Here is a quick heromachine I did of a dual shield wielding character. He is clearly capable of defending himself while still bashing, either with a backhand swing or thrusting the points into someone's gut or face.
It's not historical, but it's practical and I don't see how you could call it any sillier than punching daggers or (plural of cestus?) cestii.
(I hope this link works)
dual shield wielderPunching daggers, aka katar, are real weapons that work fairly well in the hands of someone who is well-practiced in their use. I'm not so sure that they shouldn't be an exotic weapon though, since the historical weapon does come out of some esoteric traditions (at least for nominally-western styled societies in the game).
Dual cestii was a classic combination in the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome. Worked pretty well-- though in game terms, that's about like using dual spiked gauntlets, and there are more effective combinations of weapons you could be using instead. So, yes, I think one could still reasonably call the dual shield-wielder "sillier", since the other weapon(s) you name were historical and used effectively in the past ("sillier" not intended as an insult in this post-- and repeating what I said earlier-- not trying to tell you how to play, just pointing out something about historical weapons usage).
That those were real fighting styles, and therefore not at all silly, was in fact my point.
i say that two shield fighting is far less silly than an unarmoured barbarian running around with a loin cloth and a greatsword. think about it.
one is trying to eliminate his foes with as little risk to himself as possible, a natural reaction when those foes are trying to stick sharp pieces of metal into you.
the other is running screaming at the enemy without any thought for self preservation and swinging a hunk of sharpened metal as long as he is tall around in an attempt to kill them all before they can bring him down.
be honest, which fighting style would you prefer if it was your flesh on the line?
Depends can my loin cloth wearing barbarian be trained by samurais?
Depends can my loin cloth wearing barbarian be trained by samurais?
as in, to wear heavy armour and fight in ritualised combat? be careful what you wish for, my friend.
No like Conan, at least as far as the movies go he was trained in Iajutsu or Iaido one i believe. Could be wrong don't have a way to recheck at the moment.
JJ had to apologize twice (or was it more than that)? That's insane. I think people read way more into his posts than was necessary. Lighten up.
I would like to say that this is fantasy and if two shields can work mechanically within the rules, then why not let people be 'fantastic' in a fantasy setting?
That being said, I really respect that last post of JJ. Thank you for being honest with yourself and us. It makes me happy to know that your passion for the game as a gamer trumps being a businessman. I have more hope for a company run with such passions than a company that puts business first above all else and most of the time to the detriment of the game. We all know what examples we already have of these types of companies.
All you guys KNOW NOTHING about historical weaponry!!!The different cultures have used all kinds of wierd weapons INCLUDING DOUBLE SHIELDS.Just take a look at DOUBLE TIGERHEAD STEEL SHIELDS for example:-PVery interesting. Yes, as a "dual-shield" technique (in the context of this thread as well as historical usage), that looks like it works pretty well. Those would be awfully specialized light shields in D&D terms, rather than standard ones, but if your character is gonna train with and use shields like that, I would have no problem allowing it.
(although your comment that the people posting on this thread "know nothing about historical weaponry" is insulting and misplaced. I'm sure none of us know everything about historical weaponry-- we're only human after all, but there's more than a few people posting here who do know quite a bit about historical weaponry-- in my case, no, I don't know a whole lot about uncommon asian martial arts weapons, other than the ones the Japanese used-- see the point about "not knowing everything"-- but I do know quite a bit about historical weaponry in European cultures.)
Don´t piss your pants allright;)
I never try to insult,so don´t read to much into my obviously hyperbolical statements.On the same note,you don´t have to know everything about Weapons to understand that the history of martial arts is too diverse to completely rule anything out.Mankind has used almost everything as a weapon during the ages.If you know about japanese medieval weaponry then you know the weapons and fighting styles of the occupied okinawa,they speak volumes about the tendency of people to use weapons that can´t be recognized as weapons at first glance.
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A Shoanti dual-wielding their shield/blades. Why not?
That is absolutely my favorite Shoanti concept, is a barbarian or ranger dual-weilding Klar. (The Tortoise blade, from 3.X, was similarly neat, but not as evocative, IMO.)
Green Ronin's Plot & Poison had not only a neat Double Shielding feat (and it's own versions of Shield Mastery and Shield Specialization), but also some martial 'styles' called Mithral Carapace that grants one special bonuses if you have a half-dozen or so requisite feats (similar to the 'Styles' in Oriental Adventures).
we're only human after allSpeak for yourself! ;)
Indeed. Silly humans are silly. ;)
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I fall in the James Jacobs camp here, that dual-wielding shields is silly. However, this scene from an episode of Samurai Jack that was previously mentioned is definitely on the cool side. Dual shields at 3:50 (not sure how to link at a defined point in a video...)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoCtK85KBko
(edit): [off-topic] Samurai Jack was awesome.
