I was wondering about that, but as far as I can tell, armor has a fairly specific meaning in D&D that doesn't include shields. Is there any wording in the rules that indicates that a character with a shield counts as wearing armor?
Another wacky option would be to try to combine all of Monk, Druid, and Sor/Wiz (probably with Arcane Heirophant), so that you can both wild shape and polymorph. First you put on wild (dragonhide or darkleaf) full plate, then wild shape so that it's absorbed into your form and you're no longer wearing armor. Then you can polymorph into something like a kelvezu and get the armor benefits of full plate, keep the +10 dex bonus, and also get the monk bonuses to AC. Depending whether or not you rule that wild shields are completely useless (they only preserve "armor bonus", not shield bonus), you could also stick a wild tower shield into the mix.
Of course, doing all that without XP penalties for multiclassing would be pretty difficult, and it really doesn't gain you much over just casting Greater Mage Armor + Shield.
I was wondering about that, but as far as I can tell, armor has a fairly specific meaning in D&D that doesn't include shields. Is there any wording in the rules that indicates that a character with a shield counts as wearing armor?
This was somewhat unclear in 3.0. In 3.5 they (for once) cleared it up with a specific rule.
SRD said:
She loses these bonuses when she is immobilized or helpless, when she wears any armor, when she carries a shield, or when she carries a medium or heavy load.
Another wacky option would be to try to combine all of Monk, Druid, and Sor/Wiz (probably with Arcane Heirophant), so that you can both wild shape and polymorph. First you put on wild (dragonhide or darkleaf) full plate, then wild shape so that it's absorbed into your form and you're no longer wearing armor.
Debatable. You're no longer wearing visible armor. You still get the armor bonus and AFAIK no rule says you don't suffer the ACP and ASF or potential encumbrance from the weight.
Ah, okay. Guess it's back to the Shield spell, then. At least it's a good candidate for persistence as a 7th-level spell. Could probably even include some Incantatrix in the build to get that by L12.
Debatable. You're no longer wearing visible armor. You still get the armor bonus and AFAIK no rule says you don't suffer the ACP and ASF or potential encumbrance from the weight.
The two relevant rules I see are: "Any gear worn or carried by the druid melds into the new
form and becomes nonfunctional." and "The wearer of a suit of armor or a shield with this ability preserves his armor bonus (and any enhancement bonus) while in a wild shape."
The wild ability doesn't change the fact that the armor is gone -- the only change is that you retain the armor bonus.
I this this is fine, actually, considering wild costs +3. I do think that wild shields would be abusable, though, so I'd tend to follow the RAW and render them useless.
There is room for interpreation in exactly what happens to melded items. However, the same thing would have to happen to wild armor and other gear. If you rule that gear melded into a wildhshaped form retains its encumbrance, that would make the classic uses of wild shape impossible -- e.g. wildshape into a raven and then be unable to move due to 100lbs of encumbrance from all the gear you were carrying in your humanoid form.
