Tower Shield Expertise.

[Joker]

I need to think of a better name but that's trivial. Let's just say it's a working title .

I have created a feat that allows a character ignore some of the encumbrance of a tower shield.

Here goes:

Tower Shield Expertise.
This feat allows you to handle a tower shield with greater ease and flexibility.
Prerequisites: Strength 15, Shield Proficiency, Tower Shield Proficiency, Base Attack Bonus +3.
Benefits: You can ignore the penalties on attack when wielding a tower shield in combat. Also, in your hands, the armor check penalty of a tower shield is halved.
Normal: Without this feat you take a -2 penalty on attack rolls when you employ a tower shield in combat. And the armor check penalty is not decreased.


Is it too powerful? Too weak? Need more prerequisites? Do I need to take feat-naming classes?
Also, as it is now with the ACP reducing benefit should I half it before applying modifiers (i.e. mithril, masterwork) or after. For example, if a character with this feat picks up a masterwork mithril tower shield, should the ACP become -1 or -3? I'm inclined to think it should be -3 because the ACP of a masterwork mithril armor for any other character is standard -6. Then it is halved because the character with this feat knows how to wield it with more expertise. Hmm, I think I may have answered my own question on that one and I don't feel like pressing delete. Oh well.

So what do you guys think?

 

[Aust Diamondew]

Essentially (if you're a fighter) you can spend 1 feat to gain +2 AC over a heavy shield. This is better than dodge (even if you house rule dodge so it's active against all foes). But you have to be wielding a tower shield to recieve the benefit (which means now Two Handed weapon guys or TWF fighting) making it more limited.

It seems alright.

 

[Joker]

I used the Improved Rapid Shot feat as somewhat of a frame to work in though that one has more prerequisites for similar benefits. I tried to think of more prerequisites but I couldn't think of any that would make sense.

How about the reduction of the armor check penalty? Is it, in addition to the alleviation of attack roll penalty, too much for the feat and should I just give it a standard reduction like -2 or -3?