RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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I started writing this two weeks ago and had some distractions, so it might be a little behind in the community discussions.
Shields are a classic item of fantasy, and have been around in TTRPG for a very, very long time. In the Pathfinder Playtest we have a new set of rules around shields and how they work. In this deep dive, I'll be examining the RAW, RAI, math, and any mechanics related to them.
The questions I'll want to answer are:
- Do they work as intended?
- Are they viable at all levels of play?
- Who benefits from them?
- Are there any break points with these mechanics?
Personally, I have a bias towards shields not being disposable. This can be seen in the book I wrote for Fat Goblin Games, "Call To Arms: Shields" where I go over how their construction and use varied from era to era, but generally they were built to be highly durable and able to withstand amazing punishment. After all, a broken shield meant a broken body and no soldier carrying one would rely on something that would fall apart and allow an attack through. Spartans either carried their shields home or were carried home on them. Probably the largest myth is the breakable Viking shield, but such shields would have only been for training or ritual. Real Rounds were tough laminated three layer plywood with a raw hide face, metal rim, and metal boss that even great axes had trouble getting through. This isn't to say that shields were indestructible, but it would have been rare to see them be damaged to a complete useless state.
That said, this isn't a simulation game meant to copy real life. In fact in talking to Paizo developers in the past about such things a few of them brought up that they were often looking more at popular culture than they were real world situations. I can respect that because it means they are designing the game towards a pop culture type of experience, where we are able to play out the same big action fight scenes that we see in that space.
Now that I have that out of the way, lets get into the rules:
A shield requires the use of one of your hands. It grants its bonuses to AC and TAC only if you use an action to Raise a Shield. This grants the shield’s bonuses to AC and TAC as a circumstance bonus until your next turn starts. The shield’s check penalty applies whenever you’re wielding the shield, regardless of whether the shield is raised.
While you have a shield raised, you can use the Shield Block reaction to reduce damage you take by the shield’s Hardness (3 for wooden shields or 5 for steel).
These are the basic rules. Shields no longer provide a passive constant bonus to AC. You must use an Action to raise your shield to gain a bonus to both Armor Class and Touch Armor Class. I think the addition of TAC bonus on shields is great, and balances out the drawback of having to use an action to activate the shield. It must be noted that this is a circumstance bonus, and in the Playtest circumstance bonuses do not stack. Do not waste your actions taking cover and raising a shield, but instead just pick whichever will give you the better advantages.
The check penalty on shields is always active, not just when it is raised, but shields can also be stowed and drawn like weapons and items allowing you to avoid those penalties if you have the time and wish to do so. I do want to note that the rules don't seem to point out that you can draw or stow a shield with the Interact action in the shield specific rules. It seems to be assumed that you can do so with pointing out that it requires the use of one hand. While possibly redundant, it may be needful to add that shields can be drawn and stowed.
The first entry for shields mentions the Raise a Shield action and the Shield Block reaction. Lets take a look at those.
(NOTE: When symbols are needed I'll be using > for action, >> for double action, and >>> for triple action. <> will be used for reaction.)
Requirements: You are wielding a shield.
You position your shield to protect yourself. When you have Raised a Shield, you gain its listed bonuses to AC and TAC as circumstance bonuses and you can use the Shield Block reaction. Your shield remains raised until the start of your next turn.
Trigger: While you have your shield raised, you take damage from a physical attack.
You snap your shield into place to deflect a blow. Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to its Hardness—the shield takes this damage instead, possibly becoming dented or broken. See page 175 for rules on dented and broken items.
When you are wielding a shield you may use the Raise a Shield action. This grants you the AC and TAC bonuses. You must use this action each round you want to benefit from your shield. I can see this coming up in an action economy's order of operations. Raising a shield in the start of a round may help if your actions trigger a damaging reaction. Never forget that you lose the benefits at the start of your turn.
Having the shield's protection be an active thing on the part of the player is going to mean that builds that rely on them will have fewer actions for attacks or abilities. We'll have to dive into the math later to see if the benefit is worth the cost.
