As the topic.
If I have a magus that can cast the Shield spell and has the arcana: Shield, can they both be used in a fight?
What I had in mind was the spell would face forward and the arcana would face opposite the sword hand.
For that matter, could they overlap?
Our understanding of the rules came from 3.5. In there there is no facing mentioned either although the shield spell is treated more like a shield and is described as such. Since the difference between the armor spell and the shield spell is time it didn't make sense that they were totally the same, so we ruled that one was more like armor and one was more like a shield and thus had a facing and could only face one direction when used.
In case there is a misunderstanding about stacking, the intention is to put one shield in front of the other to get a total AC. So for example if the Arcana Shield was AC 4 and you put that in front of the Shield spell you would have an AC +8
If you already intended this, it seems strange that you would cast the Shield spell on one round and get a +4 to AC. Then 2 rounds later you use the Arcana and get no extra added AC.
On the one hand you say they both grant an AC bonus (like armor and shield) but then say they don't stack (like saying armor and amulet of natural armor don't stack)
I am just trying to clarify.
Thanks
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In general bonuses of the same type do not stack (you get the better one if there are more than one that apply).
Regular (physical) armor does not stack with Mage Armor because both grant an "armor" bonus.
Regular (physical) shields do not stack with the Shield spell, nor do either of those stack with the shield arcana, all of them provide a "shield" bonus.
Amulet of Natural Armor provides an enhancement bonus to Natural Armor, and thus stacks with both an armor bonus and a shield bonus.
A notable exception to this is that dodge bonuses generally do stack.
Thanks for the simple but complete answer. It reminds me of the game NWN (based on D&D3.0) where things like deflection modifiers don't stack.