Thravion's page

With the low hardness of shields/ease of denting, it seems fine to me.

Well in later levels shield block becomes obsolete because of the enormous amounts of damage dealt. In low levels when damage is mosrtly roundabout a d6 for mobs the shield block with a heavy steel shield hardness 5 makes you close to invulnerable.

Shield block says that it's triggered when you take damage, so the damage is already rolled. Yes, it's kinda gamey, but you know how much damage is incoming and can make the decision on whether to block or not based on that.

Ok thank you, understood. That makes the rule even more stupid than before...

does that mean before or after actually rolling the damage?
Because if the damage is rolled before the shield block is assigned the blocking player never risks a dent, only blocking damage lower than the shields hardness.
After being hit and knowing that damage is incoming but before actually rolling the damage would be the more logic solution in my opinion. The second damage is roled it’s allready in your face and no time for reactions left...what do you think?

I don't think there is a mechanical issue with Wizards (or any other spellcaster really) wearing heavy armor... because armor is a death-trap. Armor has no impact at all on your potential AC (if you're properly built); rather the heavier your armor, the worse your TAC, Speed, and Checks. The worst part is the Wizard is paying a dedication feat for the 'privilage' of suffering those penalties. At least Fighters and Paladins are getting greater proficiency ranks to compensate (ineffectively)

Agreed on the heavy armor bashing, but it is no problem for a wizard to get to 18 Dex in lvl 5 and wear a nice breastplate. Can’ he also take a shield when multi classing fighter in lvl 2? There is no check wizard usually do (athletics or acrobatics) that can’t be worked around with spells, and mobility isn’t an issue for elves or half elves. Dexterity is a good stat for wizards anyway so why not wear medium armor? And to be honest who cares about expert, master, and legend compared to proficiency rising per lvl?

Alchemaic wrote:

Rameth wrote:

Chess Pwn wrote:

It seems via the twitch stream last Friday that a shield with hardness 3 blocks an attack that deals 3 damage it takes a dent. And if the shield is used to block and the attack would deal 6 damage the shield is destroyed (2 dents) and the user still takes 3 damage.

In the stream he didn't actually clarify what we've been talking about. So we still don't know which way it works. All he did was restate what was already in the book. He didn't talk about reduction in damage first or after the fact or not at all.

I believe he did say that the shield gets dented and the rest of the damage passes through, which would be "hardness isn't applied to the shield at all". The problem is pinning down that exact line in a 3 hour livestream.

And I just managed to find it. Timecode is 2:47:05 at https://www.twitch.tv/videos/301012575

JB: Alright so you shield block?
EK: Yep.
JB: He is going to do 9 points of damage, so that's reduced by the hardness of the shield.
EK: Which is 5.
JB: Which is 5.
EK: Which means I'm going to take 4 points of damage.
JB: So you take 4 and the shield is dented.
EK: Correct.

As an additional bonus, I also got my question answered which is if you can shield block with the knowledge of how much damage you're going to take. Just need that noted in the rules now.

I did not expect that. This means that hardness is actually hp for the shield (and not what we usually refer to as hardness, that is, a damage reduction), and "number of dents" is just an hp multiplier.

This makes shields worse than the alternate way some (most?) of us were running it. I haven't played in high level combat yet, but at lvl 7 a Sturdy Shield with hardness 10 would have been dented by pretty much every single attack, which means that after 2 rounds (when it's broken and you don't want to risk having it destroyed) the only thing it does is prevent you from wieding a bigger weapon

There is another possibility, they played it wrong. In my opinion they did not know their own rules, because the totally ignored the hardness of the shield. The shield should have absorbed 5 damage and the character should have received 4 damage as explained. The shield should not have received a dent, because of its hardness of five it should take 10 damage for it to receive a dent, and 15 damage to get broken instantly.

As I said before do not take it by the book. You are definitely right with the wording. The shield would never get dented.
The intention is different and the wording has to be changed. Paladinosaurs Version is the most logic.

It is really simple.
Let’s take a large steel shield for example:
Fighter gets hit, shield is raised, fighter decides to block, damage is rolled.
Damage result is 8 points.
Fighter takes 3 points of damage. Shield takes 5 damage and so its first dent. When it receives its second dent it becomes broken, every other dent will destroy it.
The wooden shield in your example would have blocked 3 damage and then been vaporised by the blow because it received 15 damage. That equaled 5 dents...3 would have been enough.

Martijn Van Alphen wrote:

Thravion wrote:

The trigger is taking damage from a physical attack. If you block an attack with a shield after getting hit in the face it is simply too late...

You have to announce blocking before damage is rolled.

That is certainly a viable interpretation. On the other hand, it is also viable to say that you are not yet receiving damage until damage is actually being applied. I think the wording is simply too ambiguous (I know it would definitely lead to a lengthy discussion at my table).

I believe the intention is for you to declare it after you get hit, but before damage is rolled.

However, in that case, the trigger should be "You are hit or critically hit by an attack" (or something along those lines).

Unless the intention is for the sequence to be:

Hit -> Roll Damage -> Damage is Applied -> Use Shield Block to Reduce Damage

Which seems rather...backwards. But it's the only sequence that makes sense with that trigger since taking damage is....well, taking damage. You gotta take it from your HP.

Just another issue to add to the whole Shield Block rules I guess.

You are right about the wording. The problem is, if you apply shield block after roling for damage you can prevent the shield from getting a dent, simply by not using block when the damage is higher or equal to the shields hardness. This can not be intended. As always I recommend to use rules “as intended” and not by the book.

The trigger is taking damage from a physical attack. If you block an attack with a shield after getting hit in the face it is simply too late...
You have to announce blocking before damage is rolled.