Sword and Board?

[tstewt1921]

Simple question, is there a build to where using a sword and shield is relevant? I know going off Knight and having things come at you with gaud can work, but in general are there any other builds that can make someone in heavy armor shield and weapon extremely challenging to hit, touch attacks and all. This is 3.5

[Necroticplague]

Simple question, is there a build to where using a sword and shield is relevant? Yes. Mostly by basically being TWF, using the shield bash as a second weapon. Fighter dips recommended, because it's a feat-hungry build. But on the bright side, Shield Daze is awesome.

Or by using a normal two-handed weapon and an Animated shield, but that's probably going against the intent of 'sword and board'.


I know going off Knight and having things come at you with goad can work, but in general are there any other builds that can make someone in heavy armor shield and weapon extremely challenging to hit, touch attacks and all. This is 3.5

Well, making you hard to hit is the default purpose of shields and heavy armor. Just pick up Parrying Shield and Deflective Armor feats so that your touch AC scales with money. Problem is, money spent into defence is money that isn't spent on offence. And too little offence means they can ignore your difficult-to hit shell and wail on your squishier allies before coming back to get you.

So that end, one could make a defensive S&B build using a kusari-gama as a basis of a typical trip-based battlefield controller build, but the shield would mostly be an afterthought (and would, again, be mostly inferior to an Animated Shield and Spiked Chain build).

[Eldariel]

ToB Crusader with Shield Block and Shield Counter can get decent defensive mileage out of a shield.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I had an interesting build using a heavy mace and heavy shield in conjunction with shield charge, shield slam, combat brute, 3 mountain style, and the various shield feats.

You have a variety of options but most of the time you will be able to either charge and attack with your shield which will give you a trip attempt and force the force to make a save or be dazed, or, if you did that past round, you can full attack, get two handed power attack damage with a one-handed weapon, and if you hit twice (which you usually will), the for has to make a save or be nauseated. And with the right shield feats, you can also make two weapon fighting style bonus attacks which can benefit from blunt weapon mastery, bonus power attack damage from armbands of might, and depending on your dm might also benefit from combat brute's momentum swing improved power attack.

It's not the bleeding edge of optimization but it's an interesting martial build with a lot of combat options and some nice debuffs and defensive benefits but which still packs a nice offensive punch.

[Blue Jay]

Simple question, is there a build to where using a sword and shield is relevant? I know going off Knight and having things come at you with gaud can work, but in general are there any other builds that can make someone in heavy armor shield and weapon extremely challenging to hit, touch attacks and all. This is 3.5

I always thought the Dwarven Defender PrC from the SRD was kind of a charming idea, but I've never seen anyone try to use it in a high-op build (maybe there's a reason for that): it basically gives a bunch of (stackable) dodge bonuses to AC, which you can enhance if you stand perfectly still (at higher levels, you can move up to five feet). If I were ever to play a dwarf, I'd like to try using that PrC sometime. Combining it with the Knight and/or Crusader seems like an obvious (nay, requisite) choice, but you'll probably need fighter levels for the feats.

I'm DMing for a guy who's playing a multiclassed crusader with a tower shield in a gestalt game. The party has no true casters, so I'm mostly running melee encounters. He basically relied on a dragonborn breath weapon as his offense (spending feats on breath effects so he can use his actions to debuff), until he reached high enough level to get a custom magic item with at-will scimitar of sand (basically makes melee attacks as touch attacks). So, now he can use some higher-level crusader maneuvers to dish out damage, and isn't hurt so much by the attack penalty from his tower shield. He's playing alongside an Oslecamo earth elemental with a goliath greathammer with the impact property, so he's not the primary source of damage output; but he's probably the best optimizer we've got, so he's still a major force in the party.

Being a nice DM, I made sure to give him a darkwood tower shield (to reduce encumbrance and armor check) with the variable property (lets him turn it into a smaller shield as a swift action, when he really needs to not take penalties). Now he's looking at a trick with a glove of storing that lets him shift the shield in and out of an extradimensional space as a free action, so he can make normal melee attacks without his tower shield getting in the way, and still have the shield available to defend next round.

