Shield magic mod question.

[Bob5th]

Compare Animated from the DM's guide with dancing from Sword and Fist.

Both alow you to lose your shield and let it defend you on it's own.

Animated: No time limit. No size limit. No prof required. +2 modifier

Dancing: Time limit. Size limit. Prof required. +3 modifier

As you can see there seems to be a slight problem with this. Animated is in every way superior and costs less. IMC I'll either be changing dancing to +1 or animated to +4. Most likely animated to 4.


P.S. Anyone else love dragon "slaying" arrows in 3E. They die unless they make a Fort save of 20. Might work well on Wyrmlings but for other dragons who happen to have a plus 50 or so to their Fort save they're useless.

 

[Wolf72]

ooooh get the greater arrow of slaying for DC 23, personally I think they should do some additional dmg for those that make the save ... (is that finger of death? or slay living? ... or was that 2e)

 

[Geoff Watson]

Oops: I thought you were talking about weapons, not shields, sorry.

The Slaying arrows are nowhere as good as they were in previous editions, but they were too good back then.

Geoff.

 

[Bob5th]

Animated

Upon command, an animated shield floats within 2 feet of the wielder, protecting her as if she were using it herself but freeing
up both her hands. Only one shield can protect a character at a time.

Caster Level: 12th; Prerequisites: Craft Magic Arms and Armor, animate objects; Market Price: +2 bonus.

 

[Bob5th]

Yeah I noticed. But overall animated seems too powerful to be just a +2, +4 at least maybe a +5.

 

[Bob5th]

ooooh get the greater arrow of slaying for DC 23, personally I think they should do some additional dmg for those that make the save ... (is that finger of death? or slay living? ... or was that 2e)

finger of death

 

[Bob5th]

So what do you people think about these shield mods?

 

[Bob5th]

I'd like to see what people think about this so soem more replys please.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

I must admit that I really dislike the Dancing shield to begin with--there's enough time limited effects and various bonus types to deal with already.

However, the dancing shield has a few advantages over an animated one:

It provides a cover bonus against one opponent. This has several benefits: it adds to touch AC. It stacks with another shield since it is no longer an armor bonus. (The text specifies that only one dancing shield may protect a character at once).

Is that worth a standard action and a +4 equivalent bonus. I don't think so. But I don't like the idea of shields that sometimes provide cover bonusses and sometimes provide armor bonusses either.