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Message: <blockquote data-quote="azmodean" data-source="post: 1919486" data-attributes="member: 26590">The RAW says "the armor cannot be seen", this leaves it to DM interpretation as to wether the shield is considered armor or not.  That having been said, there is no way I'd let a character get the benefits of using a shield without taking the primary penalty, which is that it ties up one of your limbs.  Either the shield ties up a hand (paw, whatever) and gives at least it's AC bonus and you describe it as you will, or it melds and is nonfunctional.The rest of the scenario seems pretty straightfoward assuming:a: character has taken heavy armor proficiencyb: character has taken tower shield proficiency (it looks like you say he does)c: you look at the spell in complete divine and approve it.d: the character takes the penalties for the heavy armor and the shield including:  1: not using the limb carrying the shield  2: taking the -2 attack penalty from the shield  3: light encumbeance is over 600 lbs, so probably no encumberance.He should be able to use the ring, items only meld if the creature shifted to can't wear the item in question, seems pretty resonable to me for a bear to wear rings.Other than that, seems pretty resonable, as others have said, this character is spending a lot of resources on their AC, so they should get the benefits.  (really hurts that he's going to be immune to crits as well, eh?)  Barkskin does stack btw.</blockquote>