Could someone rate this shieldmaster prestige class?

[Kafana]

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Shieldmaster_%283.5e_Prestige_Class%29

as well as this:

http://www.dandwiki.com/wiki/Shield_Knight_%283.5e_Prestige_Class%29

Are they underpowered? What would you add or change? Tier wise, what would this do when applied to the knight?

[tyckspoon]

Shieldmaster is pretty fraggin' awesome, and may actually be overpowered (certainly is overpowered compared to most martial prestiges, but most of those are horribly lame.) You get constant semi-concealment, which is a pretty amazing defense, and you get to Two-Weapon Fight with two-handed weapons, which covers the worst flaw in Two Weapon Fighting's usual weakness in damage output. Might actually be worth investing in Oversized Two-Weapon Fighting for one. Impact Shield lets you apply a reasonably potent debuff without burning precious actions to do it, since 'as an attack action' means you can sub it in for a normal attack in an attack routine. Definitely worth looking at and gives some stuff that the sword-and-board style really struggles with in usual 3.5.


Shield Knight is.. pretty lame. Don't bother. The interposing/tank an attack ability is kind of nice, but written in an awkward and hard to use fashion, and its upgrades aren't much to talk about either (DR 2/ -.. at level 16? Yeahno I'll spend my levels on something useful, thanks.) Half BAB is just bizarre. Maybe dip for a few levels to cherry pick the nicer bonus feats (Shield Specialization/Shield Slam/Shield Charge, maybe Shield Ward), and if you're really invested in the Party Tank thing I could see going to level 4 for an honest-to-goodness MMO-style taunting ability. The prereq feats are obnoxious, tho, and kind of painful even with the crazy every-level rate of acquisition on the class bonus feats.