carldot34's page

I was really hoping for more being done with cantrips. This update doesn't do anything for the "everything saves every time" issue that wizards are currently facing, which kind of makes the extra damage too little entirely.

This is our experience too. We have three spell-casters in our group and monsters and NPCs just save far too often. There is no point in increasing the damage if the spell is still going to miss. Leaving the damage untouched and increasing the DCs would have suited us better.

We have casters with maxed out stats and the monsters still save every time so we are just reverting to cantrips as they often do half damage on a miss. Spending two actions for a miss every round is just depressing.

Plus carrying a shield means that you have to raise your proficiency in TWO fields, shield and armour, to get any benefit at all, as the RAW says you use the lesser of the two proficiency bonuses. That's a Feat Tax right there just for wanting to have a standard sword and board character.

You don't pay two feats to increase your skill with two weapons but you have to for a common fighting style.

Raising a shield is not just putting it up and let it protect you; it means actively deflecting blows, something like fighting with an off-hand weapon.

It does mean that, you are right. Having played a shield user though for 6 weeks now, it is also as dull as dishwater as an action.

Two handed weapon fighter; attack, attack, attack.
Archer; attack, attack, attack
Shield fighter; attack, attack, raise my shield 'just in case'.

Instead, I propose that you have the shield bonus to AC as a reaction (similar to Rogue's nimble dodge), then I have a choice of two meaningful reactions, of which I can only take one; raise shield for the bonus to AC or shield block if the attack is going to hit me. That makes carrying a shield useful without spending every round stating the obvious.

Shield cantrip should also be a reaction, giving the same bonus to AC when used, similar to the way featherfall works.