WOIN Questions about melee weapons with Shield trait and flat bonuses to MELEE DEFENSE

[TheHirumaChico]

I'm working on homebrewing some other weapon stats for my ongoing NOW campaign, such as deer horn knives. I'm looking at Jutte/Sai and Butterfly Sword for comparison. The Jutte/Sai have the Shield trait, which means wielding one counts as also wielding a shield of the same size, in this case small, and a small shield provides a +1 bonus to DEFENSE. The Butterfly Sword provides a flat +1 to MELEE DEFENSE. Does the user get +2 MELEE DEFENSE for dual-wielding two Butterfly Swords? And is it correct to infer that a shield, or a weapon with the shield trait, benefits all 3 physical defenses -- MELEE, RANGED, and VITAL -- since it says +X DEFENSE?

 

[lichmaster]

I think you would get the +2 to melee defense, but you probably won't gain anything for VITAL, as in the description of how defenses are calculated equipment seems to only affect melee and ranged (I think it makes sense too). Final word on this would be from @Morrus of course