Red Baron's page

So Badasssailor and I were thinking that what if they made the Armor Training for fighters either count to both armor and shield, or just to shield instead of armor. The theory being just as you get better swinging the sword, you would also get better at moving the shield to block. This would make using a shield a more viable option for fighters, it does not really apply to anyone else though, unless you did something like make anyone proficiant in the shield add some % of their BAB to the shield's AC, maybe half or something.

Any comments?

I think my group is pretty close to what you guys are playing and I have a few thoughts.

1. the sword and board cleric: you are a cleric, not a fighter. You will never do the damage a fighter does. Likewise, he won't be healing anyone or calling down heavenly fire. Try taking Shield bash feats if you want to do some more damage. Keep in mind you and the ranger get multiple attacks, you will be able to hit multiple enemies while overhand chop will always be a full round action against a single foe.

2. Cleave - very useful, let the fighter whack at the strongest guy, while you take out 2-3 minions at a time and then provide heals.

3. Casters - may not do a lot of damage compared to the fighter, but again, he doesn't get to fly at 9th, set everyone in 30 feet on fire etc.

We have a holy warrior cleric 5th with cleave, power attack, great cleave and selective channeling. We like to call her the "not THAT kind of cleric"

We have a cleric who is travel/prot domains that can zap around the map and heal.

We have a Ranger bow specialty.

A barbarian that to figure out the rage powers requires some kind of quantum physics. Could they have made it ANY more complicated?

We have our overhand chop fighter who we are used to doing massive damage all the time cause we're pretty sure he's a cheater.

Then there's me, I made a rog/fighter, Varisian. I have improved trip, combat reflexes, ex weap prof bladed scarf, dodge and mobility. Basically, my guy dances through the battle and makes things fall down. I get more damage/attacks as attack of opportunity than i do on my turn.

our ranger with the bow proficiency is great and our other hybrids realize YOU ARE NOT PLAYING A FIGHTER. Paizo actually made people WANT to play that entirely useless (in 3e) class again.

I play the Travel/Protection Cleric in this game and totaly agree that overhand chop is a little on the absurd side. I mean when you have a 5th level fighter doing 16 points for minimum damage and 26 for max on a non crit in my opinion things are getting out of hand.

I also have always felt that all versions of D&D have under played the shield. I also play in the SCA and the shield for me and most people I know is about 90% of your defeanse and the armor is their as a just in case the shield didn't block the shot. I play with what I would consider Full plate, Heavy Steel Shield and a Long sword, and I would dare to say my shield provides just as much protection if not more then my full plate.

With this in mind I would tend to agree with the thought of uping the AC for the shields to have a body shield be closer to +10, a heavy shield +8, a light shield +6, and a buckler +4.

Some people might think these numbers way to high and that then their would be no way to get to anyone with a shield, but then you pretty much would need to do what we do, get another person to pin the shield aside while you attack, or sunder the enemy's shield.

These are just some of my thoughts based on real life experiance.