Shields nerfed in D&D?

[LordVyreth]

Thats the main reason to have a shield. +5 large shield grants +7 shield bonus to AC and cost only 25000gp.

Thunhus

Of course, the big problem with this is that if you can afford +5 shields, you're a level or two away from being able to get it animated, giving you the best of both worlds.

I do like that house rule of adding shields to touch attack AC. I might consider that for my next campaign.

 

[gizmo33]

I recall reading (I've seen this in several places, I think) that as armor got heavier towards then end of the middle ages, that shields became smaller, and eventually dropped entirely because they were considered superfluous.

Thus, I think that while a Spartan might find a shield useful for his armor type, perhaps a knight in full plate armor does not. But the DnD rules just have armor bonus and shield bonus stacking - so fixing one situation would probably break another.

If you want to simulate the relative importance of weapons, armor, and shields in fantasy literature, I think DnD has it about right. I can imagine the Lady of the Lake chucking a shield across the lake like a frisbee to King Arthur.

 

[dinsdale]

I tend to agree that shields are undervalued in D&D.

However, in addition to the caveats above I would add that shields give an unrealistic scope of coverage. Due to the lack of facing in D&D, shields protect against attacks from all directions and provide full protection even if you are unprepared.

If you think of the shield's protection as being an average over all directions (e.g. +3-4 vs front left, +0 vs back right) it doesn't seem quite as unreasonable.

 

[Belen]

At the risk of seeming opportunistic, I'd suggest that this book might be useful:

E.N. Armoury - Shields -- " The Armoury continues with a complete book about shields. This 32-page PDF contains everything you need to optimize your shield-bearing warrior. This volume includes a brief history of shields, a collection of new shield variants (including the thrown discus shield, great shell shields, and locking shields), new shield-making materials and crafting techniques.

For the skilled shieldsman, a collection of new shield-oriented feats are presented, along with five shield-oriented prestige classes

* The Faithwarden - sworn to defend their church and faith.
* The Knight Herald - who goes forth under the banner of truce to represent the interests of his liege.
* The Ramshield Berserker - shieldgnawing fast and aggressive warriors of the Ramshield mountains.
* The Shieldmage - masters of protection and defensive magics.
* and the Tower Legionnaire - stalwart warriors and warrior-spellcasters who are masters of the tower shield.

The volume is rounded out by a pair of spells, five magic & psionic shield properties, four specific magic & psionic shields, a new alchemical item, and Belisar, the deity of shields, along with his domains of Community and Shields."

I just bought it. It is not bad, but I was hoping for something that changed the basic rules for using shields, such as a "power attack" equivalent for shield users.

I plan on changing the shield rules in my next campaign, including messing with their stats.

Buckler: +1
Light Wooden: +2
Light Steel: +2
Heavy Wood: +4
Heavy Steel: +4
Tower: +6

Shield users will also be able to select Deflect Arrow as a feat with the caveat that they only have access to the feat while using a shield.

I think that this should solve the problems with shields. I also want to create some shield fighting styles: Shield/spear, shield/sword, and shield/axe.

 

[Patman21967]

That's exactly my take. That's what I wanted to express with my Drizzt comment . If you want to have "cool" two-weapon fighting in the game, forget about realism. If we go for realism, we'd also have to think hard about the role of the sword in D&D. But who really wants that?

Then it opens up the whole Parry/riposte can of worms, with 2 weapon fighting. It would be better if you had lower HP, and Shield and Armor aided your AC, and absorbed damage, but if you wanna play that, play Runequest, or the many other games that have died (unfortunatley for some, fortunatley for others). The biggest thing, in my opinion, that make DnD so good, is the product support...

 

[Emirikol]

You could probably get it to work if you just house ruled it as follows:

1. Shield gives a +3 or +4 bonus to AC with the following conditions
* It only gives the bonus up to the "Max Dex Bonus" per armor

2. Helmet gives a +1 or +2 bonus to light armor (it's already included in heavier armor). Note that helmets give you skill check penalties (listen, spot, etc.)

jh

 

[Nebulous]

Game of Thrones has very interesting shield rules, d20 style. They go into it with the assumption that you will never, ever own a magic shield, so i think the starting bonus is +4, with DR on top of that. I haven't playtested it yet, but there are lots of new rules for shields.

 

[replicant2]

Then it opens up the whole Parry/riposte can of worms, with 2 weapon fighting. It would be better if you had lower HP, and Shield and Armor aided your AC, and absorbed damage, but if you wanna play that, play Runequest, or the many other games that have died (unfortunatley for some, fortunatley for others). The biggest thing, in my opinion, that make DnD so good, is the product support...

I've heard the whole "can of worms" argument a couple times in this thread, but I really don't buy it. What's so hard about a higher AC bonus, or a shield feat(s)? There's been a couple good suggestions already. I'm not advocating going down the path of damage absorption or parrying.

 

[Altalazar]

I agree - it makes little sense. But it goes back to the traditional D&D rules.
If you do make shields as effective as they would be IRL, you'd probably need to modify other rules as well to deal with shield proficiency, and perhaps add additional feats and skills related to shields.

SHIELDS UP!

 

[RuminDange]

I agree that shields are undervalued in D&D, so one of the changes I made for my game is using the parry rules from the Dragon #301 and made it where shields gave virtual feats that can be used no matter what armor the shield user is wearing unlike if you take the parry feats and even if the shield user didn't have the prerequisites. These rules used AOO to make parry attempts with weapons
Something like:
Buckler: grants Parry
Small Shield: grants Parry, Improved Parry
Large Shield: grants Parry, Improved Parry and Expert Parry.

RD