The Shield Block reaction is where I've seen some confusion but the confusion appears to come from thinking that certain terms still have their PF1 meanings.
Where there isn't confusion is in the trigger, but I want to still look at that. The shield must be raised, meaning you used the Raise a Shield action, and you must be taking damage from a physical attack. This means that attacks from spells most likely will not trigger this. I can see where they are thematically aiming with this, as the warrior raising their shield to swat away or absorb an attack is a pretty iconic image. Or, to put it another way, this is very pop-culture. This is further shown in the first sentence, especially with a strong word like snap.
The confusion comes from the next part: "Your shield prevents you from taking an amount of damage up to its Hardness—the shield takes this damage instead, possibly becoming dented or broken."
Let's break this down. First, this reaction is intended to prevent the character from taking damage. The amount of damage prevented is up to the shield's Hardness. Where many interpretations start to break down is with the shield taking the damage instead, and the note that it may become dented or broken. In the section on damaging items we learn the following: "If an item takes damage equal to or exceeding the item’s Hardness, the item takes a Dent." I bolded "equal" because I think this is where most people are getting hung up. The Playtest removed HP for items completely. If you look at page 354 you will see that materials no longer have Hit Points. Its all about moving an item from dented, to broken, and finally to destroyed. Next, hardness isn't a type of damage reduction like it is in PF1. Its a target number, and any time that target number is hit the item is dented.
This means that if a shield is blocking an amount of damage equal to its hardness it gains 1 dent because the damage hit the target number for that item. You will only gain 1 dent per block because the shield only blocks an amount of damage equal to its Hardness or less. Anything beyond the Hardness goes to the character wielding it. I will agree that there might need to be some tightening of the language, but the confusion seems to be with semantics and term definition.
Shields have no exceptions to the dent rules. This means a second dent will give it the broken condition and a third will destroy it. However, the shield would have to be actively sundered in order to destroy it. Once broken the shield cannot be used to perform the Raise a Shield action or the Shield Block reaction. This can be seen under the Broken condition section on page 175:
Broken is a condition that affects objects. A broken object can’t be used for its normal function, nor does it grant bonuses.
Back to my bias in shields and whether or not they were disposable! At first I wasn't liking this system, the initial information I had suggested that shields were just meant to be disposable, but now I understand that this might actually be more realistic. I still think there need to be some adjustments to keep both realism and pop-culture like simulation, but we have something close. Shields certainly took damage in battle, especially if you were blocking powerful blows. Some weapons were designed to counter shields, even damage them so they couldn't be raised. The fact that you can't raise your shield after that second dent reflects this reality, as well as the reality that shields were often repaired between fights and battles.
So what can we expect out of shields if we use it for its damage reduction reaction?
The very basic wooden shield has a Hardness of 3 and the basic steel shield has a Hardness of 5. Quality and Material can improve Hardness. The best I could find in the book was a Sturdy Legendary Adamantine Shield with a Hardness of 21. Considering that these are the low and high, how do they stand up to Level 1 and Level 20 play respectively?
1st level monsters have an average damage of about 4 points per attack. I would expect a wooden shield to be able to absorb about one third of the blocked attacks without taking a dent, while the steel shield could block about two thirds of the attacks without taking a dent. However, I suspect that shield hardness does not keep up with average damage as levels increase. I don't have all the data I need to show that, but I do have enough to confidently speculate.
For example, the magical Sturdy shield has the best Hardness for each of the item's levels. I randomly pulled the damage information for 80 monsters, making sure to have each level represented so I could see average damage as levels increased. Comparing the two, average damage eventually outpaces shield hardness, and even minimum damage passes shield hardness in later levels. This is also looking just at Sturdy shields, and doesn't consider weaker ones.
What this means to me is that shields are going to need some tweeks and support. In the low levels shields are about where they should be. You will want to use the Shield Block reaction to block damage less than the shield's hardness in those early levels, which not only keeps you from dying from a thousand cuts but also keeps your shield from being dented. However, the damage output from physical attacks quickly outgrows a shields Hardness, and Hardness never catches up.
