I'd recently considered trying to make sort of a 'Riot Knight' character based off this drawing I saw on tumblr that someone had made based off of what modern day riot gear might look like as full-plate armor
Naturally, my first thought is to get a tower/riot shield, but looking at the stats, I have a few questions:
1. Why is this thing so darn heavy? 45 pounds seems excessive!
2. Tied to the weight I guess but, -10 ACP? Again, it just seems excessive.
3. Is a tower shield even worth it in the end, or should I stick to a plain heavy steel shield?
My post on this thread may interest you.
I've recently built a tower shield specialist so I feel qualified to weigh in with powerful options I found.
Pick up an ability to grant teamwork feats to your allies (such as the Cavalier ability or the Battle Song of the People's Revolt).
Next you want to get as big as you can. Enlarge Person, or even something to get your PC (or companion capable of wielding tower shields) to Huge size.
Finally, snag the Shield Wall teamwork feat.You can buff AC a bit, but more importantly this lets you provide Total Cover for your entire party as a standard action.
You can combine this with Contigent Action to do some cool stuff, like automatically shield you and your companions from an archer ambush.
The feat Covering Shield can grant a pretty impressive bonus to your Reflex saves if you're really good with tower shields.
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1. Because the devs of 3.0 never used a real shield and I don't think that the weights have changed since then.
2. Just stow it before you do anything which ACP affects. It's not that big of a deal.
3. No - not at all in Pathfinder outside of extremely niche and still not that great of builds. In 3.5 it was awesome - but in Pathfinder they simplified it and (in my opinion accidently) nerfed it as a result. If you like the idea of using a tower shield - see if you can get the 3.5 version house-ruled in.
Thank you kindly! That certainly helps smooth out some ideas I had in mind.
Still, just thinking about the stats on a tower shield leave me a little dumbfounded. Did tower shields actually weigh that much?
Gotta hand it to those romans, the gauls may have had a cauldron of Bull's Strength to go around, but their soldiers had some freakishly strong arms!
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Still, just thinking about the stats on a tower shield leave me a little dumbfounded. Did tower shields actually weigh that much?
Nope - not even quite 1/2 that. wiki on the Roman scutum They were right about 10kg, or 22lbs.
What were the 3.5 stats?
A tower shield is essentially a portable wall. Modern riot shields aren't nearly as large and are made out of materials that are stronger and lighter than anything the Romans had.
One thing to note is that weight in 3.x is not only how much mass an item has, but also how unwieldy it is (no, I can't provide a citation, because there isn't one, but very few weapons or other items have "correct" weights speaking historically, but the bigger/longer an item is, the more pronounced the weight increase is, which is what leads me to this conclusion).
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What were the 3.5 stats?
It was the same base stats when worn normally.
However - it could be put into cover 'mode' as a standard action - providing full cover from one direction instead of giving an AC bonus. The big difference is that it would stay in cover 'mode' between rounds with no additional action, and it acted as cover for everyone - not just you. This allowed you to potentially block AOEs (especially lines) to protect both yourself and your allies, though you had to be careful not to provide cover for your enemies. (You can check the 3.5 hypertext for the official rules.)
I'd recommend to ask your DM to houserule back in the 3.5 "Mobile Wall" option for using a Towershield.
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Still, just thinking about the stats on a tower shield leave me a little dumbfounded. Did tower shields actually weigh that much?Nope - not even quite 1/2 that. wiki on the Roman scutum They were right about 10kg, or 22lbs.
Except tower shields are described as nearly as tall as the person carrying them. The scutum isn't nearly that big. It may have been what the designers had in mind, but it isn't what they described or stated out.
I wouldn't take a tower shield unless you want to be a Phalanx Soldier.
Even then I'd wait until the penalty comes down.