General Sword and Planet - Dune like combat but without personal shields

[mike wightman]

It is a real world example of how law level is not always the best guide to what happens on the ground.

Travellers have a tendency to treat local law levels as advisory rather than prescriptive...

 

[Ildefonse]

EDIT, I forgot to mention on topic that Fading Suns has Energy Shields and I think I saw that one version is compatible with Traveller?

There is a d20 version of Fading Suns, which I suppose could be considered compatible with T20. I have the 1st & 2nd editions of Fading Suns, and don't consider their alternate d20/d6 system compatible with Traveller (except as grist for the mill). The most recent Fading Suns kickstarter looked like it amped the d20/d6 system up to 11, just based on the Quickstart and character sheet.

How Fading Suns treats energy shields (i.e., by having min/max damage thresholds) answers the OP's question of how to "simulate the personal shields from Dune", whatever explanation they choose for their setting (technology, physics, culture, psionic, etc.).

 

[aramis]

Thanks for posting. Any further discussion about it does belong in The Pit, I believe.

Yep.

 

[mothman]

It sounds like you have most of your questions answered, but I did want to chime in about the shields and "slow blade" thing.

Right now, the slowest commercially available bullet has a muzzle velocity of around 420 fps. Which is tremendously slow for a firearm as it's almost comparable to a BB gun's velocity. By contrast, the fastest that a human can swing a blade (or thrust, in this case) is at 160 fps. This number comes from Olympic fencer thrusts, btw. More commonly, a blade can be swung at a maximum of around 70 fps.

The point that I'm trying to make is that even the fastest blade is almost 1/4 the velocity of the slowest firearm projectile. So I always found it more realistic that a Dune-style energy shield would stop everything above 200 fps, or whatever and still leave complete room for melee combat. Even arrows and bolts from bows and crossbows typically travel around 250 fps.

So depending on what you're going for, any kind of velocity-based shielding (like the fluid/nano armor that @mike wightman mentioned) is very plausible at being able to stop kinetic rounds but be vulnerable to bladed weapons and you wouldn't necessarily have to do any "slow knife" stuff either. The fastest melee attack doesn't even come close to the slowest firearm projectile.

 

[Spinward Scout]

There is a d20 version of Fading Suns, which I suppose could be considered compatible with T20. I have the 1st & 2nd editions of Fading Suns, and don't consider their alternate d20/d6 system compatible with Traveller (except as grist for the mill). The most recent Fading Suns kickstarter looked like it amped the d20/d6 system up to 11, just based on the Quickstart and character sheet.

How Fading Suns treats energy shields (i.e., by having min/max damage thresholds) answers the OP's question of how to "simulate the personal shields from Dune", whatever explanation they choose for their setting (technology, physics, culture, psionic, etc.).

I'm kinda surprised that there wasn't one in the Central Supply Catalog. I seem to remember something, tho...

 

[Condottiere]

In theory, we're not supposed to have energy shields.

 

[aramis]

In theory, we're not supposed to have energy shields.

Force Fields are TL17+ IIRC. Dune's a poor fit to CT's Tech Levels.

 

[mike wightman]

Not anymore.
MgT Third Imperium has a personal energy shield at TL15. And it is now canon.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Not anymore.
MgT Third Imperium has a personal energy shield at TL15. And it is now canon.

I knew I saw it somewhere!

 

[coliver988]

and the Zentag Pirates article in Adventure gaming:
EQUIPMENT: ADVANCED

ALLOY BLADES (TL 9+)
+3 to hit and +3 pts. of damage beyond that of a normal weapon. For Azhanti HL add 2 to the melee factor of a character using one.

LASER PIKE (TL 9+)
Treat as a laser carbine in all respects except melee, for melee treat as a +3 PIKE but doing damage as a laser car-bine. For AHL give +3 to the melee factor of the user.

THE ZENTAG SHIELD BELT
(Artifact)
Very rare. All projectile weapons except the low velocity snub and body pistols incur a minus 8 to hit; ram grenades, snub and body pistols incur a minus 5; arrows and crossbow bolts a minus 4; hand held missile weapons a minus 2; any melee weapon a minus one. All Energy type weapons affect the belts as described above.


Other facts about the belt: It weighs 2 kg and cannot be duplicated or manufactured except at TL 16+. The only discernible controls are an on/off switch. It has one other function in that if the switch is rotated then pressed in, the belt will stop being a repulsor and act as an anti-grav device allowing the user to float up or down but not move horizontally as it has no motive unit.

(the image to text worked pretty well on my phone which is almost magical to me)

 

[Spinward Scout]

ALLOY BLADES (TL 9+)
+3 to hit and +3 pts. of damage beyond that of a normal weapon. For Azhanti HL add 2 to the melee factor of a character using one.

That +3 to Hit sounds like too much.