Shield Ward Feat

[Brogue The Rogue]

There was a feat back in 3.5, I forget exactly where, that allowed you to add your shield bonus to armor class to your touch armor class in addition to its normal benefits. I was going to move this feat over to our pathfinder campaign because I rather like it, but I noticed there's an APG (I think?) feat that added base shield bonus to touch AC and to CMD, along with another bonus.

I'm wondering if it would be balanced to allow the previous shield ward feat as it's written, applying your full shield bonus to touch AC only?

[xAverusx]

I believe the Shield Specialization feat allows a character to add their base shield bonus to their CMD.

Adding the base shield bonus to touch AC is a 20th level ability in one of the fighter variant.

This may suggest the power level that the designers assign to this.

EDIT: The shielded fighter variant has the Shield Ward ability as their capstone. It allows the touch AC and several other nice abilities.

[Glutton]

I think its fine, shield ward had some pre-req feats as well, and is located in phb2

[Brogue The Rogue]

xAverusx wrote:

I believe the Shield Specialization feat allows a character to add their base shield bonus to their CMD.

Adding the base shield bonus to touch AC is a 20th level ability in one of the fighter variant.

This may suggest the power level that the designers assign to this.

EDIT: The shielded fighter variant has the Shield Ward ability as their capstone. It allows the touch AC and several other nice abilities.

Spoiler:

With the selected shield, you

gain a +2 bonus to your Armor Class against critical hit
confirmation rolls. In addition, you may add your base
shield bonus (including the bonus from Shield Focus but
not including enhancement bonuses) to your CMD.

Shield Ward (Ex): At 20th level, a shielded fighter gains
evasion (as a rogue) while wielding a shield, and adds
his shield bonus to his AC (not including enhancement
bonuses) on Ref lex saves and to his touch AC. In addition,
his shield cannot be disarmed or sundered. This ability
replaces weapon mastery.

Yeah, I did notice both of these in my perusal of the APG. Shield Ward was a little different. It gave you your full shield bonus to touch AC and [the equivalent of] all CMD checks. Judging by these two abilities, is that then considered too powerful? What would be fair?

A, A feat that allows base shield bonus (plus shield focus) to touch AC and CMD?

B, A feat that allows full shield bonus to touch AC and CMD?

C, A feat that allows full shield bonus to just touch AC?

D, Some other combination of these effects?

A player of mine wants the Pathfinder equivalent of Shield Ward, as he's making a defensive type paladin, and I want him to be able to take a useful but also balanced (power-wise) feat, but I'm not sure how strong to make it. Shield ward in the PHB2 always seemed fine to me, but the relative power and availability of these two abilities seem to indicate that it was overpowered by a factor of at least three.

[Glutton]

If a player wants to increase situational defense rather than damage output by spending two feats, let him. Remember if his touch AC is foiling a caster or some other creature with more than animal intelligence, most likely he or she wont be the target of their fury long :)

"Over-powered" and "Broken" get used far too often on these boards, makes me scratch my head. When was the last time you "won" D&D? If your players out arms race you at 15th level, throw level 2 monsters at them and a lot of role-playing encounters, eventually they might get the hint.

[Brogue The Rogue]

Glutton wrote:

If your players out arms race you at 15th level, throw level 2 monsters at them and a lot of role-playing encounters, eventually they might get the hint.

This statement amused me highly. Thank you for that. :)

And thank you for the answer. :)

[xAverusx]

Perhaps a Pathfinder-ized version of the Shield Ward feat like so:

Warding Shield [combat]
prerequisite: Shield Focus
benefit: You may add your base shield bonus to your touch armor class and your CMD.
special: Your base shield bonus is the bonus provided by the shield itself and feats such as Shield Focus and Greater Shield Focus. Magical enhancements to your shield do not increase this.

Fair compromise?

[Liporteryu]

Averus wrote:

Perhaps a Pathfinder-ized version of the Shield Ward feat like so:

Warding Shield [combat]
prerequisite: Shield Focus
benefit: You may add your base shield bonus to your touch armor class and your CMD.
special: Your base shield bonus is the bonus provided by the shield itself and feats such as Shield Focus and Greater Shield Focus. Magical enhancements to your shield do not increase this.

That seems like a good conversion: of note is the fact that magical enhancements do not add into CMD, this is why the converted feat is worded as such.

If you think this is too "powerful" you can make this only apply when fighting defensively or on a complete defend.

Also needing to be addressed by this feat are magical effects to sheild bonus, such as shield spell (the feat should only affect the appropriate shield chosen for shield focus):

Warding Shield [combat]
prerequisite: Shield Focus
benefit: You may add your base shield bonus of the type of shield you have shield forcus with and are actively wielding to your touch armor class and your CMD while you are fighting defensively or using the complete defend option. You get no benifit from this feat for any other shield types you do not have shield focus in, nor any magical or special abilities which grant you a shield bonus to AC.
special: Your base shield bonus is the bonus provided by the shield itself and feats such as Shield Focus and Greater Shield Focus. Magical enhancements to your shield do not increase this.
normal: Your shield does not count against touch attacks and does not normally apply to your CMD.