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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Greenfield" data-source="post: 6072055" data-attributes="member: 6669384">Without reading all the replies, and with the qualifier that I'm largely a 3e player, I'd like to make a comment.  Take it for what it's worth...Bucklers were used in the gladiatorial arena of ancient Rome.  They were frequently the only real protection, other than a helmet, the men had.So the idea that a buckler can only be added to medium or heavy armor is a sharp departure from the way they were actually used.Switching them to some type of DR, or to ablative hit points, may make a lot of sense, if armor itself gets treated that way.  But D&D has always treated AC not as the difficulty of a hit, but as the difficulty for a damaging hit.  Touch AC was added later to note the difference.If we want realism, then the Armor Check penalty would be subtracted from Touch AC, and shields in general would add to it.So treat shields as armor, and if that means that armor itself has to change then that's the challenge to deal with.  Using two different systems for armor and shield is a bad idea.</blockquote>