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Woah, I didn't know that parts of the community could be this acidic. Someone jumps on Jacobs, takes the whole thing out of context and suddenly there's a bunch of people high-fiveing over it. Not to mention the whole debacle started because someone just couldn't resist having Shield Master affect all your attacks. That's pretty damn cheesy, I dare say. Coming up with cultural explanations for it in-universe reminds me of the people who put claws on their character's feet to be able to do a natural attack routine alongside their iteratives and then explain it as this silly kicking dance routine. You might get up in arms over your suddenly restricted creativity and notions of Rule of Cool, but I don't buy it as long as the raison-d'etre of the combo is getting rid of your weapon-hand attack malus or similar munchkinism.
Now if both the players and the GM agree to fit such stuff into their game, then sure, I'm game. Getting entitled and stoning the creative director because there's not enough cheese? Hmm, well, let's just leave it there. Maybe it'll sink in.
I have no problems though, if the idea is to have, for instance, that cool Orc brigade someone mentioned earlier. Or the kung-fu shield style someone linked to. It's just that as long as the point is getting Shield Master, two shields and MOAR bullrushes, it won't rock my boat. If the point was to, say, attack with sharpened shield edges(1d6 light weapon?) in a nifty fantasy fighting style then by all means.
Yeah, staying in the Campaign Setting section is a good idea. There's a lot of bad blood here. And for a strange reason.
Edit: added some points.
Show me something from anything—history, movies, comic books, whatever—that's not an RPG— where someone uses two shields in a cool fighting style that doesn't look lame and actually looks like it works to both defend and fight... then we'll talk!
I was thinking vibroshields from Star Wars (from the book Shatterpoint).
big post
Totally not offended, Mr. Jacobs. Thanks for your input!
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Tell me this isn't cool.I actually think it's not cool; I think it's kinda silly. Also not something from before RPGs, but something that looks like it was specifically DESIGNED fro an RPG.
I remember from my ancient rome college class that the romans, in their gladitoral games, would pair strange things together for the amusement of the crowd. your more prevalint examples are what you see on tv and the movies, two men with sword and shield chained together, one man with spear, other with shield, or the classic net/trident combo. My old professor did say that if you can think it as a combo, the Romans plossibly did it. So it is entirely plossible that a gladiator in ancient Rome DID use 2 shields for a game, or multiple games, to kill his opponent. It may be that the game was so without Dignitas that the Romans didnt bother writing about it.
Gladiator no. 1: Clavisius, did you get stuck with two shields again?
Clavisius: Yeah, getting real tired of slowly bashing my foes to death. Give me a damn blade!
Gladiator no. 1: ha! The crowd love it, you'll be stuck with it at this rate.
Clavisius: it does allow a really good defence though. *ponders the dual shield*
How do you get the second shield on? Maybe a light shield. But for heavy and/or tower, you cannot get the second one properly secured on your arm. No free hand.
For the record. I own a spartan style shield (roughly 3 feet wide)and I have the strap on it adjusted so I do not need to strap it on or unstrap it. I can slide my arm in and pick up my shield with one hand. It takes no effort to adjust it just right and very little effort to get your arm in it.
Someone earlier in the thread mentioned dual klars.
I could totally imagine a fighting style based off of that. And it would be awesome.
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See now, I too want to have a Dual shield build, but when I envision using a shield as a weapon I see it from apparently a completely different view than everyone else. Everyone else is talking spiked shields and just ramming spikes into people, which is fine, but when I imagine it it's like a heather shield. http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs46/f/2009/204/8/0/80d3cb28a077cd6a45dcacec34a9 c753.jpg But with the boarder around the shield being sharpened like a blade and then using it to slash people, much like how in WW2 soldiers carried around shovels that were sharpened so that they could be used like an improvised knife. That's how I envision a dual shield build. But then again... people say I'm just an imaginary cartoon dog... so what do I know. :p
See now, I too want to have a Dual shield build, but when I envision using a shield as a weapon I see it from apparently a completely different view than everyone else. Everyone else is talking spiked shields and just ramming spikes into people, which is fine, but when I imagine it it's like a heather shield. http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs46/f/2009/204/8/0/80d3cb28a077cd6a45dcacec34a9 c753.jpg But with the boarder around the shield being sharpened like a blade and then using it to slash people, much like how in WW2 soldiers carried around shovels that were sharpened so that they could be used like an improvised knife. That's how I envision a dual shield build. But then again... people say I'm just an imaginary cartoon dog... so what do I know. :p
BALLTO - there is a martial arts movie from a decade or 3 ago, with an elite group of asian fighters - (might be american produced though)
One of them is using dual metal shields with sharpened edges.That was the movie i was trying to google (and how i found this thread :-)
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i know this thread is old but to answer the OP's question "Why not dual shields" directly, well, without going into a real world aesthetics fighting style discussion, there *was* that nagging little line in the rules that said you can only shield bash as a *off-hand* attack, which implied that they were useless as a "main hand" weapon.
