New Feat: Buckler Focus (Combat)

[Sidthesquish]

Hey all,
I have a Gunslinger/ Fighter type guy that wields a buckler on the same arm as his pistol and I was considering a way to mitigate the loss of my shield bonus when firing the pistol. I came up with a new feat and was wondering what people thought of it:

Buckler Focus (Combat)
You can protect yourself with your buckler, even if you use your shield arm with a weapon.

Prerequisite: Buckler Proficiency.

Benefit: When using a weapon with your buckler arm, you may still apply the shield's shield bonus to your AC.

Normal: Without this feat, a character that wields a weapon with their buckler arm loses the buckler's shield bonus to AC until his next turn (see Equipment).

Its essentially a tweak on the imp. shield bash feat. Thoughts?

Thanks for your suggestions/ critiques ahead of time!
~sidthesquish

[StabbittyDoom]

I would change it to "apply half the shield's shield bonus to AC."

Otherwise every 2-handed fighter will get a bunch of AC from their +5 buckler, and the shield fighter starts to look silly investing in a shield that only grants a couple more AC instead of using that hand to attack.

[Sidthesquish]

StabbittyDoom wrote:

I would change it to "apply half the shield's shield bonus to AC."

Otherwise every 2-handed fighter will get a bunch of AC from their +5 buckler, and the shield fighter starts to look silly investing in a shield that only grants a couple more AC instead of using that hand to attack.

Hmm, that's good point. What if this only applied to firearms? There is all ready some synergy in the Firearms and Bucklers rules. In the Firearms rules it states that a gun can be used with a buckler without suffering the penalty to hit that normally occurs.

[Sidthesquish]

Something like this:
Buckler Focus(Combat)
You can protect yourself with your buckler, even if you use your shield arm with a firearm.

Prerequisite: Buckler Proficiency, Any Firearm Proficiency.

Benefit: When using a firearm with your buckler arm, you may still apply the buckler's shield bonus to your AC.

Normal: Without this feat, a character that wields a fireamr with their buckler arm loses the buckler's shield bonus to AC until his next turn (see Equipment).

[StabbittyDoom]

That's probably fair. Two-handed melee weapons are the current leader in the melee builds and really shouldn't be improved. Firearm users, on the other hand, are unlikely to get much use out of it due to their distance, so giving them the full AC of the buckler seems like less of a problem.

[IkeDoe]

Are you a guy that uses a pistol and a buckler in the same arm and nothing in the other arm, or a guy that uses two pistols + buckler (or rifle + buckler) ?

[Sidthesquish]

IkeDoe wrote:

Are you a guy that uses a pistol and a buckler in the same arm and nothing in the other arm, or a guy that uses two pistols + buckler (or rifle + buckler) ?

I'm the guy with a pistol in my buckler arm and a sword in my 'main hand'

As I am first lvl I shoot maybe once a combat and then wade in to melee, but when I get a revolver I'll likely two weapon fight with some shots mixed in.

[IkeDoe]

Sidthesquish wrote:

IkeDoe wrote:

Are you a guy that uses a pistol and a buckler in the same arm and nothing in the other arm, or a guy that uses two pistols + buckler (or rifle + buckler) ?

I'm the guy with a pistol in my buckler arm and a sword in my 'main hand'

As I am first lvl I shoot maybe once a combat and then wade in to melee, but when I get a revolver I'll likely two weapon fight with some shots mixed in.

For the first use (swith-hitter like) you shouldn't use a feat, I can think of many ways to do the same with the usual rules.

For the TWF use, no idea, I'm not familiar with that revolver+sword TWF combo.