SangoProduction
2015-03-26, 01:55 AM
In the Plot and Poison: A guidebook to Drow book, there is a feat called Double Shielding, which allows you to employ 2 shields with an armor check penalty of -1 or better (so -1 or 0). And gain the armor bonuses and enchantment bonuses from both shields, while suffering the combined armor check penalty of both shields.
I need ways to reduce the armor check penalty for shields. Any and all published D&D 3.5 books are allowed. Pathfinder is on a case by case basis. (I'll list off what I've been able to think of off the top of my head. It's 1:45 am at the moment, so I don't care to rummage through the books right now, maybe when I awake.)
Masterwork from core reduces the penalty by 1.
Shield Mastery is in the Plot and Poison, which reduces the penalty of a type of shield (buckler, small, large, or tower) by 1. Not great, especially not for a feat.
In the Chainmail Bikini book, there's an armor customization: Custom Fit, purchasable up to 3 times, reducing armor penalty by 1 each time. Probably not intended for shields, but I'll take what I can get to dual wield tower shields.
Mithral (Bloody hell if I know the book it's from) reduces check penalties by 3.
So, between these above 4 items that I know about, that can reduce the armor penalty of a tower shield down to a -2.
Hellforged Armor property (suggested by Darrin) reduces this penalty by an other 1. It's from the DMG 2. And now, we can dual wield tower shields.
Dragoncraft (from draconomicon) reduces check penalty by 1, in addition to the masterwork, but it's a material, thus can't be stacked with mithral
Inside Dragon Lance ""War of the Lance" there is an NPC base class called the master. It's like Expert on Steroids or a pitiful nonmagic artificer. A level 13 Master who focused on Craft can make for you tower-shields of Legend. The of Legend property is a non-magical enhancement with is like applying the masterwork quality five times (doesn't stack with masterwork). So for an extra 750 gp a pop, the base ACP of your tower-shields is -5, before any magic or special quality from the material, or anything. - great replacement for mithral and custom fits if you're already starting at level 10+, when lvl 13 NPCs start becoming a thing, and you haven't already invested in a set of shields.
-------------------------
In player's handbook 2, I think, there's a feat called Shield Specialization, which grants +1 AC to shields, but specifically only works with small, buckler, or large shields. -pointless for our purposes. But, I guess, if you wanted to use large shields with this, then you'd not need quite so much investment. I did a cost/benefit assessment at the bottom.
But aside from that, I can't think of anything. Anyone got some ideas?
JeenLeen suggested use of the feat: Divine Shield to sacrifice a use of turn undead to gain + Charisma mod to our shield's bonus to AC for a number of turns = to 1/2 our character level. If lucky, because of the wording, it could be construed to be possible to apply our Cha Mod 2 times on both our shields, ignoring dexterity in favor of Cha for armor class bonus, AND super heavy armor. Since having ultra armor imposes no spell cast penalty on clerics, this is a viable option. EDIT: Actually, no, it would seem as though it's not possible to gain it 2 times because it's sacred bonus (noted by JeenLeen)
In terms of practicality, one could make an argument for animated shield working with a regular shield if you have double shielding, and allow you to use normal attacks with normal weapons.
You can go full Cabrakan, and take Shield Specialization from Plot and Poison, which explicitly lets you shield bash with your specialized shield type, and keep the shield bonus as a free action - as well as explicitly allowing the dual-wielding shields to be recovered from bashing as a free action as well. (So basically it's an Improved Shield Bash that only works on a specific set of shields, but allows shield bash where it normally isn't.) But would the damage dice basically just be one larger than standard large shields or what? Since there's no reason that tower shields couldn't have spikes, but simply could never bash, most GMs would probably allow you to have shield spikes with this feat, which would allow you to get those shield spikes enchanted with Defending, giving an additional +10 untyped bonus to Defense, potentially, if put on both of their spikes by using the Greater Magic Weapon spell. (That bit might not work, as JeenLeen mentioned, it might not truly be 2 different sources of bonuses, even on 2 different shields. ask your GM.)
Of course, I could just go full tank mode, and take a turtle suit, allowing me to take up a 10ft space, take the Parrying Shield Feat to say "screw you" to magic touch attacks and the Goad feat from complete ...Adventurer or Scoundrel, forcing them to attack me by either flat out being in the way, or a skill check.
...Or both? Why not?
