if a player needs to get in one?" FFG's answered seems to be "Well, roughly the same thing that happens when you hop in most other fighters."

4 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No. The shields prevented the Gungan army from being hit by the Trade Federation's droids, just as the Droidika's shields save them from getting hit, and the Scarif shields prevent Scarif Base from being hit. That's the purpose of shields.

Ah, yes, but to the point of your hairsplitting semantics:

Would you represent this in game by a number of defense dice? If so, how many? Each die only has a 33% of rolling a fail, and considering that planets and gungans armies are fairly easy targets, you're probably going to need a few to cancel out the successes. RAW caps you at 4 dice, but hey, why not throw 20 or 30 at a time?*
*Because it's damned inconvenient.

If a player says "I shoot at the shield, hoping to bring it down by attrition" should you roll defense dice for the shield? Or does he have to target the planet/army?

...

You do remember that this is what the discussion, ultimately, was about, right?

1 minute ago, penpenpen said:

Ah, yes, but to the point of your hairsplitting semantics:

Would you represent this in game by a number of defense dice? If so, how many? Each die only has a 33% of rolling a fail, and considering that planets and gungans armies are fairly easy targets, you're probably going to need a few to cancel out the successes. RAW caps you at 4 dice, but hey, why not throw 20 or 30 at a time?*
*Because it's damned inconvenient.

If a player says "I shoot at the shield, hoping to bring it down by attrition" should you roll defense dice for the shield? Or does he have to target the planet/army?

...

You do remember that this is what the discussion, ultimately, was about, right?

You're targeting the city, army, installation, etc. unless you want to target the shield generator and take down the shields.

11 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

If anything FFG's take, while perhaps not perfect, did something pretty groundbreaking for Star Wars gaming... it made the TIE Fighter totally justifiable. By making shields not that great, it explained why the TIE Fighter didn't bother with them, and even made it a useful game mechanic in that Minions don't have the Action Economy to muck about with shields all that much anyway.

Throw in the Snap Roll house rule and the TIE becomes the holy terror I always saw it as. To me it never made sense that TIEs were supposed to be disposable cardboard suicide machines.

2 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

You're targeting the city, army, installation, etc. unless you want to target the shield generator and take down the shields.

If taking down the shield generator is the only way, no planetary shield would ever fail.

Now answer the rest of the post or I will consider you having conceded all points, because I've had it with your cherry picking.

5 minutes ago, penpenpen said:

If taking down the shield generator is the only way, no planetary shield would ever fail.

Now answer the rest of the post or I will consider you having conceded all points, because I've had it with your cherry picking.

I concede nothing.

15 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

No. The shields prevented the Gungan army from being hit by the Trade Federation's droids, just as the Droidika's shields save them from getting hit, and the Scarif shields prevent Scarif Base from being hit. That's the purpose of shields.

All three of those examples muddy the waters though, to the point that we can't even be 100% sure if those shields, vehicle shields, and personal shields are the same kind of shields.

Planetary shields can still monkey with difficulty if you consider ranges, available weapons that can reach them, and the size of a target. A Sil 8 Star Destroyer shooting at a Sil 4 building with 2+ Defenses from it's shields is going to be tricky. Toss in blocking vehicles from passing through and Scarif could still be discussed. Of course the only time we've actually seen a planetary shield in 100% action against a bombardment is in Rebels, which means statting a planetary shield at all might be goofy and it should be left to GM fiat.

The Gungan shield could be something we haven't seen yet. It wasn't your typical "planetary shield" and in TPM it was largely impenetrable, though perhaps it was just strong enough, or had a special rule affecting difficulties, required targeting or something like that. Though again, perhaps we're overanalyzing and it's another GM fiat situation built to make the encounter interesting, not to be applied with any specific logic.

That really only leaves the Droidika. That thing we've got plenty of examples of how it works. But it's still proven to be not impenetrable. So form a game design perspective you have to make a call. Do you make it match other Shields to be consistent, and accept it's not perfect with the lore? Or do you make it perfect with the lore and require it use a totally different system that requires extra work to balance?

1 minute ago, Ghostofman said:

All three of those examples muddy the waters though, to the point that we can't even be 100% sure if those shields, vehicle shields, and personal shields are the same kind of shields.

Planetary shields can still monkey with difficulty if you consider ranges, available weapons that can reach them, and the size of a target. A Sil 8 Star Destroyer shooting at a Sil 4 building with 2+ Defenses from it's shields is going to be tricky. Toss in blocking vehicles from passing through and Scarif could still be discussed. Of course the only time we've actually seen a planetary shield in 100% action against a bombardment is in Rebels, which means statting a planetary shield at all might be goofy and it should be left to GM fiat.

