Shield or no shield?

[MortalPlague]

I think that the choice to use a shield should be rewarded, so set base sans shield.

I completely agree. A fighter has a choice; be harder to hit by a decent margin, or do more damage by a decent margin.

Shields should provide much better protection. It is really much harder to hit someone using a shield.

I agree. I'd love to see shields give a +3 or +4 bonus to AC. You're dropping your damage to improve your ability to avoid it. It's a choice that should be valid either way.

 

[Sunseeker]

Yeah, I hadn't really thought about how older edition shields provided bigger defenses, personally I like to keep them lower, heck is even jabe u lose the shield bonus to flankimg, since your shield, unlike your armor, only faces forward.

 

[delericho]

The game should assume that the baseline fighter is using a long sword and shield, and work from there.

If he switches to a two-handed weapon instead, he loses on AC but gains on damage.

If he switches to two weapons, he loses on AC, but should the versatility of using that extra weapon either to attack or defend. The 'attack' option shouldn't be as good as using a two-handed weapon and the 'defend' option shouldn't be as good as using a shield... but that's the price you pay for versatility.

 

[Minigiant]

The baseline should be the AC of whatever the human bandit is.

The baseline of EVERYTHING should be whatever the human bandit is.

The human bandit who sticks up travelers is the most average warrior ever.

 

[Hassassin]

I disagree with the premise. The chance a monster has to hit a fighter should vary even if they are of the same level, and between monsters of a certain level.

To the degree that a baseline is needed, it shouldn't be the heavily armored fighter, but the average AC over all classes (with most common equipment), which might fall close to the rogue or the barbarian.

 

[Tallifer]

Small shields should offer +1. Large shields should offer +2, which would be different from most of D&D, because a shield makes a huge difference in an actual fight. A shield is also bulky, easy to break, inconcealable and occupies another hand.

 

[SensoryThought]

I do find that shields are largely underpowered in D&D and 4e doesn't encourage this. As magic shields don't give any AC bump this is a big negative that makes them scale poorly. The only real 4e benefit is flavor and use of some shield specific powers (most of which are also underpowered).

I'd love to see the sacrifice that shield wearers make translate to more of a real bonus, maybe in the form of damage reduction against blast or burst effects.

 

[am181d]

Shouldn't it go without saying that the bonus provided by a shield should be scaled to the amount of hit point damage you're giving up by NOT going two-handed or two-weapon?

 

[Mattachine]

Small shields should offer +1. Large shields should offer +2, which would be different from most of D&D, because a shield makes a huge difference in an actual fight. A shield is also bulky, easy to break, inconcealable and occupies another hand.

That depends.

In OD&D and BECMI, a shield is just +1 AC.

In AD&D and 2e, it is also just +1, but it could only be employed successfully against some attackers--buckler against only one attack, small against one attacker, and large against everyone you are facing. I think that might have actually come from a Dragon Magazine ruling (since, why wouldn't everyone just use a buckler).

In 3e and 4e, different sized shields provided +1 or +2 to AC, or +4 for tower shields in 3e. I believe Pathfinder kept this, too.


Considering the tradeoff, I would like to see small shields provide +2, large +4, and tower maybe +6, considering the tradeoffs in damage output--weight/skill check penalties have to be made worse, too. With a large shield strapped to your arm, I think it would be rather difficult to climb or swim.

 

[El Mahdi]

I voted somewhere in the middle.

What I want is a system where the Chain Mail (Mail) and Shield combo, are basically equal to Full Plate (without a shield), as it was in the real world. With an assumption using a value between that (Chain Mail and Shield, or Full Plate) and unarmored, as the determiner for average hit percentage.

That way unarmored and low level feel more dangerous, high leve and higher armored provides a sense of toughness, and the game can easily be used with many genres; from real world early medieval to real world late medieval, and gritty low fantasy to superpowered high fantasy.