Personal Combat Shield

[TyCaine]

Anyone have rules for the Personal Combat Shields used by the Mandalorians?

I saw it mentioned where Bo-Katan Kryze used one to deflect blaster bolts.

https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Personal_Combat_Shield

Description is: "Personal Combat Shields were plasma shields that could be activated from the Mandalorian vambraces worn by the Mandalorian warriors. The shields could deflect blaster fire and were 50 centimeters in circumference."

I see them mentioned in this post and it mentions a +1D vs energy (which seems fair), it can be used to parry lightsabers (standard rules using brawl or melee parry), and deflect blaster bolts, but I didn't see rules to cover the latter.

Anyone have such a thing? I'm wanting to introduce a Mandalorian Bounty Hunter (not Boba) who will use something similar to make the character's lives difficult.

Or thoughts on how to do the blaster bolt deflection?

Thanks in advance!

~Ty
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"For every person with a spark of genius, there are a hundred with ignition trouble."

[CRMcNeill]

Treat it as Protection, per the rules on 93-94 of 2R&E. Something this size is probably only 1/4 Cover, so a modifier of -1D would be applied to any shots.

I disagree with Clone Wars / Rebels w/r/t non-FS characters being able to parry blaster shots, but a shield is more plausible for this than the staff weapons used by the new Mandalorian Guards. As such, it wouldn't be out of the question to allow a Melee Parry roll with some appropriate limitations.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Dredwulf60]

IMHO using the shield to reflect a blaster bolt is merely a bit of luck. It provides cover and if a blaster bolt reflects from it and hits an enemy, it's pure luck. Jedi have the Force on their side for things like that.

Still, there is a chance that a reflected bolt might be a useful deterrent to an attacker.

My personal ruling would be to allow a melee or brawl parry against the incoming shot. If the parry is successful, subtract the parry roll from the attack roll. The difference is counted as an attack roll for the reflected bolt.

ie.

attacker rolls his blaster attack and gets an 18 result.

Mandalorian rolls his parry and gets a 22 result.

The 22 is 4 points higher, so someone out in front of the mandalorian has a blaster bolt coming at him as if the mandalorian rolled a 4 on a blaster attack roll.

The counterpoint is that if the Mandalorian failed his parry, he takes the full brunt of the blaster bolt. (treat the blaster bolt as if it rolled maximum damage) normal soak applies.

[TyCaine]

I've been debating this with myself since I posted the question, and the more I think about it, the more I'm inclined to lean towards the fact that deflecting blaster bolts to purposefully strike other targets should be outside the realm of non-FS characters.

Deflecting the blaster bolts themselves would be possible with skill and practice (as well as awareness and line of sight to the firer, or direction the shot came from..... So common sense applies...) but they should be deflected randomly as appropriate by the GM. In general this could mean it just gets deflected into the ground or air, for cinematic moments though the bolt could luckily (or with the aid of a Force point) strike a suitable, or story related, target, for both good or ill.

Those with less skill can rely on a more generalized protection from the shield where it just provides 1/4 cover.

So I came up with the following and would appreciate comments:

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Personal Combat Shield
Model: Mandalorian Vambrace Combat Shield
Type: Energy shield
Scale: Character
Skill: Melee parry
Cost: Not available for sale
Availability: 4, X
Game Notes:
The Personal Combat Shield is a plasma shield that could be activated from some Mandalorian vambraces worn by the Mandalorian warriors. The vambrace creates a disk of plasma energy 50 centimeters in circumference.

Versus ranged attacks the shield provides the equivalent of 1/4 cover, and has a strength of 6D. An attack that does more damage than the shield strength overloads and penetrates the shield with the remaining damage. The shield itself is undamaged and is repowered by the vambrace for the next round.

Versus melee attacks the shield can be used to block brawling and melee attacks on a successful melee parry roll. The shield has a Strength of 6D. Due to it's energy state it can even be used to parry lightsabers. Against non-energy attacks that penetrate, the shield is unaffected and continues to function as normal, versus energy attacks (like a lightsaber) that penetrate the shield is overloaded and fails, but is in itself undamaged and is repowered by the vambrace for the next round.

Finally, the Mandalorian may use the shield to parry blaster bolts as a "reaction skill." To do this, the character must declare that he is parrying that round, using his melee parry skill.
The deflected blaster bolts are randomly directed towards the front, sides, above and below the Mandalorian (as applicable, and as determined by the GM) potentially doing damage as for the original blaster bolt.

