No, as a medium creature your shield takes up the same amount of space as any other medium creatures shield.
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In real life? Absolutely.
In Pathfinder rules? Not a chance.
This takes me back, to a guy claiming you can't have pike formations in pathfinder. If someone has a reach weapon, they can't attack through your square and at another, so one player claimed, or stab or swing past you and down into another square.
I over-rule stupid rules when I find them. Tight spear phalanx and shield-walls have worked. I like players backing each other up.
One would think that characters have gear that is appropriate for their size. If you are 4'1", you don't want to use gear designed for someone who is 6'10". It would be combat ineffective.
Since a dwarf is one of the shorter classes, when he plants his tower shield and engages full cover. Can a ally that is taller attack over the shield to hit a enemy with the enemy who might be taller than the dwarf not attack.
You try to attack an enemy 10ft away. Without a reach weapon this is impossible. A tower shield, a dwarf etc. are circumstances that dont matter in this case.
Since a dwarf is one of the shorter classes, when he plants his tower shield and engages full cover. Can a ally that is taller attack over the shield to hit a enemy with the enemy who might be taller than the dwarf not attack.
Shield, Tower: "As a standard action, however, you can use a tower shield to grant you total cover until the beginning of your next turn. When using a tower shield in this way, you must choose one edge of your space. That edge is treated as a solid wall for attacks targeting you only."
The only thing planting the shield does is provide the dwarf with total cover from one direction. It has no effect on anyone else.
If the ally could normally attack through the dwarves space, then he still can when the shield is planted. If he couldn't, then he still can't.
If the ally, dwarf, and opponent are all medium, then the target may have a soft cover bonus to AC from the dwarf being in the middle. If the opponent is large, then the ally may be able to attack it without cover.
This takes me back, to a guy claiming you can't have pike formations in pathfinder. If someone has a reach weapon, they can't attack through your square and at another, so one player claimed, or stab or swing past you and down into another square.
I over-rule stupid rules when I find them. Tight spear phalanx and shield-walls have worked. I like players backing each other up.
I'm pretty sure you can attack through an ally's space with a reach weapon, albeit with a-4 for soft cover.
And, given Grick's post above, this means you could form the phalanx, and with tower shields even! Wow, that would be cool, a dwarven phalanx with tower shields and longspears.
The wall of shields would only protect the shield bearers but it would effectively prevent melee combants from engaging with the spear wielders.
The wall of shields would only protect the shield bearers but it would effectively prevent melee combants from engaging with the spear wielders.
Unless the melee combatants also had reach weapons.
It is cool except for the -4. I considered that too high, so removed it.
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Soft cover is only for ranged attacks, is it not?
This is one of those frustrating situations where the relevant rule is mentioned casually in a somewhat unrelated position in the core rulebook. If you simply look under "reach weapons" in the index you will find information about reach weapons but no mention of how cover works with them. However, if you look under "cover", on page 195 you will find this off-hand remark,
"When making a melee attack against a target that isn't adjacent to you (such as with a reach weapon), use the rules for determining cover from ranged attacks."
Please excuse my ranting (its not your fault, people have been making this mistake for centuries), but this has been a raspberry seed in my wisdom tooth for so long that I have committed the page number "195" to memory because it is the only place that this important aspect of reach weapons is ever mentioned (although it's also mentioned in the diagram for cover as well).
The person behind another, attacking with a reach would have soft cover from the person in front of them.
Hey Frank!
What?
You are soft cover.
Eh? Urrrjk.
On rules, I allow reach weapons to be used without too much trouble, and someone blocking in front is a good thing, you stab and cut around them as they hold the enemy up. Seen it done a lot in a number of medieval type games. Dark souls, warband (and that even has friendly fire and damage).
I allow this, don't care much what the rules say if they do impose a penalty, but I also throw in penalties if a weapon is used in a closed and confined space, with the penalties rising with the size of the weapon. Greatswords are not great for narrow tunnels, short swords and small weapons are much better here. I find if a rule seems to be crap, it is best to go your own way.