Cover and Shield spell

[pvandyck]

One of the players in my group is a monk/sorcerer. He recently used mage armor and the shield spell in a combat to increase his AC to something around 28 (we are all 4th level characters). Since mage armor provides an armor bonus, and shield provides a cover bonus, they stack. It seemed like a pretty good thing at the time, (I was playing and we were getting our butt kicked).

However, I also DM, and thinking about how this was used later, I became concerned. Normally, in a melee fight, if you have cover from some guy, he has cover from you. I don’t have my books, but does the shield spell address whether or not that cover bonus (of +7 to your AC) it grants would cause a +7 to your enemy’s AC during a melee attack?

 

[hong]

The shield doesn't provide cover for opponents. It's in the spell description itself.

I suppose it would be okay for someone to ready an attack for when the monk makes an attack, so that they can bypass the shield. Or they could just run around them and attack them from the other side, since the shield only provides cover in a 180-degree arc.

 

[jontherev]

No, the Shield "knows" when to move out of the way of your attacks. Here, let the SRD speak for itself:"The disk moves out of the way when the character attacks, so it does not provide cover to opponents."

 

[Lucius Foxhound]

Jontherev is right. You can't ready an action against the shield.

But yeah, the one weakness the shield has is that it can only face one direction. A flanked Sorcerer is in a bit of trouble.

Although, changing the direction of the shield is a free action ... which I guess means you can only move it on your turn.. is that right?

 

[Dr. Zoom]

Originally posted by Lucius Foxhound:
Although, changing the direction of the shield is a free action ... which I guess means you can only move it on your turn.. is that right?

That is right.

Originally posted by Pvandyck:
However, I also DM, and thinking about how this was used later, I became concerned. Normally, in a melee fight, if you have cover from some guy, he has cover from you. I don’t have my books, but does the shield spell address whether or not that cover bonus (of +7 to your AC) it grants would cause a +7 to your enemy’s AC during a melee attack?

The FAQ also now clarifies that the Shield spell does not provide actual cover, just a +7 cover bonus to AC. This is not errata yet, but it probably will be. The spell description says that the cover is one way only, however.