Baldur's Gate : The Sword Coast Chronicles : NWN2 Persistent World

Release from the bgtscc media team vault:

Sample Metal:



Sample Wooden:

These are very beautiful. The wooden border around the round ones looks very weird, though.

Can you make a tower shield that looks like a door? I know dalelands beyond had one years ago. It was a standard looking wooden door with a handle on it.

Edit: oh and maybe a heavy shield with istishia's symbol on it? Regardless they look great. Keep up the good work

the new large shields look great. very artsy. in a good way.

tower shield that is orc-worthy with/without a bunch of arrows in it. that would look awesome.

Can you make a tower shield that looks like a door? I know dalelands beyond had one years ago. It was a standard looking wooden door with a handle on it.

Your two shield requests have been noted. Thank you.

tower shield that is orc-worthy with/without a bunch of arrows in it. that would look awesome.

Your two shield requests have been noted. Thank you.

These look amazing!

YourMoveHolyMan wrote:These look amazing!

It's because YOUR AMAZING!


...my favorite port of shadows player "Hey pal, take a look at these items.." lol

"Hey, hey you - yeah you over there? You like stuff don't you? Course you do - who doesn't like stuff? Little of this a little of that - if your Hound aint got it it aint worth getting."

Fantastic!

Could we also get some round wooden tower shields? There's actually a few in the game already that are large enough, but they're categorized as 'large' shields despite being HUGE.

To be honest, the very last large shield listed bugs me. It looks like the green/brown/metal part should either be a shield of its own, or be a VERY pronounced shield boss. It just looks so very out of place on the wood.

One big question: how tintable are these shield designs? I really like the blue/white shield with the gem in the middle, but if it's not tintable that limits its uses.

Khazrak wrote:To be honest, the very last large shield listed bugs me. It looks like the green/brown/metal part should either be a shield of its own, or be a VERY pronounced shield boss. It just looks so very out of place on the wood.

One big question: how tintable are these shield designs? I really like the blue/white shield with the gem in the middle, but if it's not tintable that limits its uses.

The "boss" of that last one IS a shield of its own.



It's Gil-Galad's shield from the prologue scene of the Lord of the Rings (a few set pics show him with it, but it never appeared in the battle footage used on film).

I agree, it doesn't look right as a design on another shield. It really ought to be a separate shield of its own.

As a general critique, the artwork is high quality, but IMO I'd look at how actual shields are constructed for ideas on what the textures ought to look like. Shield rims would most commonly be covered by leather rather than the wooden edges used here (it's soft, flexible, and when shrunk around the edge it helps hold the whole construction together). If another material was used, it would be metal.

For shield construction, you're usually looking at a linen backing on the inside face, and either a linen, canvas, or leather surface applied to the front. Some shields didn't have a leather rim, in which case the facing would wrap around to the back of the shield.

Also, remember rivets for your straps!

Lindybeige is good. Thin shields do the job well. Not sure how perfectly the same logic applies in a world with characters of 40 strength, or hill giants with massive clubs the size of their enemies, but by and large the same logic will apply in most hand-to-hand combat scenarios.

Note the boss, of course - in that video he's using a buckler. It's thin, but the boss makes the middle stand out a little. It's typically present on circular shields and bucklers; not so much on other shapes. In future round shield (heavy/light shield) designs, I'd definitely suggest having a boss on a few of the designs, though not all. (IIRC their use began to fade over time, but the Vikings used them a lot.) Bucklers, due to their design and small size, almost always have a shield boss.

I'd love to see more heater shields, note, and perhaps more kite shields in the 'tower shield' category later.

As far as that shield based on Gil-Galad's goes: I'd just remove the wooden parts from the design and make the metal thing a shield on its own.

Personally, I'd love to see some simpler, tintable designs covered for most kinds of shields. Simple 4 square patterns for round shields are good (the ones found in-game already); same could apply to a kite and a heater shield... Maybe a half-and-half pattern, and other simpler patterns.

Anyway, with all that said... I do like the artistic designs on the faces of the shields by and large. Some of them look very bulky/heavy, such as the all-metal shield on the bottom middle of the first list, but that shield also looks as if it's supposed to evoke a dwarven feel. I get the sense that in a few cases (that shield + the elven shield based off Gil-Galad's in particular) there's gonna be some re-shaping of the wooden around the shield, and off-looking bits will be removed. As said, it all looks very good, but I can tell it's in the development phase.

I look forward to seeing the next stages!

Khazrak wrote:Lindybeige is good. Thin shields do the job well. Not sure how perfectly the same logic applies in a world with characters of 40 strength, or hill giants with massive clubs the size of their enemies, but by and large the same logic will apply in most hand-to-hand combat scenarios.

Note the boss, of course - in that video he's using a buckler. It's thin, but the boss makes the middle stand out a little. It's typically present on circular shields and bucklers; not so much on other shapes. In future round shield (heavy/light shield) designs, I'd definitely suggest having a boss on a few of the designs, though not all. (IIRC their use began to fade over time, but the Vikings used them a lot.) Bucklers, due to their design and small size, almost always have a shield boss.

I'd love to see more heater shields, note, and perhaps more kite shields in the 'tower shield' category later.

As far as that shield based on Gil-Galad's goes: I'd just remove the wooden parts from the design and make the metal thing a shield on its own.

Personally, I'd love to see some simpler, tintable designs covered for most kinds of shields. Simple 4 square patterns for round shields are good (the ones found in-game already); same could apply to a kite and a heater shield... Maybe a half-and-half pattern, and other simpler patterns.

Anyway, with all that said... I do like the artistic designs on the faces of the shields by and large. Some of them look very bulky/heavy, such as the all-metal shield on the bottom middle of the first list, but that shield also looks as if it's supposed to evoke a dwarven feel. I get the sense that in a few cases (that shield + the elven shield based off Gil-Galad's in particular) there's gonna be some re-shaping of the wooden around the shield, and off-looking bits will be removed. As said, it all looks very good, but I can tell it's in the development phase.

I look forward to seeing the next stages!

The boss is primarily associated with the center grip on early round shields, as that's what actually provided room (and protection) for the hand. The "punch grip" also facilitated using it as a striking surface. Some kite shields did have the boss for that reason: since they evolved from the round shields they initially retained the center grip, so a boss was necessary to fit the hand. Early strapped shields (particularly round and kites) retained the boss mostly for aesthetic reasons, however it eventually went away since it no longer served its primary function, and strapping the shield to the arm made the boss less usable as a weapon.

As far as thickness:

I'm of the mind that no matter HOW strong a character is, they're still going to want their equipment to be as light as practical. I don't care if you can curl 500lbs and bench a Buick, a 6lb longsword isn't going to be any better than one that weighs half that (speaking of, could we please, PLEASE fix the weapon weights? Even 5th Edition realized, "Oops, we made a mistake decades ago" and is starting to put things right). In fact in a lot of ways it would be WORSE.