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I'm sad to see it appears they have removed the boon from blocking with a shield. Anyone that has done reenactment or martial arts probably have experienced how much easier it is to block something with a shield than parry with a weapon (at least that's my personal experience).

If they want to make it more even between parry or blocking they could always consider making blocking with a shield working as "active armour". So if you succeed with your block you remove, e.g. 5, damage from the attack instead of negating it completely.

Yea Shield's in there current form don't have much use.
I would prefer restoring Boon to parrying with a shield, maybe restrict it to Shield's get a boon to parry but only if used with say a "Shield" skill.
Because in their current form they more or less are just a parry stick, they don't even have that much more durability to make them worth it, the small shield has as much durability as a longsword and large shields only has 3 more durability than that, their only advantage atm is that they are cheaper.

Well they do let you parry a range attack, but even then I would like to see some form of buff to shield's

I'd also like to see the boon to parry come back. Being able to build a true sword-n-board tank felt a bit more differentiated from just using a weapon to parry. Just being able to block ranged attacks isn't quite enough to prop up shields by itself.

Just want add another vote for returning the boon to shield use. I found it gave a real feeling of value to using a shield and differentiation between styles of fighting without needing to add a specific shield skill, and with the action economy never seemed overpowered compared to non shield users. It seemed to give real flavour for ‘sword and board’ (or spear/axe and board) characters.

speaking of shields...
Give it some cool heroic abilities !

Maybe meet half way? I can see why removing boons on shields but i agree it was very neat and could serve as a motivation to parry. And i think in general giving parry cool heroic abilities would serve as a neat balance towards evade that has few. I made some suggestions on the swedish side on some abilities.

Shield Mastery
Req: STR weapon skill 12
Wp: 1
You can activate this ability when parrying with a shield to roll with a boon. This ability can be combined with the Defensive and Stand against monsters abilities.

Stand Against Monsters
Req: STR weapon skill 12
Wp: 1
When a monster attacks with a physical melee attack, such as using a weapon, teeth, claws or an unarmed strike, you may activate this ability to attempt to parry it even when you normally could'nt. This ability do not work against non-physical attacks such as a demon's curse or a dragon's fire breath, nor can it be used to parry attacks from creatures that are gigantic in size or are a swarm. This ability can be combined with the Defensive and Shield Mastry abilities.

Shield Bash
Req: STR weapon skill 12
Wp: 2
After you succesfully parry an with a shield, you can activate this ability to attempt to attack with your shield if the target is next too you. Make an attack roll, on a success the target, if capable, may attempt to parry or evade the attack. You can not activate this ability when parrying against an attack that rolled a dragon.

Riposte
Req: STR weapon skill 12
Wp: 3
After you succesfully parry an attack, you can activate this ability to attempt to make an counter attack if the target is next too you. Make an attack roll with your weapon, but with a Bane. On a success, the target, if capable, may attempt to parry or evade the attack. If you rolled a dragon on your parry, you can instead activate this ability to deal an D8 extra damage on the free attack. You cannot activate this ability when parrying against an attack that rolled a Dragon.

I like the idea behind these suggestions, especially shield mastery allowing a boon for 1WP sounds a good compromise

Maybe meet half way? I can see why removing boons on shields but i agree it was very neat and could serve as a motivation to parry. And i think in general giving parry cool heroic abilities would serve as a neat balance towards evade that has few. I made some suggestions on the swedish side on some abilities.

Shield Mastery
Req: STR weapon skill 12
Wp: 1
You can activate this ability when parrying with a shield to roll with a boon. This ability can be combined with the Defensive and Stand against monsters abilities.

Stand Against Monsters
Req: STR weapon skill 12
Wp: 1
When a monster attacks with a physical attack, such as using a weapon, teeth, claws or an unarmed strike, you may activate this ability to attempt to parry it even when you normally could'nt. This ability do not work against non-physical attacks such as a demon's curse or a dragon's fire breath, nor can it be used to parry attacks from creatures that are gigantic in size or are a swarm.

Shield Bash
Req: STR weapon skill 12
Wp: 2
After you succesfully parry an with a shield, you can activate this ability to attempt to attack with your shield if the target is next too you. Make an attack roll, on a success the target, if capable, may attempt to parry or evade the attack. You can not activate this ability when parrying against an attack that rolled a dragon.

Riposte
Req: STR weapon skill 12
Wp: 3
After you succesfully parry an attack, you can activate this ability to attempt to make an counter attack if the target is next too you. Make an attack roll with your weapon, but with a Bane. On a success, the target, if capable, may attempt to parry or evade the attack. If you rolled a dragon on your parry, you can instead activate this ability to deal an D8 extra damage on the free attack. You cannot activate this ability when parrying against an attack that rolled a Dragon.

Oh I like that, yes that would probably work pretty nicely.

Stand Against Monsters
Req: STR weapon skill 12
Wp: 1
When a monster attacks with a physical attack, such as using a weapon, teeth, claws or an unarmed strike, you may activate this ability to attempt to parry it even when you normally could'nt. This ability do not work against non-physical attacks such as a demon's curse or a dragon's fire breath, nor can it be used to parry attacks from creatures that are gigantic in size or are a swarm.

Like it overall, but 1 willpower to circumvent the evade skill seems to cheap.
Could add a bane, up the wp cost, or make something a bit more exciting, say risk to your shield on a failure (shield is not build for that kind of force evt)

Stand Against Monsters
Req: STR weapon skill 12
Wp: 1
When a monster attacks with a physical attack, such as using a weapon, teeth, claws or an unarmed strike, you may activate this ability to attempt to parry it even when you normally could'nt. This ability do not work against non-physical attacks such as a demon's curse or a dragon's fire breath, nor can it be used to parry attacks from creatures that are gigantic in size or are a swarm.

Like it overall, but 1 willpower to circumvent the evade skill seems to cheap.
Could add a bane, up the wp cost, or make something a bit more exciting, say risk to your shield on a failure (shield is not build for that kind of force evt)

Unless you want to spend your entire action doing it you are also spending 3WP on Defensive to parry without spending your turn, so parrying a monster would cost 4WP with both Heroic Abilities while Dodge would cost 3 WP with only 1 Heroic Ability

Stand Against Monsters
Req: STR weapon skill 12
Wp: 1
When a monster attacks with a physical attack, such as using a weapon, teeth, claws or an unarmed strike, you may activate this ability to attempt to parry it even when you normally could'nt. This ability do not work against non-physical attacks such as a demon's curse or a dragon's fire breath, nor can it be used to parry attacks from creatures that are gigantic in size or are a swarm.

Like it overall, but 1 willpower to circumvent the evade skill seems to cheap.
Could add a bane, up the wp cost, or make something a bit more exciting, say risk to your shield on a failure (shield is not build for that kind of force evt)

Maybe, but you don't want it to expensive/risky because then players won't use it at all, simply it's not worth the hassel when you can evade it for free. Worth to consider it won't work against all monster attacks nor against all monsters (like a giant) plus some can already put you at risk, considering monster attacks hit hard, so your at a bigger risk of your weapon/shield breaking.