Have sheilds been errated to be not arms slot items?

[babinro]

Personally, I find a lot of the shield enhancements really fun, albeit suboptimal. Being able to push long distances or return damage or absorb damage are all good abilities.

I just think the design of the other arm slot items have been made too good by comparison.

 

[Silverblade The Ench]

Yeah, forget applying any sort of reality to 4e shields, there is none. No shield in the history of man ever worked the way the light shield in 4e does. In ALL cases you grip a hand grip. Later medieval shields and some earlier large sized shields like the Roman ones also had some type of strap, usually over the shoulder but later a loop the forearm passed through. I know of no shield design which ever left a hand free, nor would such a thing be at all workable.

However, the rules are what they are and changing it would really seriously mess with the whole set of trade offs built around how it works. For the most part shields aren't much use really. Almost any character that uses one could pick better options. None of the shield enchantments are even worth thinking about either. That however may largely be the fault of IAoP.

ah, finally found a suitbale illustration of this
http://www.oregonknifeclub.org/dirk01.jpg[img]

True...but also...wrong! :p
while your hand isn't exactly "free" with lighter shields (light being relative to situation, type etc), many folk throughout history used a spear with BOTH hands while using a shield, and Scottish Highlanders frequently used a dirk in the shield hand (giving them 3 weapons, as the targe itself was a weapon, sometimes with a spiked boss).

:)