Essentially, what I am suggesting, is that shields should be able to keep up with damage in such a way to allow them to block about one-third to two-fifths of damaging physical attacks without taking a dent. They shouldn't match or exceed average damage past the lowest levels, as that would make them far too good. Keeping Hardness at a point where it is just good enough to block a third of attacks but not so good to block half of them might be tricky but it would keep the shield's Shield Block reaction worth using across every level. As it is, it seems to only be worth doing in lower levels where the amount blocked has more impact on survival.
A paladin seems to help a bit with their shield ally, where the hardness increases by 2 and the number of dents increases to 4, but I didn't spot any feats or class abilities that did anything else to improve a shield. As for magical shields they cannot be etched with runes and all magic shields are specific and special. Shields can carry trinkets, however, so there is at least that. The Indestructible Shield is going to be a must, but once more the Hardness is just too low for that level. A mending lattice will help you keep a shield viable by instantly repairing it, which is nice. The Sturdy shields offer higher Hardness, but in my opinion they just don't keep up with the damage being dealt.
To bring shields closer to the reality of their real world construction and use I would suggest allowing them to take three dents and increasing the base Hardness of wood shields to 5 and steel shields to 8. Every other material should also be increased as well, and I might even suggest that quality bonuses to hardness be increased by 1 for shields specifically. Lastly, proficiency in shields could also increase Hardness by +1 for each level of proficiency.
Doing any or all of these could allow shields and the Shield Block reaction to be viable over every level. On top of those there could be class feats that allow all damage to be blocked in exchange for multiple dents, the ability to block certain non-physical attacks, and even a bonus to Hardness against specific types of attacks.
We've talked a lot about the shield's hardness but how much protection can you expect as a bonus to AC and TAC?
Shield | Price | AC Bonus | TAC Bonus | Dex Modifier Cap | Check Penalty | Speed Penalty | Bulk | Traits
Light wooden shield | 5 sp | +1* | +1* | — | –1 | — | L | —
Light steel shield | 10 sp | +1* | +1* | — | –1 | — | L | —
Heavy wooden shield | 10 | sp | +2* | +2* | — | –1 | — | 1 | —
Heavy steel shield | 20 sp | +2* | +2* | — | –1 | — | 1 | —
* Gaining a shield’s circumstance bonus to AC and TAC requires using the Raise a Shield action. A shield’s check penalty applies whenever you’re holding the shield, regardless of whether you have it raised to gain its bonus.
And it should be noted that there doesn't appear to be any way to increase those bonuses and shields cannot be enhanced like regular armor can. This may be a balancing decision but it seems like its keeping something on the table that could further make them attractive as an option. Maybe you should be able to enhance them but the enhancement bonus doesn't stack with any on the armor, allowing shields to have special abilities through their runes. For example, maybe the Sturdy magic ability should be a special shield only rune instead of a special made shield.
But that isn't all shields can do. How did their ability to act as weapons change?
If you attack with a shield, treat it like an attack with an improvised weapon (see page 178). This deals the heavy shield bash damage or light shield bash damage (as appropriate to the shield’s type) listed on Table 6–5: Martial Melee Weapons on page 180. If you want to reliably use your shield to attack, you need to buy and attach a shield boss or shield spikes to the shield. These work like other weapons, and can even be etched with runes (see page 370).
In PF1, shields were both weapon and armor with some special rules on when and how they can be used as weapons. In the Playtest, they count as improvised weapons but have special weapons that can be attached to the shield. The shield boss and the shield spike can be added to the shield, allowing for a non-improvised method of attack. It seems to me that you are not attacking with the shield but the attached weapon, and while they are both part of a whole the rules keep the two separate. For example you cannot magically enhance the shield itself, but you can enhance the attached weapon.
Lets try to answer those questions I asked in the beginning.
Do they work as intended?
Yes, but the rules seem to be confusing a lot of people. Part of the problem is that people are confusing playtest terms with PF1 mechanics. Part of the problem is in how the rules are written out. Some testing and deep questioning of people not familiar with the rules might find where rewrites are needed. Other than that, the only thing I think is intended but not supported by the rules is the ability to use Shield Block with a broken shield. Once a shield is broken it doesn't provide any benefit and cannot be raised, but from what I've heard and read the developers seem to suggest this shouldn't be the case.