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Thoughts? Any way better to present the details or consolidate them?

~Ty
_________________
"For every person with a spark of genius, there are a hundred with ignition trouble."

[CRMcNeill]

Since 1/4 Cover imparts a 1D modifier on enemy Gunnery, giving the Shield a +1D to Melee Parry would be appropriate, especially since the thing isn't going to have anything like the heft of physical shield.

Another possibility would be to allow it to alter its diameter to provide greater coverage, at the cost of Strength, basically a 1-for-1 trade-off for the amount of Protection it provides, thusly:

Cover Value = Protection Strength
1/4 = 6D
1/2 = 5D
3/4 = 3D

Also, an idea I've been playing around with for the Kilian Ranger Shield Gauntlet is to allow it to be shrunk down to buckler-size, which provides no Protection, but is the only mode that can be used to parry lightsabers.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[TyCaine]

Oh I like the idea of the melee parry bonus.

And the variable size to strength setting.... Hmm I'm going to need to incorporate those details in a rewrite...
Not so sure on the buckler setting for the Mando version, have to think on that.

And of course the blaster bolts deflected at GM's discretion means my Mandalorian could get a few 'lucky' hits in as appropriate, even if it's just to cause the blast door to close to enable him to escape....

Yes, I think this is coming together.
_________________
"For every person with a spark of genius, there are a hundred with ignition trouble."

[CRMcNeill]

Rather than GM's discretion, maybe base it on a Wild Dice result, so the character has to get lucky...
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[TyCaine]

I may just be tired, it's almost 3am here, but I'm not seeing how that would work, might just need to sleep on it, unless you have an example.

Either way I love the ideas and am going to have to write that up again.
_________________
"For every person with a spark of genius, there are a hundred with ignition trouble."

[MrNexx]

Did work on the physical side as "Bulwarks"

Short version: a shield adds Protection and Melee Parry.

With small shields, the Melee Parry bonus offsets the MAP; with a larger shield, it's more substantial. You can specialize in parrying with a shield, which makes it go up faster. The Cover Value at the link should more properly be Protection, and it applies whenever you've got a shield, and applies against pretty much all ranged attacks... even if I'm not consciously defending against blasters and slugthrowers, the fact that I've got a meter-wide circle of material protecting my 2 meter self goes a long way to not getting shot.
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"I've Seen Your Daily Routine. You Are Not Busy!"
“We're going to win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/

[CRMcNeill]

[MrNexx]

Simple option for reflection: Your attack roll is equal to your wild die for your Parry action, only.

So, I have 4D Melee Parry. Difficulty of 10, and I roll 4 3 6 2w. My attack roll for that shot is a 2; I parry, but that's it.

Next shot, I parry again, and roll 2 2 2 6w6,6,2. My parry total is 26, but I "only" use 20 of that to send the shot back.
_________________
"I've Seen Your Daily Routine. You Are Not Busy!"
“We're going to win this war, not by fighting what we hate, but saving what we love.”
http://rpgcrank.blogspot.com/

[CRMcNeill]

That’s a great idea. It effectively limits any rebound shots to Point Blank Range unless the shield user gets an exploding die result.
_________________
"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.

The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index

[Dredwulf60]

[TyCaine]

Love it, because you're not adding additional rolls as you're already rollign the Wild die, the player just needs to declare the attempt as part of the parry declaration, otherwise the Wild die functions as usual... I've rewritten the entry:

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Personal Combat Shield
Model: Mandalorian Vambrace Combat Shield
Type: Energy shield
Scale: Character
Skill: Melee parry
Cost: Not available for sale
Availability: 4, X
Game Notes:
The Personal Combat Shield is a plasma shield that could be activated from some Mandalorian vambraces worn by the Mandalorian warriors. The vambrace creates a disk of plasma energy that can be varied in size from 50 centimeters in circumference up to 150 centimeters. Size is selected at time of activation as part of a non-roll action.

The different sizes offer varying degrees of protection as shown in the table below:

[DougRed4]

Just wanted to say this is a really cool and well thought out item. Borrowing it now to use it later in my game!
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Currently Running: Villains & Vigilantes (a 32-year-old campaign with multiple groups) and D6 Star Wars; mostly on hiatus are Adventures in Middle-earth and Delta Green