Sundering a Shield? Opposed Attack Roll?

[kreynolds]

PHB, page 136

I'll be damned. Somebody owes my character a new shield!

PHB, page 136All the Sunder feat does is get rid of the AoO that would normally be generated.

Oh, I realize that, but that's neither here nor there.

 

[Unseelie]

Now, I am wondering why 'Striking a Weapon' can only be performed with a Slashing weapon. I can see why piercing wouldn't work, but bashing should as well, IMO.

 

[dkilgo]

Unseelie brings up a very good point.

 

[melkoriii]

Now, I am wondering why 'Striking a Weapon' can only be performed with a Slashing weapon. I can see why piercing wouldn't work, but bashing should as well, IMO.

From the SRD

Strike a weapon [Standard][AoO: Yes]

Description: A combatant can use a melee attack with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon to strike a weapon or shield that a combatant's opponent is holding. The attacking weapon must be no more than one size category smaller than the weapon attacked. (Treat a buckler as Small, a small shield as Medium-size, a large shield as Large, and a tower shield as Huge.) Doing so provokes an attack of opportunity from the opponent because the combatant is diverting it's attention from the opponent to the opponent's armaments.

Then the attacker and the defender make opposed attack rolls. If the attacker wins, the attacker has made a successful attack against the weapon or shield.

 

[dkilgo]

Thanks, Melkoriii!

 

[AGGEMAM]

Hey folks. I finally got a reply from CS about this, and I found it kinda funny cause they took the same standpoint that someone else on this thread did.

I presume you are referring to me, and CS is correct.

Shields can be used as melee weapons, and that is why strike a weapon works on shields.

Note that the buckler description only says that you cannot effectively shield bash with a buckler.

And tower shields are not considered shields at all, since they grant a cover bonus to AC not an armor bonus.

 

[dkilgo]

Aggemam couls you expand upon that, please?

 

[Unseelie]

I presume you are referring to me, and CS is correct.

Shields can be used as melee weapons, and that is why strike a weapon works on shields.

Note that the buckler description only says that you cannot effectively shield bash with a buckler.

And tower shields are not considered shields at all, since they grant a cover bonus to AC not an armor bonus.

However, 'Strike a Weapon' clearly states that you can attack a shield (and gives details for a Tower Shield), therefore, you can attack a Tower Shield, even though you can not attack with it.

 

[AGGEMAM]

However, 'Strike a Weapon' clearly states that you can attack a shield (and gives details for a Tower Shield), therefore, you can attack a Tower Shield, even though you can not attack with it.

The tower shield is portable cover, it is crossover item.

It is considered a shield for 'strike a weapon' purposes

It is considered cover for 'striking cover instead of missed target' purposes.

It is considered a shield for 'armor check penalty' and 'arcane spell failure'.

It is considered cover for AC bonus purposes.

And finally the reason it cannot be used as a weapon just occurred to me. Silly, silly me.

A buckler is too small to be used effectively as a weapon.

And a tower shield is too big to be used as a weapon at all. (It is huge size after all, or large, anyways too large to be used in one hand as a weapon).

 

[Stalker0]

I think the ph page on 136 is fairly clear, damn I never realized that about the tower shield either, but it does seem like strike a weapon rules are in order, although that makes little sense to me, since you can't really move teh wall that eaisly