I have a character who fights a greatsword with a buckler. Bucklers give -1 to hit with the off hand, which I presume applies to the buckler. Is there a special material that could get rid of this penalty?
Darkwood has -2 on all armor check penalties
Mithril has -3 on all armor check penalties
They both have a higher dex mod and allow for better arcane spell failure.
How about having a magical buckler made that would get rid of the penalty? What would it need?
Is there a special material or magical buckler that would allow me to retain the +1 AC bonus when attacking, or should I just try something else like a ring of force shield or a levitating shield?
Thanks
Prawn
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The -1 to offhand attacks from a buckler applies to weapons held in the same hand as the buckler (or rather, held in the same hand as the arm with the buckler strapped to it). You can't use a buckler to attack.
The reason you lose your AC bonus when attacking with the offhand (or using that hand to cast a spell) is that you're not using the buckler as a shield when you do so. I'm not aware of any feats or abilities that change that.
I realize where the -1 comes from. My question is, is there a special material or a magical way to do away with it. I know there are feats which let you retain a shield's AC when you bash with it. Is doesn't seem like too much of a stretch for there to be a way to overcome the buckler's -1 to attack, and or the denial of its bonus to AC when you attack using the arm its on.
The only thing I could think of would be stretching shield bash to apply to bucklers.
"When you perform a shield bash, you may still apply the shield's bonus to your AC. Without this feat, a character that performs a shield bash loses the shield's bonus to AC until his next turn."
So it seems like if you can bash with a shield and still get the AC bonus, it wouldn't be overpowered to allow you to keep a buckler's bonus to AC while attacking with a two handed weapon.
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Within the core rules, there is nothing about materials that negate the buckler penalty. The 3.5 feat Improved Buckler Defense from Complete Warrior does this and should be usable without any problem in PF. Historically, it has language that results in variance regarding whether it works for two-handed weapons. But, if your GM is good with it, it should do what you're looking for, even if a feat isn't the way you want to handle it.
An alternative would be to design a magic shield that does the same thing.
If you get an animated shield, you get the AC bonus and can use 2 handed weapons (while it is active). Note, its only active for 4 rounds at a time, but I guess if you bought 2 of them you could continuously tradeoff.
Owner - D20 Hobbies
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I realize where the -1 comes from. My question is, is there a special material or a magical way to do away with it. I know there are feats which let you retain a shield's AC when you bash with it. Is doesn't seem like too much of a stretch for there to be a way to overcome the buckler's -1 to attack, and or the denial of its bonus to AC when you attack using the arm its on.
Yes
Pale Green Ioun Stone Cracked, Flawed or Normal.
No other way
Two handers give up Shields to AC for the extra damage of their style.
Giving them the shield access basically obviates the need for ANY other fighting style, and renders sword and board and TWF basically worthless.
There's a reason IBD doesn't exist in PF. IN 3.5, 2hW kicked the ass of all the other styles, and IBD just nailed its superiority home. You got the best damage AND the best defense? Zweihanders all around!
===Aelryinth