Shield Bash and Second Attack

[ChrisDDickey]

Yes, I am saying that the attack it'self is done with the shield. The player declares the attack will be a shield bash. He rolls his attack without using any bonus' for magic swords, etc. And then rolls Shield Bash for damage and the knockdown test happens, etc.
The visualization I have is of somebody hauling back and bashing somebody in the head with a shield.
Watch some fight sceanes with Captain America, it is one of his primary attack maneuvers.

I don't think ether one of us is going to convince the other.

I will leave this with the following points:

It all seems very simple and straightforward to me (you will recall that I came into this discussion simply over the wording of the errata, and the errata has subsequently been changed). I don't think I am making any assumptions, I am simply reading what the rules say. I am simply refusing to make assumptions that the rules are incorrect and going on into speculation as to what the rules should say.

If somebody tried to convince me that having an enhanced matrix always gave one free thread, whether the spell in question was in the matrix or not, I would read them the section on page 258 where it very clearly says the free thread is only for spells currently in an enhanced matrix.

Similarly, if somebody tries to convince me that "Shield Bash" did not evolve taking a shield and bashing somebody with it, I would gently point out to them that the name of the talent was "Shield Bash", and that the talent description clearly and unambiguously says "The adept may use his shield as a melee weapon". I would not start with the assumption that the rules were wrong and makeup additional rules that a shield must be an improvised weapon or that the Adept must have another weapon in his other hand as well and that other weapon needs to somehow be involved in the attack as well. I just read what the talent says, and do that.

I am not certain why you think that talents that have a damage replacement may have no other effects as well. It seems that just about all of them other than Down Strike and Claw Shape do. Specifically "charge" is the most obvious. A charge must be (or at least always is) declared ahead of time, It has a Damage Replacement Effect, and in addition Charge is also rolled to avoid the knockdown effect that the charge maneuver has. One talent that has two effects, only one of which is a damage replacement effect.
Surprise Strike is also kind of that way. Surprise Strikes are also almost always declared in advance. If you strike somebody by surprise, you get to use your Surprise Strike talent. If you don't attack them by surprise, you don't get to use your Surprise Strike talent. Similarly, if you bash somebody with your shield, you get to use your Shield Bash talent. If you don't bash them with your shield, you don't get to use your Shield Bash talent. It all seems very simple, straightforward and uncomplicated to me.

Shield Bash it'self is actually an example of a "Damage Replacement talent" that does more than DR. It does Damage. It also forces a knockdown test. It also allows an Adept to attack using a shield. I don't know why you have no problem with two of the effects, but argue that the line that basically says, "The adept gets to make weird attack" needs to be thrown out and ignored. And again, if somebody has has Shield Bash, they have been trained to do it, so it is not an improvised weapon. If somebody trained in throwing rocks, then rocks would not be an improvised weapon for them. Because they have been trained to do it.

I don't really see where you get this insistence that a talent that has a Damage Replacement effect can't also affect, or even allow an attack that can't be made without use of the talent. I mean what is the use of having a talent named "Shield Bash", if it did not allow you to bash somebody with your shield.

Everything else is just making an assumption that the rules are wrong, and then following that assumption into a huge rabbit hole of supposition. You read the 2nd line, say "This talent is a Damage Replacement Talent", therefor no part of the talent may come into play during the attack, therefore the first sentence must be ignored, and therefor ... on down the rabbit hole. If you stop ignoring the first sentence of the talent description it is actually very simple and straightforward.

[Mataxes]

The current intention (and we're working on making the errata/clarifications a little clearer) is that Shield Bash cannot be used with Second Weapon or Second Attack.

With Second Weapon, that's not going to change. The main reason has more or less been summed up here -- allowing it with Second Weapon allows somebody to get around the choice represented by going 2-hand (highest single weapon damage), 1-hand and shield (less damage but higher defense), or two 1-hand (possibly higher total damage but broken up across two different attack tests).

As for Second Attack, I don't think it's likely to change either (but I'm taking a second look).

Along with that I need to look at possible interactions with other talents because Versatility (which can always result in bizarre unintended combos). One of the issues here as well is the possibility of defining a shield as a "weapon" -- you're going to run into somebody, somewhere, who will ask about using Forge Weapon on it... (how far down the rabbit hole do you want to go?)

To be honest, if Shield Bash were changed to be an attack test (similar to swift kick), it would clear up a lot of the questions... but then you miss out on the increasing damage and knockdown effect from the talent's rank. (Unless you start to do odd things like have the rank be used for both attack and damage... which is kind of unprecedented in the rules, and not a path I want to pursue.)

