system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
[Borderlands] Why are critical hits effective when the target is shielded?

So I w-w-work a lot with shields. There's a big one around my town. It's spherical and blocks incoming m-m-mortar fire by acting like a solid shell. But when I was dealing with some bandits trying to raid my town, aiming for their h-h-heads wore out their shields a lot faster than aiming for their bodies. I'm a computer engineer, not a shield engineer, but I'm curious. C-c-can someone explain this to me?
gpt
Its like wearing old fashioned Kevlar, if you get hit with a slug thrower that energy will be dissipated in a similar form to getting hit in the chest with a baseball bat. Since shielding has no mass, that energy has to go somewhere, so while the dampners do a good job at taking most of the hit, a direct shot to a critical area like the head will still feel like being bludgeoned with an aluminum pipe, and if you're lucky, your shield might just hold and you'll survive.