Does giving this sort of ability to all shields (well, shield wielders) do anything?

[SangoProduction]

(Stealing another system's rules and seeing how it could be applied to pathfinder.)


Once per round, whenever an attack misses a creature wielding a shield, if the attack was made with a piercing or slashing melee weapon, you can allow the weapon to strike your shield. If you do, the attack hits your shield, dealing damage to the shield as normal, and the weapon becomes bound. As long as the creature’s weapon is bound, they cannot move from the square they currently occupy. A creature whose weapon is bound may release the weapon as a free action or attempt to break the bind as a standard action by making a successful combat maneuver check against your disarm CMD.
If the bound weapon is a natural attack or unarmed strike, the creature must succeed at a successful combat maneuver check to break the bind. You cannot attack with, receive any shield bonus from, nor use active defense with the shield used to bind a creature as long as the bind is in effect. If any effect, including this attack, renders the shield broken or destroyed, this effect ends immediately.

Effectively a "If you fail to hit someone with a shield, you lose your big sword."
Although, unless it's a natural weapon, they can just let go, the sword falls to the ground, and they take an attack of opportunity to guarantee that they get it as a move action rather than risking not getting it as a standard action. It does seem a bit backwards, unless the bound weapon was quite simply stuck.

But other than that, how would this impact weapon choices?

[Knaight]

It generally makes melee worse, in a system that really doesn't need it.

[The Viscount]

After low levels I would expect weapon damage to be enough to break the shield, which would severely limit the utility of this effect.

[DarkSoul]

It's not going to impact weapon choices. It's going to make shields even less commonly used than they already are. As Viscount said, after low levels shields won't last more than a hit or two and people aren't going to want to spend thousands of gold to enchant something that will only help them for maybe 2-3 rounds out of a combat. Furthermore, anyone who you'd want to deprive of their weapon in this way is likely going to have a high enough check modifier to retain said weapon rather than be disarmed.

[Elkad]

I could see something similar as a feat.

Weapon Trap. On any missed attack vs you (1 time per round), you may make a free Disarm attempt, if successful, the weapon is stuck in your shield. (Insert details, prereqs, blah, blah, etcetera, etcetera)

But all the time? No. Especially if you don't want it to happen.


And then you build for it (including stacking a bunch of hardness/hp on your shield, or carrying a bag of holding full of cheap replacements) as a neat defensive tactic.

[Zaq]

I'll ask the same question I always ask when discussing a proposed rule change: what problem (in as much specific detail as possible) do you envision this houserule solving, and why do you believe that the desired solution is worth the proposed increase in complexity?

This isn't a loaded question that's intended to steer you away, by the way. But an honest answer is generally pretty important to evaluating if a houserule is a good idea or not.

[Crake]

It's not going to impact weapon choices. It's going to make shields even less commonly used than they already are. As Viscount said, after low levels shields won't last more than a hit or two and people aren't going to want to spend thousands of gold to enchant something that will only help them for maybe 2-3 rounds out of a combat. Furthermore, anyone who you'd want to deprive of their weapon in this way is likely going to have a high enough check modifier to retain said weapon rather than be disarmed.

Well, to be fair, if you have a +1 adamantine shield, that thing's ignoring the first 22 points of damage straight up, that'd be a pretty decent portion of most hits, if not the entire hit.

[SangoProduction]

I'll ask the same question I always ask when discussing a proposed rule change: what problem (in as much specific detail as possible) do you envision this houserule solving, and why do you believe that the desired solution is worth the proposed increase in complexity?

This isn't a loaded question that's intended to steer you away, by the way. But an honest answer is generally pretty important to evaluating if a houserule is a good idea or not.

To make shields not a strictly worse option than two-handed, run-in-and-kill-everything. Without nerfing the ability to do that. Although it is a buff which indirectly hurts two-handed style, as they have the most to lose from a single weapon getting stuck. Which would encourage backup weapons (if not of the same type, then as something specifically to go against shields). In the ideal world.

The magic part of the game is massively imbalanced, even within its own section of the game, and makes all martials irrelevant, if it isn't the run-in-and-instagib-everything. Especially once they can actually go a fight or two without running out of spells.
Spheres of Power normalizes the curve at least.

[Troacctid]

Feels like a fairly weak buff to me (the enemies get free sunder attempts against me?) and one that IMO fails to capture the fantasy of a shield-bearing tank. If I made a list of all the effects I associate with shield fighters, it would have things like "Block attacks for allies," "Deflect projectiles," "Mitigate AoE damage," "Shove enemies," "Physically block enemies," "Provide cover," "Shield bash," and "Pull aggro." I don't think "Disarm enemies" would be anywhere near the list.

[OgresAreCute]

Feels like a fairly weak buff to me (the enemies get free sunder attempts against me?) and one that IMO fails to capture the fantasy of a shield-bearing tank. If I made a list of all the effects I associate with shield fighters, it would have things like "Block attacks for allies," "Deflect projectiles," "Mitigate AoE damage," "Shove enemies," "Physically block enemies," "Provide cover," "Shield bash," and "Pull aggro." I don't think "Disarm enemies" would be anywhere near the list.

Disarming seems fine for me as a shield user, but not by sticking the weapon to your shield (like, am I using a glue-shield?). More like "bashing their weapon out of their hand" which I think would fit nicely if you give shield users the ability to counter/punish people for attacking them somehow (which makes sense if they're supposed to draw aggro and tank). Of course, bashing a weapon out of someone's hand is just a normal disarm attempt, but shield users getting a free shield-bash-disarm-attempt after an opponent misses them could be an alright feature or feat.