Tower Clarification.

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Tower Clarification.

Postby Syrus » Wed Jul 19, 2006 5:04 pm

Is there a particular position that the arm must be held in to check the dimensions of a shield?

The reason I ask is if there is a way to use a passing shield "illegally" without violating any concept of safety, then how could it have passed?

This feels to me as if we were differentiating the faces of a mace.

"You can use those straps like that, but if you turn your arm ninety degrees, you're off the field."
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Postby Big King Jimmy » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:07 pm

How do you hold your shield 99% of the time? That's how you check it.

I mean, come on, use your head. If you see a guy get a shield passed one way, then way more often than normal you see it sideways, that's obviously not the only way the shield was intended to be used.

I use a standard Edhellen Tower. When I go on a knee, yes, I turn it sideways. At that point it could be assumed that my shield is 4' wide and 2' tall. Or you could just make the assumption that I took a 4 foot tall and 2 foot WIDE shield, and turned it sideways for 30 seconds.

Now, the guy that was talked about having 2 sets of shield straps, if the guy took the time to put the shield straps on he obviously is planning on using it that way fairly often, I think whoever it was that said that the set of straps that when used normally would make the shield four feet wide, those straps fail, and I would actually fail the shield until the straps were removed.

It's not hard people "Hold up your sheild..... okay, under three feet, your good."
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Postby Syrus » Thu Jul 20, 2006 10:39 pm

The reason I ask is that the spirit of the rule would imply restricting the size of the shield, not how it's used. If he uses straps that could be held to turn the shield in an "illegal" manner, but he holds the arm in a way to make it legal often enough to be plausible, does it still fail?
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Postby Big King Jimmy » Thu Jul 20, 2006 11:15 pm

no
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Postby Syrus » Fri Jul 21, 2006 11:54 am

Then in order to fail the shield, you have to watch how they use the shield out on the field, and fail it if they ONLY use the straps in a manner inconsistent with the BOW?
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Postby Big King Jimmy » Fri Jul 21, 2006 12:50 pm

The way I'd do it, is treat it much like a weapon whose core snaps on the field. Man you thought it was okay, but after further inspection I guess it's not.

Just inform the guy "If I see your often turning your shield 90~ so that it's more than 3 feet wide, I'll tell you to remove it from the field."

Then, what's often? Use your gut. And think about this, if HE asks what often is, he obviously wants to use it that way way more than you'll want him to.
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Postby savetuba » Fri Jul 21, 2006 1:19 pm

this whole issue of turning a retangular tower 90 degrees thus making it illicit is absurd.

How do you determine the fine line between not abusing the rule and abusing it?

*If I relax my arm thus having the shield turned 90 degrees the shield becomes illicit.
*If I rotate the shield to help protect a fellow fighter the shield becomes illicit.
*If I am legged and I place a side on the ground the shield becomes illicit.

If it is so much of an issue then all towers should be banned because they can easily become illicit.
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Postby debuenzo » Fri Jul 21, 2006 2:00 pm

i agree with savetuba

also...

almost every time someone w/ a punch shield throws a high cross shot, they rotate the corner of their shield towards their sword arm, making it "wider" than 3 feet (measuring diagonally corner to corner)

can i not pivot the shield or angle it sideways consistently to block? am i only allowed to hold it with the shield bottom completely parallel to the ground?
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Postby MagnusofDregoth » Thu Feb 01, 2007 3:36 pm

Really, the rule should be more like Amtgard's, which stipulates that the maximum surface area for a shield is 8 square feet, regardless of shape. However, we should do something to make the size scale on a person-to-person basis, since a 4' by 2' shield doesn't offer much protection to someone who's 6'6" tall. We shouldn't make the height'width distinction, as shields are rarely held in a solely vertical manner.
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Postby debuenzo » Thu Feb 01, 2007 4:19 pm

MagnusofTaurendor wrote:However, we should do something to make the size scale on a person-to-person basis, since a 4' by 2' shield doesn't offer much protection to someone who's 6'6" tall.


yea, the bow does somewhat try to do this by the shield having to be 18 inches shorter than the person

but even so, this would be very hard to actually enforce or check

ive seen people just bring a large pile of shields to weapons check and drop them off....who knows who is wielding what?

i really dont think there is an issue at all
melannen has the right idea....whatever the shields primary use is

3 ft wide max by 18" shorter than the wielder max (which again is hard to enforce)
but i think it's fine as it stands and have never encountered a serious problem w/ playability
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Postby Forkbeard » Thu Feb 01, 2007 10:01 pm

I agreee that the rules work the way they are, if for no other reason than the game works.
BUt, a round sheild should be allowed to be bigger than 36". I have one and it needs to be 40 or 42" because I'm a freak.
Round shield s where commonly larger than 36" in the viking era and in the greek era.
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Postby Sir_Mel » Fri Feb 02, 2007 1:14 am

to me, this doesn't seem like an issue. Weapons were almost always crafted with a specific purpose in mind, this doesn't mean they were always used for that particular purpose. I agree that if we allowed to much creative interpretation of the rule it would definitely be abused far to much, however, there needs to be a little lei way (sp?) for this kind of thing. Even if there was a rule that stated that you couldn't use a tower shield sideways 1) how many people do you actually think would follow that and 2) How many heralds will seriously call people on that rule. I know one is supposed to be objective while heralding and judging only by the rules, however, I don't think I could see myself telling someone there dead cause they turned their shield sideways. It really doesn't give any unfair advantages. If you turn it sideways you can shield someone next to you or whatever. If you have an alternate set of straps that really wouldn't help you if you're standing up (lots of bulk in front of you and no leg protection) so you would probably use it like that on your knees. Most people will try and turn a tower on it side or somehow make it easier to use anyway when your so low to the ground. I actually think it'd be a really good idea, cause from what I've seen, tower users who get legged almost always get screwed. Just makes it friendly for gimps, not some uberleet way of cheating.

I like the idea of total shield surface area scaled to users. Being a big person (6'5" fat guy) I find some of the shield restrictions to be a bit limiting. However, if this were to come into effect, we'd run into the problem of small people losing there shields in battle and picking up a really big shield (say a 45" round). That going to be paying huge attention to how big a shield is when they're running around trying to stay alive. So, it's a good idea, but it would be very hard to employ it in such a way that people wouldn't take advantage of it.

So I think we can let the sideways shield thing pass, but the adjusted shield size needs work.

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Postby Oznog » Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:45 am

MagnusofTaurendor wrote:Really, the rule should be more like Amtgard's, which stipulates that the maximum surface area for a shield is 8 square feet, regardless of shape.


Actually Amtgard has a 2-ft maximum width for any shape except round shields, which are limited only by sq footage (Large shield is 8 sq ft, which would be 38.3" wide). A round shape restricts how effectively the shoulders would be covered even with a 38.3" wide shield.
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