Edit: this line has now been removed from the PRD as I do not see it under the shield bash rules...
Show me something from anything—history, movies, comic books, whatever—that's not an RPG— where someone uses two shields in a cool fighting style that doesn't look lame and actually looks like it works to both defend and fight... then we'll talk!
I don't know if this example has been mentioned already, but one of the season 3 episodes of Samurai Jack has Jack fighting back to back with the Spartan king. The king loses his sword so Jack loans his sword and the king gives Jack his shield. Jack then does the rest of fighting (both offense and defense) with the king's shield and his own. And it is awesome.
Come to think of it, when Jack is traveling to meet the Viking warrior cursed to live forever, he grabs a couple of shields to defend against a trap. True, it's defense only in that scene, but the point stands. After all, it shouldn't be any more logistically difficult than dual tonfas; shields are just wider is all.
I'm just gonna leave this here
I think that works for James Jacobs' challenge, but man does that guy look silly.
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Now, I do love the idea of duel weilding shields, and will likely one day try it myself, I feel it should be mentioned that just because it's real doesn't make it not stupid
See now, I too want to have a Dual shield build, but when I envision using a shield as a weapon I see it from apparently a completely different view than everyone else. Everyone else is talking spiked shields and just ramming spikes into people, which is fine, but when I imagine it it's like a heather shield. http://fc01.deviantart.net/fs46/f/2009/204/8/0/80d3cb28a077cd6a45dcacec34a9 c753.jpg But with the boarder around the shield being sharpened like a blade and then using it to slash people, much like how in WW2 soldiers carried around shovels that were sharpened so that they could be used like an improvised knife. That's how I envision a dual shield build. But then again... people say I'm just an imaginary cartoon dog... so what do I know. :p
BALLTO - There is another movie from 2005 - Seven Swords (I just stumbled upon it on netflix) where one of the badguys is fighting with 2 bladed round shields
Show me something from anything—history, movies, comic books, whatever—that's not an RPG— where someone uses two shields in a cool fighting style that doesn't look lame and actually looks like it works to both defend and fight... then we'll talk!
Samurai Jack, season 2 episode 12, Jack and the Spartans.
Edit: I see that has been ninja'd yesterday. That'll teach me to read the whole thread before replying to two and a half year old posts.
But yea, that episode is what first got me thinking about the idea of a dual-shield using character. I haven't tried it out yet, but it's always been an idea I've wanted to put into use.
Show me something from anything—history, movies, comic books, whatever—that's not an RPG— where someone uses two shields in a cool fighting style that doesn't look lame and actually looks like it works to both defend and fight... then we'll talk!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jv95T-5bSYk
It admittedly doesn't make sense with this particular character, because his fists are tougher than big heavy shards of metal.
ALSO FAIL. See above!
I am eager to be proven wrong! But I really don't think the dual shield fighting style is something that deserves a place in the game as a viable player option.
Call it the 'shield dervish' or somethin. Bash with the flat side, punch with the edge.
Buhlman would do it. Rule of cool man. Rule of cool.
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Still loving the visual, and it's something that was done (even if, like flaming battle poi or urumi, is more likely to be done in exhibitions than actual combat).
Still both cooler and more practical than dire flails, spiked chains and starknives, IMO. And many, many times less 'silly' than battle ladders and ripsaw glaives...
Then again, I'm still bummed that the hunga-munga, a spiky bit of iron-monger that can take a man's leg off at thirty feet, is less damaging than the sharpened Frisbee that is the chakram (although the version used by the Glamazons in Oglaf is at least amusing...).
Dual shield build? Sounds fantastic for a warpriest.
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Dual shields are just STUPID, with no reasonable basis in real-world uses of shields. Using them declares that you are more into mechanical advantage than anything approaching roleplaying.
Anything like that (and here I include the dire flail and doublesword) would be banned from my table once I stopped laughing and pointing.
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Says the 5th post down from a video of a person fighting with two shields, on the same page as a set of martial arts training videos to dual wield shields...
Sometimes people literally make me headdesk at how ridiculous their statements are.
The post mentioned pointing and laughing. That's probably the best response to being mocked by someone who didn't bother to read what they were mocking. Point and laugh right back.
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Oh, I read it alright. It's Still STUPID.
No one ever fought like this in the 10,000 year history of civilization. Only someone who knows they're not fighting for their lives would ever try it.