Are they viable at all levels of play?
No. They can't be enhanced to provide any greater bonus. Their hardness does not keep up with the damage as levels rise. They are much more valuable in early levels and quickly become less and less useful as levels increase. If you are using them as a weapon their attack values keep up as well as any weapon, but you don't have much incentive to keep using them past midlevels.
Who benefits from them?
Low level characters that can afford to wield them with one hand. Specific builds with feats and class abilities that support shields benefit more for longer, but as pointed out above the viability of these builds diminishes over time.
Are there any breakpoints with shields?
A breakpoint is a threshold where a single step up in the numbers suddenly breaks the game in a unique way. With shields, I didn't spot any but more testing and number crunching would be needed to find them. I don't think any are going to be found with shields however, as outside of their uses as a weapon all stats fall behind the power curve as levels increase. You don't suddenly have a hardness that will block everything, and you can't really increase their bonus to AC and TAC.
In conclusion, the rules might need to be rewritten to avoid some of the common misunderstandings I've seen pop up in these forums, but by looking deeply at all of the rules around them I do grasp how they are intended to work. I would like to see some hard numbers on how these rules have held up in the playtest, but I suspect that shields need more support in their hardness. I'm also disappointed in their customization options in comparison with what we see in weapon and armor. They don't need any major reworking, but some small changes can really go a long way here.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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According to Paizo's clarification, shields are much more fragile than what is presented in this analysis.
10 damage to a heavy steel shield will, in fact, generate two Dents and break the shield.
Then their RAW does not match RAI and the Shield Block reaction needs to be rewritten.
Shields are less viable and a much weaker option if they take more than one dent with raise shield. The same is said if you can raise a broken shield to block an attack and risk destroying it. Making shields that disposable makes the Shield Block reaction unattractive and discourages players from using one of the shield's cool features.
I'll argue until I'm blue in the face that RAW says that shields only take up to their hardness in damage when blocking an attack. I'll also argue that the rules state that you cannot raise a broken shield and thus cannot use the Shield Block reaction with a broken shield.
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Then their RAW does not match RAI and the Shield Block reaction needs to be rewritten.According to Paizo's clarification, shields are much more fragile than what is presented in this analysis.
10 damage to a heavy steel shield will, in fact, generate two Dents and break the shield.
Everyone pretty much agrees on this and we're waiting for the errata. We didn't get it last week, likely because they haven't figured out what they actually want. What they intended not only doesn't match what they wrote, but is horrifyingly awful (and I think they've realized this) and so it's gone back to the drawing board.
According to Paizo's clarification, shields are much more fragile than what is presented in this analysis.
10 damage to a heavy steel shield will, in fact, generate two Dents and break the shield.
Naw, as I mentioned in that thread, their talk on hardness and dents was just the general item rules. Shields were never mentioned. So it is still up in the air how it is supposed to work.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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Good to know.
To repeat what I've said above, I don't seem them being broken and the actions you can take with them work. Shields are certainly a weak option and the cool thing you are supposed to be able to do with them just doesn't keep up with the rest of the game. I don't seem them needing any big changes in the rules, just clarifications. Its the stats that need some examination.
One more thing: when using both armor and a shield, you apply the lower of the two proficiency levels. So if you're expert in your armor, but trained in shield, you'll only break even if you raise a light shield. Essentially, only classes that increase both armor and shield proficiency (or don't increase either) will gain even the miniscule AC benefit.
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RPG Superstar Season 9 Top 16, RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32
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One more thing: when using both armor and a shield, you apply the lower of the two proficiency levels. So if you're expert in your armor, but trained in shield, you'll only break even if you raise a light shield. Essentially, only classes that increase both armor and shield proficiency (or don't increase either) will gain even the miniscule AC benefit.
Thank you, I had missed that. It sets them back even more, and further hurts their ability to really shine.