The Gungan shield could be something we haven't seen yet. It wasn't your typical "planetary shield" and in TPM it was largely impenetrable, though perhaps it was just strong enough, or had a special rule affecting difficulties, required targeting or something like that. Though again, perhaps we're overanalyzing and it's another GM fiat situation built to make the encounter interesting, not to be applied with any specific logic.

That really only leaves the Droidika. That thing we've got plenty of examples of how it works. But it's still proven to be not impenetrable. So form a game design perspective you have to make a call. Do you make it match other Shields to be consistent, and accept it's not perfect with the lore? Or do you make it perfect with the lore and require it use a totally different system that requires extra work to balance?

All of these shields are energy shields which prevent various specific types of attacks from hitting their intended targets, whether those attacks are energy, or physical ammunition. And, in all of these cases, unless you can overpower the shields, it takes something moving really slow to get through them. I would certainly put the Gungan shield as the same as a planetary shield, albeit smaller in scale.

11 minutes ago, Tramp Graphics said:

I concede nothing.

Yet you don't answer anything related to the crux of the issue (the application of rules) so....

Concession accepted, thanks for playing.

EDIT: You do get bonus philosophy points for concession by paradoxical statement though.

7 hours ago, Ghostofman said:

...

The Gungan shield could be something we haven't seen yet. It wasn't your typical "planetary shield" and in TPM it was largely impenetrable, though perhaps it was just strong enough, or had a special rule affecting difficulties, required targeting or something like that. Though again, perhaps we're overanalyzing and it's another GM fiat situation built to make the encounter interesting, not to be applied with any specific logic.

...

I have heard that one mentioned as a theater shield, used to shield a specific area. So it's the same sort of shield we see over the base in Rebels and the same type we see at the base on Hoth (although we have no real visual indicator for that shield). So you need ground forces to go through the shield to get in, and it seems like said ground forces need to have contact with the ground while making their way through the shield, so hovertanks or low altitude fliers can't get in.

At least that's the way I would rule it if I was the GM. You can't just shoot your way through or fire missiles or whatever. Have to walk through the shield and then wreck the generator for it. Or slag the surrounding area hard enough to destabilize the ground under the shield and get it to swallow up the whole thing. But PC's are unlikely to have the firepower or time needed for such a thing.

5 hours ago, Darth Revenant said:

I have heard that one mentioned as a theater shield, used to shield a specific area. So it's the same sort of shield we see over the base in Rebels and the same type we see at the base on Hoth (although we have no real visual indicator for that shield). So you need ground forces to go through the shield to get in, and it seems like said ground forces need to have contact with the ground while making their way through the shield, so hovertanks or low altitude fliers can't get in.

At least that's the way I would rule it if I was the GM. You can't just shoot your way through or fire missiles or whatever. Have to walk through the shield and then wreck the generator for it. Or slag the surrounding area hard enough to destabilize the ground under the shield and get it to swallow up the whole thing. But PC's are unlikely to have the firepower or time needed for such a thing.

Do you remember which episode of rebels has the shield?

I want to go back and rewatch it now. I've noticed that sometimes we don't remember things the way they happened.

15 minutes ago, Ghostofman said:

Do you remember which episode of rebels has the shield?

I want to go back and rewatch it now. I've noticed that sometimes we don't remember things the way they happened.

• S03E11: Ghosts of Geonosis: Part 1 has a small 'planetary' shield protecting Sabine and Zeb from droid dekas
• S03E20 & 21: Zero Hour: Parts 1 and 2 has the aforementioned Sabine shield retrofitted to protect Chopper base from bombardment
• S04E15: Family Reunion - and Farewell includes an imperial planetary shield protecting Capital City on Lothal from a 3-Star Destroyer bombardment

All of the above examples are of plot device, not actual Defense (in the game mechanics sense). In Ghosts of Geonosis, it was an old and fairly run-down shield generator. It gave the PCs a chance to get the deactivation switch and save the ones stuck under the shield. In Zero Hour, it was a timing thing. Can the mechanic keep making the checks to prevent the shield generator from overloading? Finally, in Family Reunion - and Farewell, it was a "can we get the shield up in time to save the civilians?"

All three examples are a timing thing and not a "roll to hit, add 4 setback for the awesome shield." FWIW

On 1/12/2019 at 7:35 PM, Typherian said:

It seems like just having a defense zone to equal shields on starships is not adequately portraying what we know from our knowledge of star wars.

They work just fine (from a certain point of view).

Look at it this way: Shields are always on (as long as you don't take the nasty shields down crit). Sometimes a shot passes through shields, as they are not active every nanosecond (The Force Awakens proves this, since planetary shields even have a refresh rate that can be bypassed by an idiot/hero flying thru them at hyperspace speeds). Other times the shields properly "deflect" a shot.

Or, adopt the maneuver from Genesys that reduces hull trauma/crits by taking system strain and factor the system strain in as your shield's HP.