Level Up (A5E) Attacking with a shield uses improvised weapon proficiency

[Tessarael]

Attacking with a shield uses what proficiency in A5E? It's a little surprising to me that shield proficiency wouldn't apply.

• Per LUA5E page 317, "When it is used to attack, a shield is treated as an improvised weaponthat deals 1d4 bludgeoning damage."
  • Additionally, if it is a light shield, "You may throw this shield, treating it as an improvised weapon that deals 1d6 bludgeoning damage."
• On page 309, under martial weapons, "You must be proficient with a weapon to gain your proficiency bonus on attack rolls made with it."
• On page 312, the defensive weapon property, "This weapon is designed to be used with a shield of the stated degree or lighter (light, medium, or heavy). When you make an attack with this weapon and are using a shield designed for it, you can use a bonus action to either make an attack with your shield or increase your Armor Class by 1 until the start of your next turn."
• On page 321, rebounding property (50gp), "When you make a ranged attack with this weapon or shield, you may make the attack with disadvantage. If you hit, the weapon returns to your hand. Piercing weapons cannot have this trait."
• On page 324, shield spikes(75gp), "When you use your shield to make an attack, you deal 1d4 piercing damage instead of 1d4 bludgeoning damage. When you use your shield to shove or knock someone prone, but would not normally deal damage, you instead deal 1d4 piercing damage on a success. Only light or medium shields may be spiked in this way."
  • Okay, so the shield cannot have both the rebounding property and shield spikes. Makes sense.
• On page 394, the Shield Focus featstates, "When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can use a bonus action to use your shield to make a Shove maneuver against a creature within 5 feet of you."
  • If improvised weapon proficiency is normally required for the proficiency bonus to attack with a shield, I would have thought that the Shield Focus feat would also give you this benefit.

The first two bullets imply that attacking with a shield is as an improvised weapon. Per the Improvised Weapons rules on page 313, "At the Narrator’s discretion, an improvised weapon that is similar to a weapon with the simple property may be treated as a simple weapon. For example, the leg of a table might be used as a club. An object that bears no resemblance to a weapon deals 1d4 damage of a type determined by the Narrator. Improvised thrown weapons have a normal range of 20 feet and a maximum range of 60 feet."

Can you train to become proficient in attacking with a shield? Per the training rules on LUA5E page 432, "Learning a new weapon proficiency requires a character spend a number of months equal to 6 – their Strength or Dexterity modifier (whichever is highest) training and pay 50 gold pieces per month to retain a tutor. At the end of this time period, the character acquires the weapon proficiency." Does this include proficiency in improvised weapons? It doesn't seem unreasonable to allow that, but not clear if it is permissible by the rules as written.

If you have to have improvised weapon proficiency, what are your options to get this?

• Circusfolk culture, page 48: "You are proficient with improvised weapons, and improvised weapons you use can deal 1d6 damage rather than the damage they normally deal. You can use Dexterity instead of Strength for the attack and damage rolls of your improvised weapons."
  • This is good for a Dexterity based weapon + shield character. It improves their shield damage to d6, and they can use Dexterity for attack/damage.
• Grimlock culture has improvised weapon proficiency.
• Underclass culture from Voidrunner's Codex, has improvised weapon proficiency.
• Villager culture, page 72, has improvised weapon proficiency.
• Adept Brawler archetype, page 117, has proficiency with improvised weapons, and "can spend 1 exertion to deal additional damage equal to your martial arts die, or use a basic maneuver against the same target." Still need to get shield proficiency from somewhere else to get the AC benefit.
• Cleric Warpriest archetype, page 163, can channel divinity to get proficiency with improvised weapons or one rare weapon until end of next long rest.
• Street Fighter feat, page 395, gives proficiency with improvised weapons.

Thoughts? Should shield proficiency be allowed to get your proficiency bonus to attack with a shield, or is improvised weapon proficiency the only route?

 

[Morrus]

Well the answer to your question is that yes, it’s an improvised weapon:

As to whether it would be OK to have a house rule to allow shield proficiency—I haven’t tried it but my gut instinct says that would be fine.

 

[lichmaster]

This also creates some minor inconveniences as one would have to remember that sword and board characters without the proper training will be making attacks with a different bonus on sword vs shield attacks, which is something that doesn't happen with 2 weapon fighting instead, and is the kind of streamlining typical of 5e.
In addition, the penalty is present only for normal attacks, but not to combat maneuvers using the shield, like shove, which is a possible usage granted by the defensive property of some weapons.

So I'd houserule that a character proficient in shields will apply the proficiency bonus.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Well the answer to your question is that yes, it’s an improvised weapon:

As to whether it would be OK to have a house rule to allow shield proficiency—I haven’t tried it but my gut instinct says that would be fine.

I use just such a houserule. I also created a custom throwing shield weapon.

 

[Distracted DM]

I THINK that shields are mentioned offhandedly in the AG as a rare weapon proficiency? So it's something that you could train in, see: Between Adventures in AG

 

[Verall]

There’s a fighter subclass that specifically gives you proficiency with shields as weapons.

Charging Shield | Level Up

a5e.tools

 

[Micah Sweet]

There’s a fighter subclass that specifically gives you proficiency with shields as weapons.

Charging Shield | Level Up

a5e.tools

Which is awesome, but that certainly doesn't preclude having a more general way to be good with shield-fighting.

 

[Verall]

Which is awesome, but that certainly doesn't preclude having a more general way to be good with shield-fighting.

I was including it as a specific example of shields as a weapon one can be proficient in, with that subclass there is no mention of treating them as improvised weapons.

you could probably use that as justification to treat them as rare weapons.

 

[Distracted DM]

There’s a fighter subclass that specifically gives you proficiency with shields as weapons.

Charging Shield | Level Up

a5e.tools

Which is awesome, but that certainly doesn't preclude having a more general way to be good with shield-fighting.

It also doesn't address the fact that removing a shield is an action.. so how do you 1. throw it and 2. keep on using it as a shield with using whole turns, unless you're only using modified shields :'D

 

[Micah Sweet]

I was including it as a specific example of shields as a weapon one can be proficient in, with that subclass there is no mention of treating them as improvised weapons.

you could probably use that as justification to treat them as rare weapons.

The throwing shield I developed is a rare weapon.