--------
Let's make a cost/benefit analysis of using 2 large shields, taking Shield Specialization (from PH2) and 2 tower shields, taking Shield Mastery (Plot and Poison). Anything that is shared between both methods will be ignored, as it will make no difference either way (like shield spikes, enchantments, etc). All costs, bonuses, etc are multiplied by 2, as we are comparing them as though both shields in the set had it, unless specified otherwise.
-
Large Shield (wooden) for 14 gp
AC bonus: +6
Masterwork: 300 (else you can't dual shield)
Potential replacement materials: standard (cheap option, makes this available faster), dragoncraft (minor resistances, but non-magical), adamantine, everything else is pointless in every instance
Standard: 0 gp
or Dragoncraft: reduces ACP by an additional 1, down to 0, and 5 resistance of an element, for an unmarked amount, but it's reasonable to assume it's the price for light armor, 6000 gp (since it says "armor and shield" in the property's title and description) - really meh
or Adamantine: 4000 gp + 26 gp over base, for using metal rather than wooden large shield base, -300 for auto masterwork - It's not armor so it gives no damage reduction. It's not the weapon part of this, if you add spikes, so don't get weapon bonuses. This just seems really pointless unless your GM has a hard on for sunder.
Total cost: probably just 314 gp. The other options aren't great.
-
Tower Shield for 60 gp
AC bonus: +8
Mithral: 2000 GP
Hellforged Property: 2000 gp
Custom Fit (x3): 900 gp
Total cost: 4960 gp.
-------
Difference: 4646
AC difference: 2
Is it worth it? Let's use other items as a comparative. Bracer of Armor +2 costs 4,000 gp. That's pretty close. The difference between +2 and +4 costs 12,000 gp, and the gap increases from there. It seems to be worth it. Amulet of Natural Armor +2 costs 8000 gp. already worth it. Ioun Stone costs 5,000 for +1. Still worth. Ring of Protection costs 8000 for +2.
OK, yes, it's worthwhile, and you get optional full cover. And it's just too cool to pass up.
It would only cost 4960 gp to get both of them, without shield spikes. 5060 with them, assuming no self-crafting. That's plenty doable by level 4. You could just use a single tower shield to tide you over until then.
With crafting (and being allowed to craft it, because hell if the DM just let you randomly run across stacks of mithral so early), it would only cost 1686.66 gp, which is doable by level 3, and have a near majority of your expected gold left over.
I need ways to reduce the armor check penalty for shields. Any and all published D&D 3.5 books are allowed. Pathfinder is on a case by case basis. (I'll list off what I've been able to think of off the top of my head. It's 1:45 am at the moment, so I don't care to rummage through the books right now, maybe when I awake.)
Masterwork from core reduces the penalty by 1.
Shield Mastery is in the Plot and Poison, which reduces the penalty of a type of shield (buckler, small, large, or tower) by 1. Not great, especially not for a feat.
In the Chainmail Bikini book, there's an armor customization: Custom Fit, purchasable up to 3 times, reducing armor penalty by 1 each time. Probably not intended for shields, but I'll take what I can get to dual wield tower shields.
Mithral (Bloody hell if I know the book it's from) reduces check penalties by 3.
So, between these above 4 items that I know about, that can reduce the armor penalty of a tower shield down to a -2.
Hellforged Armor property (suggested by Darrin) reduces this penalty by an other 1. It's from the DMG 2. And now, we can dual wield tower shields.
Dragoncraft (from draconomicon) reduces check penalty by 1, in addition to the masterwork, but it's a material, thus can't be stacked with mithral
Inside Dragon Lance ""War of the Lance" there is an NPC base class called the master. It's like Expert on Steroids or a pitiful nonmagic artificer. A level 13 Master who focused on Craft can make for you tower-shields of Legend. The of Legend property is a non-magical enhancement with is like applying the masterwork quality five times (doesn't stack with masterwork). So for an extra 750 gp a pop, the base ACP of your tower-shields is -5, before any magic or special quality from the material, or anything. - great replacement for mithral and custom fits if you're already starting at level 10+, when lvl 13 NPCs start becoming a thing, and you haven't already invested in a set of shields.
-------------------------
In player's handbook 2, I think, there's a feat called Shield Specialization, which grants +1 AC to shields, but specifically only works with small, buckler, or large shields. -pointless for our purposes. But, I guess, if you wanted to use large shields with this, then you'd not need quite so much investment. I did a cost/benefit assessment at the bottom.
