Shield bashing.

[Hypersmurf]

It seems to me that just holding the weapon imposes no penalty. If it did, then the "and claim an AC bonus" would be unnecessary.

Oh, I agree. Just holding the weapon does not cause a problem. But using it requires that you declare it as part of your attack action, whether you swing it or not.

Assuming the Full Attack Action:

If you are holding a longsword in your right hand but don't attack with it, and attack with the Defending shortsword in your left hand, you can benefit from the Defending quality without incurring penalties.

You can attack with the longsword with no TWF penalties, but you can't benefit from the Defending quality of the shortsword.

If you attack with the longsword and also wish to benefit from the Defending quality of the shortsword, you take TWF penalties. Even if you have four iterative attacks and only swing your longsword once and the shortsword not at all, you are using both weapons in your full attack, and suffer the penalties accordingly.

To me, that suggests that if you swing your longsword once and your shortsword once, even if you have four iterative attacks, you suffer the penalties.

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Of course, in any round that he makes an attack with the shield, he wouldn't benefit from its AC bonus.

[blink]

A shield-bash character without the Shield Expert feat?

-Hyp.

 

[Rel]

[blink]

A shield-bash character without the Shield Expert feat?

-Hyp.

I did it.

It was with my 2 Shield using Ranger/Cleric. I just didn't ever seem to have the feat to spare. Plus, I could only get the benefit of one shield bonus anyway so if I only made one attack then I retained the shield bonus for the shield on the other arm.

As for the utility of Improved Shield Bash, I loved pushing my foes all over the battlefield. Since I was dual wielding the shields, I could bash once, push them back and then take a 5' step toward them and bash them again, moving them a total of 10' (if I hit with both and won both opposed Str checks, which didn't happen often).

I took some flak from people here at ENWorld when I posed the idea and was looking for suggestions about the build. What I'm wondering from the folks like Green Slime is this: If the character wields two shields, but isn't a min/maxed Ranger/Paladin with huge Cha bonus and Divine Shield, is that less ok or just as bad as a character who isn't min/maxed and wields two shields (like mine)?

 

[Darklone]

I took some flak from people here at ENWorld when I posed the idea and was looking for suggestions about the build. What I'm wondering from the folks like Green Slime is this: If the character wields two shields, but isn't a min/maxed Ranger/Paladin with huge Cha bonus and Divine Shield, is that less ok or just as bad as a character who isn't min/maxed and wields two shields (like mine)?

*readies his garage flak*

Yihaa

Well... if it's fun... (oops, I said this in the RULES forum?).

*cough* By the letter of the rules, any character is ok. Minmaxxed or not.

 

[Lord Pendragon]

[blink]

A shield-bash character without the Shield Expert feat?

-Hyp.

Heh. A paladin only has so many feats to go around. He's 7th-level, and so far has gotten Exotic Weapon Proficiency (Bastard Sword), Power Attack, Divine Might, and Leadership. I'm thinking of Improved Shield Bash (9th) and Divine Shield (12th). I suppose he might get Shield Expert (15th), but that's a long, long way off!

 

[green slime]

I took some flak from people here at ENWorld when I posed the idea and was looking for suggestions about the build. What I'm wondering from the folks like Green Slime is this: If the character wields two shields, but isn't a min/maxed Ranger/Paladin with huge Cha bonus and Divine Shield, is that less ok or just as bad as a character who isn't min/maxed and wields two shields (like mine)?

Well your build is "better" than the tweeked cheese Ranger/Paladin build. But if you allow this, how do you prevent the tweeked cheese?

This actually came up in my game, one of the players was all excited about playing such a character, essentially due to the cheese.

"I can dual wield two shields and shield bash everyone around."

Me, I didn't really like the idea, seems kind of corny, but, whatever floats his boat. However the other players revolted, and pelted him with dice. See, that player is well known in a game for his cheese, and this cheese was just stretching the disbelief of the other players too far. So we threw it out.

I wonder if Captain America would have been such a hit if he wielded two shields? Would seem a bit of nut if you ask me. A case for the looney bin. I guess you just don't see it this way.

Now, I'm no martial art expert, but wielding two shields is hardly a threatening posture. Part of the "shield bash" manuever is surely the ability to take your opponent unawares, as he concentrates on avoiding your pointy weapon. But with two shields, he doesn't have to concern himself about that, and can concentrate on splitting your head. Two shields are surely going to interfere with each other as well, being rather bulky.

If you can come with some real life examples, of dual-wielded large/small shields actually used in battle, I might reconsider my position. But until then, I'll just consider this a quirk of the rule set.

 

[Hypersmurf]

There are ways a DM can discourage two-shield fighting, using the rules.

Note that "You can bash an opponent with a shield, using it as an off-hand weapon."

This can be interpreted in three ways.

Firstly, a shield may only be used as a weapon if it is in your off-hand. If you're right-handed, you cannot effectively bash with a shield in your right hand, only your left.

Secondly, a shield may only be used as a weapon when you qualify for an off-hand attack - ie, you are taking the Full Attack Action with a non-shield weapon, and using the shield for any off-hand attacks gained through attacking with two weapons.

Thirdly, a shield may be used to bash with either (or both) hand, but it follows the penalties for an off-hand attack: -4 attack without Ambidexterity (whichever hand you're using) and half Strength bonus to damage (whichever hand you're using).

-Hyp.

 

[green slime]

Ah! Hypersmurf, you are an eternal font of Wisdom! Thank the almighty someone has the stamina to actually READ all these rules!

And a Kiwi to boot! There is justice in this world!

 

[Hypersmurf]

Ah! Hypersmurf, you are an eternal font of Wisdom!

Ha. Well, I personally don't rule a shield bash in any of those ways - I just treat it as a martial bludgeoning weapon.

But there is room there for a DM to say "Look! See!" if he needs to.

-Hyp.

 

[Rel]

My character had Ambi and TWF, so he could use "on hand" and "off hand" interchangably (I of course took the Str reduction for the off hand when it applied).

Just for the record, I might not allow the two-shield build in every single one of my campaigns. There are settings where I would find it to be "too silly". I checked with the DM before we played and he told me that, while a little weird, my two shield wielding character wouldn't wreck his campaign ideas.

I guess what I'm saying is that while I have no problems with the mechanics of how double shield fighting works, I can see the "does it fit into the campaign" issue it might present. That's why we always run our characters by the DM before we play them.

Without stretching the rules at all, you can make a Half-Orc Barbarian who uses a greatsword and is CN and tries to kill every Dwarf he meets. None of us would let one be played in our game group though.