Shield charge -Over powered?

[Avantio]

Let's say I have a good sword with damage step 6 (forged) and a buckler - note the difference in price and avability. I have the shield charge talent and I am aware of it's power so I invested in it and have it at rank 7.
It's more efficient for me to use my sword to attack to knockdown an opponent and then use my shield to bash him for more damage. This is just.. meh. Thats all I am ranting about - that this talent ecourages shield usage instead of a weapon. Not *as a weapon* but *instead of a weapon*. I prefer to buy two bucklers one for each hand and have step 7 damage on both attacks for a fraction of cost. And a bonus to knockdown if I manage to wound the character. Hey I can even riposte with shield!

[slayride]

Actually that is what Toke Heartfire did in my quest, got a talent knack for using Double Shields then used one for offense and one for defense. Then again IMB if you use Shield Charge, you lose its defensive benefits for the rest of the round after using as its out of position to defend (i.e. deflect/armor).

[Gkeckley]

At the lower levels shield charge is a very attractive choice, espicially if it is a discipline talent, as there are only a few talents that increase damage and these are usually very conditional such as surprise stike and maneuver. It is probably slightly overpowered until about 5th or 7th circle. However the fact that when facing multiple opponents you lose the armor bonus against everyone but the opponent you attacked I think helps keep the talent in check. Once you get to the point where someone has a threaded sword (depending on the campaign anywhere between 4th and 7th circle) then the sword will likely do the same or more damage unless you sink alot of legend into the shield charge talent. A threaded broadsword does base step 11, trollsword step 13 and the two handed sword step 17. Also, this is damage that can be done without the strain shield charge causes. An advantage not to be overlooked. The strain characters take at 7+ circle starts getting ridiculous and you start looking for ways to save. Between crushing blow or downstrike, second attack, momentum attack, avoid blow or parry, agrressive attack, tiger spring and or air dance, etc you can very easily be spending 7-8 strain in around and quite often in the double digits.

[Razan_GM]

[Avantio]

[galafrone]

shield charge can be useful if you overpower it with ranks of talent and you dont have any other threaded or just forged weapon available (so at circles 1-3).
My chars and all the players in our 3 campaigns, will never swap one of their weapon for a shield charge talent

weapons (like a regular broadsword) can have an 8 damage step (5 base, 3 forged) for silver
to reach that amount with shield charge, you have to spend 8700 legend point (remember that a maxed out character can reach from 1 to 4 circle expending just 7600 legend points..

if the weapon is a normal threaded item, it can have up to + 6 damage bonus (a standard 4 thread 5/6000 silvers item) so the broadsword can reach 11
where the talent will impose other 28.800 legend point expense just to reach 11 from 8

so you still think you can use this talent instead of a normal threaded weapon (that also has a 1100 lp cost to be threaded, but hey, i will trade 1100 lp and 5000 silvers any day instead of 37k+ legend point for the same effect basically) ?

i will never use it

and if your campaign reach 5th circle, you as master should consider to give out some good stuff to your player

obviously if in your meta
1) forged weapons are hard to find, extremely costly (more than in the regular rules)
2) threaded weapons are even rarer and/or totally out of the character spending capability
3) you dont give out/you dont let them find threaded weapons

well in this situation, shield charge is better than a weapon (and clawshape will be the absolute ruler)

[Avantio]

Hm I never thought of this from that side. I will see how the talet usage changes when I give out a couple of threaded weapons.

However, I still think that it makes more sense the way I modified it.

[galafrone]

for one, i will never allow a player to riposte with a shield, even if the talent doesnt prohibit it

[Razan_GM]

[The_Gun_Nut]

Here's something else to consider. When using a shield to execute a Shield Charge, you lose your defensive bonuses to every other opponent, as stated earlier. This is not only the armor bonus, but the deflection bonus from the shield. Meaning armor defeating hits are much more likely.

Granting a bonus attack is actually swinging too far the other direction. Instead of making the talent less powerful, it actually boosts the talents effectiveness.

Personally, I always considered the talent to be highly situational. A nice boost, but not overpowering given that it requires the character to either (1) sacrifice main attack to get extra knockdown or (2) dedicate a skill/talent (Second Weapon) toward using it at its full potential.