Magical Weapon Ability Question

[Amal Shukup]

I'd cost a shield bonus as the equivalent of an armor bonus, with a base price of 1,000 gp. The cost of an armor bonus is clearly based on the cost of magic armor, and magic shields don't cost any more than magic armor.

Yeah...

BUT, both Magical Armor and a Magical Shield take up space on the body (occupy a hand etc.) and impose penalties (Max Dex, Weight etc.) That's substantively different than adding additional, non-penalizing, 'Shield' capability to a Weapon.

Like 'whole new ballgame' different.

If you want Shield AC in the sense you're describing, get an Animated Shield...

A'Mal

 

[Staffan]

If you want Shield AC in the sense you're describing, get an Animated Shield...

Funny you should mention the animated shield. The +2 ability cost pretty much cancels out the +2 shield bonus you get for a normal heavy shield, so you get +3 to AC for 9,000 gp and +4 for 16,000.

Then again, I've house-ruled out animated shields on the assumption that getting high ACs by using shields should require that you give up a hand, so maybe 1,500 gp base cost works out fine. I guess you could consider that as the +50% cost for "wrong item slot".