[The Undying]

The current intention (and we're working on making the errata/clarifications a little clearer) is that Shield Bash cannot be used with Second Weapon or Second Attack

Appreciate the response, Mataxes. At least from my side, I don't think anyone is asking for a change, just clarification.

Shield Bash being prohibited for Second Attack is new, I think. I'm not sure I've seen that before. It does sound, though, like you're starting to move towards "Shield Bash can only be used with a Standard Action attack" - although, as you said, you are going to look at it more.

Lastly, it seems like you toed into the whole "shield is [not] a weapon" thing but then pulled away before providing clarity. As you can see, there's some confusion as to whether the shield is used as "a weapon" for the purpose of the attack or simply as the vehicle for damage. A straightforward "yes, the shield is used as the weapon for the attack" or "no, the shield is not used as the weapon for the attack" would be awesome. It SOUNDS like you're weighing in towards the latter, since you start talking about the complications of allowing a shield to count as a weapon, but I don't want to put words in your mouth. It sounds, also, like you guys are looking at providing a good chunk of clarification as errata, which may cover more than the Second Attack/Weapon stuff, so if that's the case, awesome, easy enough to wait if it we know it's coming down the pipe.

[Mataxes]

Regardless of the descriptive text in Shield Bash, a shield is not a weapon.

It is (as you put it) "the vehicle for damage" and secondary knockdown effect.

[The Undying]

Awesome, thanks! That, at least, cuts out the "sometimes it's a Weapon, sometimes it's not" confusion.

[ChrisDDickey]

So is a chair sometimes a weapon?
Is an "Improvised Melee weapon" such as a chair, tankard, rock, or torch sometimes a weapon or just a "vehicle for damage"?
Because it seems to me the basic point is that you are still hitting somebody with a chair.

[Mataxes]

Can we not go down the linguistic rabbit hole?

You're asking for a level of precision in the rules that isn't really supported by the common use of language. By the dictionary definition, anything you hit somebody with can be considered a "weapon" (and you can hit people with a lot of stuff). That doesn't mean it's automatically a valid target for any game rules relating to weapons.

(Like, "Could I use Forge Weapon on the pewter tankard I always carry so it does more damage in bar fights?")

It also doesn't mean we need to come up with pages of edge cases and special circumstances. There is no way for us to reach that level of precision (and I have no desire to do so).

Use a little bit of personal judgement.

[Slimcreeper]

I think most of the confusion stems from people who think it would be super sweet to have 2 broadswords and a shield.

That said, I would totally let player use second weapon to attack with a shield.

[The Undying]

People are gonna play how they want to play. People may tell you that you're wrong from a system point of view, but no one really has the right to tell you that you're plain wrong for doing it that way (and are bad gamers/readers/whatever by implication). Fireblood now has official errata that says healing aids don't help it - I doubt that will change any tables where they're allowed.

As to the Shield Bash + Second Weapon, it sounds like we've got our official answer: no. The confusion point about why (I.e., the awkward phrase about "off-hand") has been removed: justification is "because system." We also got some great developer confirmation in the why behind that: because of balance between 2H, 1H + Shield, and 1H + 1H (no Shield). Specifically (and these are my words), if someone uses a shield, they forfeit the ability to attack with the Shield arm, full stop, it doesn't just prevent holding a Weapon in the Shield arm's hand. With that knowledge, it naturally leads to other stuff, as best I can tell: if you've gone 1H + Shield, then you cannot Second Weapon, full stop.

If someone wants to set aside what is now "official" and allow 1H + Shield to act like 1H + 1H, hey, it's their table - they aren't "right" from a system point of view, and they'll likely run in to balancing issues (as is the case with most house rules), but they are "right" to play the game they want.

[The Undying]

As a related but also off-topic, it'd be awesome to get a clarification for the errata doc on the 2H, 1H + Shield, 1H + 1H. You (Mataxes) have written on it a few times, would be easy enough to lift some of that work and drop it there as easy-to-find system stuff (versus "this game designer's humble opinion on combat in RPGs"). Honestly, I think the only really rubbing point is the latter two, which could be cleared up pretty succinctly with something like: "use of a shield to receive defensive bonus prohibits both the use of a weapon in the off-hand and use of the off-hand for attack and vice versa (Weapon wielding or attacking with the off-hand prevents use of a shield for defensive bonuses)." The current wording of the "using a shield" section leaves it open-ended ("restricted to 1H weapons" has, as demonstrated, opened up interpretation that "of course the weapon I use for Second Weapon will be 1H, so I'm going 1H + 1H + Shield" ).