[Fuzzy McCoy]

Ironsoul Forgemasters also get decent mileage out of shields

[Soranar]

You're better off forgetting about the sword and using the board 2 handed. Just take improved shield bash and treat the shield as a normal 2 handed weapon.

Most of your damage doesn't come from the weapon die anyway. Combine this with feats like shield slam and you end up with a surprisingly effective build.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Simple question, is there a build to where using a sword and shield is relevant? I know going off Knight and having things come at you with gaud can work, but in general are there any other builds that can make someone in heavy armor shield and weapon extremely challenging to hit, touch attacks and all. This is 3.5
There are two reasons that sword-and-board builds are bad, generally speaking.

Firstly, you miss out on damage. Vanilla full attacks in 3.5 are... well, they're okay, but they're pretty bottom-barrel in terms of what you can do. The problem is, most damage boosting options don't work that well with a single one-handed weapon. Power Attack has crappy returns without a two-hander; things like Sneak Attack that activate on every hit do best when you can make lots of hits.

And in return, you get... not much. Without investment, shields offer very little return. +2 AC-- and not even touch AC-- isn't so hot in a game that tends to be about "kill them before they kill you."

A good shield build, then, has to address at least one problem, preferably both.

You can get good single-weapon damage with something like a Duskblade, or a Tome of Battle class-- in those cases, your damage is mostly coming from a non-weapon, standard-action source; the fact that you're using a longsword instead of a greatsword doesn't matter so much.
You can find a way to TWF anyway, using shield bashes, armor spikes, or something of that nature. Agile Shield Fighter can help you do that even with low Dexterity.
It's possible to get your shield bonus to apply to touch AC, which is nice; Parrying Shield does it in one feat, and Shield Ward does it in two (but also applies to combat maneuvers).
There are, thankfully, a couple good offensive shield feats, though they lean towards Captain America-style shield-first combat. Shield Charge gives you free trip attempts when you charge-and-shield-bash someone; Shield Slam gives you an at-will daze ability in similar circumstances.

Of course, if you try to take the defensive and offensive shield feats, you'll run out pretty quickly...

[Telonius]

Just confirmed this in another thread: if you use a Magic Buckler, you can TWF (or THF for that matter) and still get any of the Special Abilities that might be active. The only thing you lose out on is the AC bonus and a -1 to attack rolls. That could nab you a nice defense like Fortification, while freeing up your Armor to get something else (like Ghost Touch or Spell Resistance) that would otherwise be unavailable due to the enhancement cap or super-expensive.

[Gruftzwerg]

Or by using a normal two-handed weapon and an Animated shield, but that's probably going against the intent of 'sword and board'.


Why not an animated shield + 2h a heavy spiked shield?
Until he can effort the animated shield, he can just use regular S&B.

_____________________

For dmg, just stick to regular ubercharger stuff.

Also have a look at Crusader, they can get a few shield related maneuvers. And the healing stances available to them are nice for tanky builds.

[Elder_Basilisk]

I always thought the Dwarven Defender PrC from the SRD was kind of a charming idea, but I've never seen anyone try to use it in a high-op build (maybe there's a reason for that): it basically gives a bunch of (stackable) dodge bonuses to AC, which you can enhance if you stand perfectly still (at higher levels, you can move up to five feet). If I were ever to play a dwarf, I'd like to try using that PrC sometime. Combining it with the Knight and/or Crusader seems like an obvious (nay, requisite) choice, but you'll probably need fighter levels for the feats.

It's not strictly 3.5 but I have a player in my Red Hand of Doom game who managed to make the defender prestige class work pretty well so far (1 encounter) by starting with paladin. Pathfinder let's lay on hands work as a swift action and at third level, it can also remove fatigue which lets him exit the stance, lay on hands to remove the fatigue, move and re-enter the stance. That nicely sidesteps the movement restriction and makes the defensive stance much more useful. Pathfinder only but still a use for the class.