By Joseph Wakeling

The allowing of using VPs to knock down damage allows guns and other projectile weapons to by pass shields, which is historically inaccurate.

The allowing of using VPs to knock down damage allows guns and other projectile weapons to by pass shields, which is historically inaccurate.

To counter this while maintaining the VP rule it is suggested that when dealing with projectile weapons the test to see if the shield activates is done BEFORE any VP modification is applied to the damage. This represents the fact that the actual force delivered by the gun is the same regardless of the users skill, so it the chance of activation should be the same as well. Any modification to this damage done through VPs is due to the accurate shooting of the firer, be it more or less damage. This appears to be a more realistic approach.

The damage done by melee weapons id first determined by the base damage plus the any strength bonus, should the wielder desire it (again, determined before any dice rolls), the shielded activation is then determined. Once this is done the damage maybe modified up or down by upto the number of VP's rolled on the goal roll.

In both cases the player/GM must declare how he is going to modify the dice roll using VPs BEFORE rolling any damage dice.