But aside from that, I can't think of anything. Anyone got some ideas?
JeenLeen suggested use of the feat: Divine Shield to sacrifice a use of turn undead to gain + Charisma mod to our shield's bonus to AC for a number of turns = to 1/2 our character level. If lucky, because of the wording, it could be construed to be possible to apply our Cha Mod 2 times on both our shields, ignoring dexterity in favor of Cha for armor class bonus, AND super heavy armor. Since having ultra armor imposes no spell cast penalty on clerics, this is a viable option. EDIT: Actually, no, it would seem as though it's not possible to gain it 2 times because it's sacred bonus (noted by JeenLeen)
In terms of practicality, one could make an argument for animated shield working with a regular shield if you have double shielding, and allow you to use normal attacks with normal weapons.
You can go full Cabrakan, and take Shield Specialization from Plot and Poison, which explicitly lets you shield bash with your specialized shield type, and keep the shield bonus as a free action - as well as explicitly allowing the dual-wielding shields to be recovered from bashing as a free action as well. (So basically it's an Improved Shield Bash that only works on a specific set of shields, but allows shield bash where it normally isn't.) But would the damage dice basically just be one larger than standard large shields or what? Since there's no reason that tower shields couldn't have spikes, but simply could never bash, most GMs would probably allow you to have shield spikes with this feat, which would allow you to get those shield spikes enchanted with Defending, giving an additional +10 untyped bonus to Defense, potentially, if put on both of their spikes by using the Greater Magic Weapon spell. (That bit might not work, as JeenLeen mentioned, it might not truly be 2 different sources of bonuses, even on 2 different shields. ask your GM.)
Of course, I could just go full tank mode, and take a turtle suit, allowing me to take up a 10ft space, take the Parrying Shield Feat to say "screw you" to magic touch attacks and the Goad feat from complete ...Adventurer or Scoundrel, forcing them to attack me by either flat out being in the way, or a skill check.
...Or both? Why not?
--------
Let's make a cost/benefit analysis of using 2 large shields, taking Shield Specialization (from PH2) and 2 tower shields, taking Shield Mastery (Plot and Poison). Anything that is shared between both methods will be ignored, as it will make no difference either way (like shield spikes, enchantments, etc). All costs, bonuses, etc are multiplied by 2, as we are comparing them as though both shields in the set had it, unless specified otherwise.
-
Large Shield (wooden) for 14 gp
AC bonus: +6
Masterwork: 300 (else you can't dual shield)
Potential replacement materials: standard (cheap option, makes this available faster), dragoncraft (minor resistances, but non-magical), adamantine, everything else is pointless in every instance
Standard: 0 gp
or Dragoncraft: reduces ACP by an additional 1, down to 0, and 5 resistance of an element, for an unmarked amount, but it's reasonable to assume it's the price for light armor, 6000 gp (since it says "armor and shield" in the property's title and description) - really meh
or Adamantine: 4000 gp + 26 gp over base, for using metal rather than wooden large shield base, -300 for auto masterwork - It's not armor so it gives no damage reduction. It's not the weapon part of this, if you add spikes, so don't get weapon bonuses. This just seems really pointless unless your GM has a hard on for sunder.
Total cost: probably just 314 gp. The other options aren't great.
-
Tower Shield for 60 gp
AC bonus: +8
Mithral: 2000 GP
Hellforged Property: 2000 gp
Custom Fit (x3): 900 gp
Total cost: 4960 gp.
-------
Difference: 4646
AC difference: 2
Is it worth it? Let's use other items as a comparative. Bracer of Armor +2 costs 4,000 gp. That's pretty close. The difference between +2 and +4 costs 12,000 gp, and the gap increases from there. It seems to be worth it. Amulet of Natural Armor +2 costs 8000 gp. already worth it. Ioun Stone costs 5,000 for +1. Still worth. Ring of Protection costs 8000 for +2.
OK, yes, it's worthwhile, and you get optional full cover. And it's just too cool to pass up.
It would only cost 4960 gp to get both of them, without shield spikes. 5060 with them, assuming no self-crafting. That's plenty doable by level 4. You could just use a single tower shield to tide you over until then.
With crafting (and being allowed to craft it, because hell if the DM just let you randomly run across stacks of mithral so early), it would only cost 1686.66 gp, which is doable by level 3, and have a near majority of your expected gold left over.