ExploderWizard said:
Have you ever strapped on a shield and fought with one, combat sporting or anything? I have. My skills are nowhere near that of a trained D&D fighter character, but I have used a full sized kite shield and used it (along with my considerable mass) to bash and push back opponents during bridge battles. Doing so did not require flinging the shield way away from my body or turning it on its side. An actual skilled combatant could probably manage to do much more with a shield than I can and still maintain its defensive use.
Nice to have some actual experience.
Was it a one-on-one fight? Do you think the shield would have protected you as well with a second opponent?
Also, do you think that your experience hitting with said shield made you better at defending with it than if you solely used it for defence?
They don't! In fact, the rules make it pretty clear they don't. (I believe it's something you can maintain along with your move). And I think that's a pretty awesome image for a bard in combat. What is your objection?
My objection was that you were comparing a passively used item (torch) with an actively used item (shield). A shield does not function automatically. You can tie a torch to your back (hopefully on a pole) and it will still work just as effectively as if you were holding it (better actually, since the source of light would be away from your eyes). But you do not get the AC bonus for having a shield if you strap your shield to your back.
In the hands of a trained combatant who knows how to use a shield as both defense (proficient with shields) and a weapon (dual wield and/or tavern brawl) then I don't see why they couldn't manage to position the shield to do both in the same 6 second round. There is plenty of cinematic support for that sort of claim, and real life support. The shield bash is a real thing, and it's also commonly portrayed in movies and television, so I feel it has plenty of support as a thing you can do with a shield (both attack and defend at the same time).
D&D isn't *always* a cinematic game. It can be, but not always. So that argument is like saying "there's plenty of Wuxia support in for that sort of claim."
I am not saying that ruling is unfair, I am saying it's not how I'd do it and I don't think it's unfair to let them stack. The feat is very costly (heck they'd often be getting the stacking AC bonus from taking a +2 Dex instead), and part of it's benefit is the +1 AC, and I see no game balance reason OR flavor reason to not give it to them.
The cost of the feat is irrelevant. The job of a DM is not to validate poor choices by house ruling them into effectiveness. If a sword-and-board fighter takes the Sharpshooter feat (at a similar high cost) the DM shouldn't try to handwave a longsword as an effective improvised ranged weapon to make the feat useful.
If someone *really* wants to have a shield bashing fighter and that's their desired character, then they should take the Shield Mastery feat. Or work with their GM to make a hybrid of Shield Mastery and Dual Wielder that allows the shield to be used as a weapon and provides some other small bonus in place of the +1 AC (proficiency with the shield as a weapon and/or a damage boost to d6).
(Honestly, one of the reasons I shifted my opinion to "you lose the shield AC boost when bashing" was so the basher could gain the weapon AC boost post-bash. Because I was trying to make more aspects of the feat applicable, as the cost is high. That isn't going over so well.)
But I don't just want to give a stacking +1 AC bonus because it's pushing the power level of the feat. My first reaction was that it was comparable, but I've since given it more thought and decided a static bonus to AC is too good. It's arguably being better than using that stat boost to bump Dex since a high Dex won't help with AC with medium or heavy armour. And characters with shields already have higher ACs leading to number bloat.
Heck, Medium Armour Mastery effectively gives you +1 AC only IF your Dex is high enough and removes disadvantage on Stealth; so Dual Wielder for a shielder would be significantly better as a feat.
The guy who wrote the rule told us he thinks they stack. We don't have to guess at intent here. Not that your ruling is necessarily a bad one - but it doesn't appear to have the intent backing of the game designer here. Again, rule it how you want.
First, one of the guys who wrote the rules. He didn't do it alone (and we don't know who did what), and the fact there was more than one is super important, as there's always checks-and-balances and second opinions in design, plus some playtests. One person shouldn't be the sole authority because it's super easy to miss something. Especially when you're just firing out a quick response on Twitter in five minutes during a free moment.
One thing to remember is that the designers not only remember the official rules but all the dozens of iterations of unofficial rules. That gets confusing in the brain. They're potentially less reliable for rules information than a good DM who only recalls the one set of information. (Mearls has said as much on several occasions.) Unless Crawford has enough time to look at the book and refresh his memory, I'm wary. Published articles on the website are fair, but twitter responses come with a few grains of salt as a side order.
Secondly, where?
Crawford clarified on Twitter that shields can be improvised weapons. And that the dueling fighting style works with a shield. And, yes, even that you don't lose the AC bonus to shields when attacking. But I haven't seen a tweet where he says the AC bonus for the feat stacks with that of using a shield. And he seemed to pull back from the discussion, saying he was going to discuss things in a Sage Advice article. So he might have realized an oversight or wanted to give the issue more thought. So until that article comes out there's no real final ruling.
And intent is easy to guess. The two-weapon feat is pretty much a combination of two-weapon fighting and two-weapon defence, and the AC bonus of 2W Defence was to give dual wielders AC between that of a GWF and sword-and-boarder.So the modern update of the feat was meant for two-weapon warriors and the fact it's fun for shielders is just a bonus.
