floating shield goodness

[fl8m]

my ranger uses 2 dwarven waraxes (i love the oversized two-weapon fighting ) However, since he's the only tank he also has a heavy shield he occasionally uses I was contemplating puting the animated enchantement on it. Before i do so i'd like to check to make sure i didn't miss something saying my new floaty shield would mess up my two-weapon fighting. thanks

on an unrelated note, does x/- damage reduction from 2 different sources stack? for example adamantine armor and an adamantine shield and a barbarians damage reduction.

 

[Joker]

All right, time for me to give you the answers that someone who knows what they're talking about will refute in a matter of minutes.

As far as I can tell, it doesn't mess up you two-weapon fighting schtick.

Animated: Upon command, an animated shield floats within 2 feet of the wielder, protecting her as if she were using it herself but freeing up both her hands. Only one shield can protect a character at a time. A character with an animated shield still takes any penalties associated with shield use, such as armor check penalty, arcane spell failure chance, and nonproficiency.

It frees up both your hands but you still take the armor check penalty etc. That's why you don't see every average joe wizard with an animated tower shield.

As for the Damage Reduction, in my game I allow same types of DR's to stack if they're from different sources but I'm pretty sure that's against the rules and that you only take into account the most effective DR given the situation.

For instance, if you have a creature that has DR 15/silver and DR 4/-, you would use the the 15/silver for most attacks but the 4/- for silver attacks.

 

[Diirk]

As for the Damage Reduction, in my game I allow same types of DR's to stack if they're from different sources but I'm pretty sure that's against the rules and that you only take into account the most effective DR given the situation.

For instance, if you have a creature that has DR 15/silver and DR 4/-, you would use the the 15/silver for most attacks but the 4/- for silver attacks.

Time to prove me wrong Thanee, dcollins, Patryn, Hyper...etc .

Your understanding is correct; DR never stacks unless it explicitly says it does. (Some feats improve existing DR and say so, etc). DR x/- from barbarian levels and adamantine armour don't stack, for example, you just take the better of the two.

 

[Ferret]

Which I don't reckon makes sense in the barbarian case, sure you already tough against nin-silver attacks, and then your tough still brom the DR 4/--. But the admantine takes something out of the blow and so should you bring a barb...

*Counsults PHB: See the screwy thing about barbarian DR is that it isn't called a damage reduction of X it says "Subtract 1 from the damage...." and later says "This damage reduction rises by one point......"

 

[Joker]

But on the table it says DR X/-. However, I do agree with you that the Barbarian is a weird case as his DR is Extraordinary as opposed to most DR which is Supernatural.

 

[Diirk]

Actually, alot of DR is extraordinary.. by default all DR x/- is extraordinary, for example, as are many other types... there's an errata about it somewhere (possibly the MM errata)

 

[dcollins]

Errata discussed here: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=136582