The Shield Focus feat requires Shield Proficiency as a prerequisite. I have a guy whose cleric isn't proficient with a tower shield using the feat to bump up his AC. I feel that the feat can only be used with a shield someone is proficient to use.
What do you guys think?
(BTW: He is sucking up a mighty -10 penalty on his attack rolls. He's a caster who doesn't care)
While RAW 'allows' the trick, I side with the (probable) RAI that one would need Shield Proficiency in the shield you're using. It's much like feats that require Weapon Focus also need you to use that weapon. There it's spelled out because there are so many weapons. With shields, they likely overlooked 'partial' shield proficiency w/ that Tower Shield exception.
Frankly, he's being cheesy. That's enough reason to disallow it.
Give this guy some combat terrain with very low DCs to traverse (so that most everybody can succeed) and suddenly that shield looks like the anchor it should be.
A bit of knee-deep water here, some rubble there, a log over a river here, a muddy patch there: soon he'll realize how cumbersome that shield really is. If I recall, it doesn't matter if he's carrying it or wielding it, he still takes the penalty. So unless he has magic to stow it, he can't climb/balance/swim/ride/etc. at all!
And, if he's not a melee combatant, there's a decent chance he's slowed by the extra weight.
I had a guy who tried a similar thing, carrying his Tower Shield on a small cart behind him (so it was technically not 'carried' while traveling), even through forests, up mountains, etc. Eventually he gave up, realizing I was never going to give him static 'video game' adventures where he could pull out his shield.
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That's incorrect, you only get the penalty whilst wielding the shield. If it's on your back/in your bag of holding, no penalty unless you're over your light load.
Furthermore:
You are skilled at deflecting blows with your shield.
Prerequisites: Shield Proficiency, base attack bonus +1.
Benefit: Increase the AC bonus granted by any shield you are using by 1.
Clerics get shield proficiency, so the feat is legal. The feat says any shield, so he gets the benefit. If he's using the shield, he takes massive penalties. There's nothing wrong with what he's doing, especially with a feat for +1 AC.
The Shield Focus feat requires Shield Proficiency as a prerequisite. I have a guy whose cleric isn't proficient with a tower shield using the feat to bump up his AC. I feel that the feat can only be used with a shield someone is proficient to use.
What do you guys think?
(BTW: He is sucking up a mighty -10 penalty on his attack rolls. He's a caster who doesn't care)
What's his encumbrance? Unless he has a high Str and isn't wearing medium armor, he's probably down to 20 ft. movement. Between being slower and having a -10 (or likely worse) armor check penalty on all Dex- and Str-based skills, there are plenty of ways he is hampered by this shield besides just the -12 penalty to attack rolls he never uses.
If he's blowing a feat just to pump the shield bonus from +4 to +5, it's not cheesy. He could gain a +4 shield bonus and have the option of taking total cover as a standard action without proficiency anyways, so he's blowing a feat to gain a marginal extra bonus to AC.
He actually has a penalty of -14 to all attack rolls:
-9 for a +2 tower shield (+7 to AC with Shield Focus feat)
-5 for +2 full plate (+11 to AC)
He's also heavily encumbered, but that doesn't stack with the full plate penalty. It just means an additional -1 of skill checks (that -1 doesn't impact attack rolls).
He also wears an amulet of natural armor +1, a ring of protection +1, has a Dex bonus of +1, and the Dodge feat (each giving +1 to AC)
This gives him an AC of 32. IIRC, he has this pumped up a couple more points (to AC 34), but I don't remember how. Since he usually starts combat by casting sanctuary, hardly anything can touch him. He parks squarely in the way of large enemies, corking them up and healing the party as needed.
It's pretty impressive for a 4th level PFS character. I long for the day when I can have a rat or housecat grapple with him and pin him...
He actually has a penalty of -14 to all attack rolls:
-9 for a +2 tower shield (+7 to AC with Shield Focus feat)
-5 for +2 full plate (+11 to AC)He's also heavily encumbered, but that doesn't stack with the full plate penalty. It just means an additional -1 of skill checks (that -1 doesn't impact attack rolls).
