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General Tabletop Discussion
*Dungeons & Dragons
How to balance the shield spell?
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<blockquote data-quote="Willie the Duck" data-source="post: 9021939" data-attributes="member: 6799660"><p>I think the first thing that would need to happen before 'fixing*' Shield would be to decide on the actual preferred use-case for the spell. OP's suggestion makes the spell a kind of addendum to <em>Mage Armor</em> -- the shield to match the armor. In some ways, I dig it: 1st level caster can spend both spell slots to walk around like a guy with breastplate and (if hand free) a shield, but captain AlreadyHighAC the near-full-caster in a 5-minute workday campaign can't spam it for easy 20+ AC. </p><p><span style="font-size: 9px">*in quotes because I know some people don't think it needs fixing. Personally I agree with OP's assessment that it is fine for standard AC ~12-15 wizards or as limited uses for 1:3 caster EKs, but gets crazy when half- or full-plate and near-full caster-levels are combined (perhaps that's what needs to be addressed...)</span></p><p></p><p>Another option would be to simply make it something like "<em>Shield</em>: 1 reaction - your AC becomes 18 until the start of your next turn." or the like -- make it <em>really</em> good as a 'this is my only investment in protection' option (for the person who wants to RP a clumsy professor/only expects to be subject to 1-X attacks per day), but incrementally less impressive for each other AC-enhancer they put into their situation.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Willie the Duck, post: 9021939, member: 6799660"] I think the first thing that would need to happen before 'fixing*' Shield would be to decide on the actual preferred use-case for the spell. OP's suggestion makes the spell a kind of addendum to [I]Mage Armor[/I] -- the shield to match the armor. In some ways, I dig it: 1st level caster can spend both spell slots to walk around like a guy with breastplate and (if hand free) a shield, but captain AlreadyHighAC the near-full-caster in a 5-minute workday campaign can't spam it for easy 20+ AC. [SIZE=1]*in quotes because I know some people don't think it needs fixing. Personally I agree with OP's assessment that it is fine for standard AC ~12-15 wizards or as limited uses for 1:3 caster EKs, but gets crazy when half- or full-plate and near-full caster-levels are combined (perhaps that's what needs to be addressed...)[/SIZE] Another option would be to simply make it something like "[I]Shield[/I]: 1 reaction - your AC becomes 18 until the start of your next turn." or the like -- make it [I]really[/I] good as a 'this is my only investment in protection' option (for the person who wants to RP a clumsy professor/only expects to be subject to 1-X attacks per day), but incrementally less impressive for each other AC-enhancer they put into their situation. [/QUOTE]
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How to balance the shield spell?
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