Shield spell armor type

[Dreaddisease]

Cover does not provide concealment. Cover and concealment are different. Please refer to your PHB for more rules concerning this.


Concealment is affecting the attackers accuracy, cover is giving AC to defender.

 

[nsruf]

Cover does not provide concealment. Cover and concealment are different. Please refer to your PHB for more rules concerning this.

Are you reffering to my post? I should have said "more than one-half" instead of "50%+" then, but cover of that level (not concealment!) really prevents AoOs (PHB p. 132). And AFAIK this is what people are bothered about with the shield spell.

 

[Dreaddisease]

Sorry, imsunderstood you. Continue on.

Okay. As to the flanking question. That is not possible. with half of the battle field covered the flanking option is out of the question. Yes you may say that it protects only in front but really its a matter of physics in this case. Let us say there are 9 possible attack positions on a 2-dimensional map. The shield protects 4.5 of these directions. It only takes 4 adjacent squares within 5 feet of a person to cover all flank attacks.


Edit: sorry.

 

[Negative Zero]

to answer the original Q, we treat it as defelction.

on a slightly related note, the spell covers 50% of the battle field, and since there are 8 possible directions to be attacked from, when we play, you have to chose 4 of them per round. (this led to the advent of a nice lil L shapped cutout, that we position somewhere on the map.

also, i'm pretty sure Shield has been errated to only provide the AC bonus not actual cover.

~NegZ

<edit>

actually, from the FAQ, pg.50

"A shield spell provides a cover bonus to Armour Class"

 

[Macbrea]

We have pretty much always played it as a cover bonus. We realize why the changed it to not actually be cover. Due to the reason it would be too powerful as a 1st level spell. Played as any other type of bonus though it just becomes way too powerful.


A sorceror would just have to make an animated tower shield to go with his shield spell and he would quickly out strip armor of any plate wearing fighter.

 

[Artoomis]

<delete>

 

[Artoomis]

3/4 Cover and the +7 to AC are nearly synonymous. The only thing cover adds is the Reflex Save. So that may be a popular house rule but I still don't think that +3 to reflex is that bad.

3/4 Cover gives +7 Ac, +3 Reflex Save and, most importantly to the Shield spell discussion, avoidance of Attacks of Opportunity. This is the Big Deal (tm) that caused this spell to be revisited and a recommendation to change it's effect to a Cover Bonus instead of Cover.

 

[Larcen]

...A sorceror would just have to make an animated tower shield to go with his shield spell and he would quickly out strip armor of any plate wearing fighter.

And as well he SHOULD, what with all that cool magic floating around him.

(It's obvious I play spellcasters a lot.)

 

[Dr. Zoom]

also, i'm pretty sure Shield has been errated to only provide the AC bonus not actual cover.

~NegZ

<edit>

actually, from the FAQ, pg.50

"A shield spell provides a cover bonus to Armour Class"

No errata yet.

And that statement from the FAQ is part of the answer of a question about whether the shield spell bonus to AC stacks with armor, mage armor, etc. It does not mean that this is all the shield spell does nor is it intended to be some kind of errata or change to the spell as written in the PH. It is a clarification about how this spell's bonus to AC stacks with other bonuses to AC.

 

[Artoomis]

No errata yet.

And that statement from the FAQ is part of the answer of a question about whether the shield spell bonus to AC stacks with armor, mage armor, etc. It does not mean that this is all the shield spell does nor is it intended to be some kind of errata or change to the spell as written in the PH. It is a clarification about how this spell's bonus to AC stacks with other bonuses to AC.

For clarification the actual FAQ text is::

Can the shield spell add to the Armor Class bonus
from the mage armor spell or a suit of armor? How
about a regular shield? What about the shield spell and
bracers of armor?

A shield spell provides a cover bonus to Armor Class,
which stacks with most other defensive bonuses
(everything except other cover bonuses), including armor
bonus from any source.