He also wears an amulet of natural armor +1, a ring of protection +1, has a Dex bonus of +1, and the Dodge feat (each giving +1 to AC)
This gives him an AC of 32. IIRC, he has this pumped up a couple more points (to AC 34), but I don't remember how. Since he usually starts combat by casting sanctuary, hardly anything can touch him. He parks squarely in the way of large enemies, corking them up and healing the party as needed.
It's pretty impressive for a 4th level PFS character. I long for the day when I can have a rat or housecat grapple with him and pin him...
Seems like a nice tactical strategy for PFS... can't even overrun or bull rush him without rolling against the sanctuary. Large creatures should be able to squeeze past him if there is at least a 5 ft wide path around him, however.
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He actually has a penalty of -14 to all attack rolls:
-9 for a +2 tower shield (+7 to AC with Shield Focus feat)
-5 for +2 full plate (+11 to AC)He's also heavily encumbered, but that doesn't stack with the full plate penalty. It just means an additional -1 of skill checks (that -1 doesn't impact attack rolls).
He also wears an amulet of natural armor +1, a ring of protection +1, has a Dex bonus of +1, and the Dodge feat (each giving +1 to AC)
This gives him an AC of 32. IIRC, he has this pumped up a couple more points (to AC 34), but I don't remember how. Since he usually starts combat by casting sanctuary, hardly anything can touch him. He parks squarely in the way of large enemies, corking them up and healing the party as needed.
It's pretty impressive for a 4th level PFS character. I long for the day when I can have a rat or housecat grapple with him and pin him...
He dies just as soon as he needs to make an acrobatics, climb or swim check whose consequences separate him from the party and put him the lap of a BBEM or dump him in lava.
(Drowning in a pool of otyugh excrement is not a lovely way to bow out. So that happen to a guy....)
Also make sure he's not getting away with casting rays (i.e., no Searing Light for him at 5th), and that he's taking it off before nappy time or blowing a Lesser Restoration the morning after if he sleeps in it (else be fatigued).
Shield focus?
...so now he's two feats down from just taking one level of fighter at 1st to pick up all armor, shield and martial weapon proficiencies plus a bonus feat.
He actually has a penalty of -14 to all attack rolls:
-9 for a +2 tower shield (+7 to AC with Shield Focus feat)
-5 for +2 full plate (+11 to AC)He's also heavily encumbered, but that doesn't stack with the full plate penalty. It just means an additional -1 of skill checks (that -1 doesn't impact attack rolls).
He also wears an amulet of natural armor +1, a ring of protection +1, has a Dex bonus of +1, and the Dodge feat (each giving +1 to AC)
This gives him an AC of 32. IIRC, he has this pumped up a couple more points (to AC 34), but I don't remember how. Since he usually starts combat by casting sanctuary, hardly anything can touch him. He parks squarely in the way of large enemies, corking them up and healing the party as needed.
It's pretty impressive for a 4th level PFS character. I long for the day when I can have a rat or housecat grapple with him and pin him...
Non-proficient tower shield use doesn't decrease CMD. On the contrary, the standard action to use it as cover would actually increase his CMD. His CMB is severely compromised...until he drops the towershield.
My question is where did he get +2 full plate, +2 tower shield, +1 amulet of natural armor and a ring of protection +1 at fourth level? :/
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My question is where did he get +2 full plate, +2 tower shield, +1 amulet of natural armor and a ring of protection +1 at fourth level? :/
Ya, you may need to check on this. Barring finding it on an AR, he will need 27 Fame to get +2 Full Plate, and that's impossible if he's level 4.
In addition, his gear totals to (9650+8180+2000+2000=19830) which is above the wealth for a 6th level character. I know with the Thornkeep modules and playing up, you can skew your gold higher than the normal progression, but this seems excessively higher. Plus Thornkeep slows your Fame progression which would make that full plate even harder to get.
Beyond that, I don't see why he can't use the feats as he has the knowledge of how to stand behind something and take less damage. He's just standing behind something that greatly restricts him due lacking specific training in its use.