Getting DR against piercing attacks works fairly well, like with Invincible armor and the like.
Tower shield doesn't help you at all. A 5ft step defeats the total cover entirely.
Improved Cover. Once you get Stone Shape you can make it easily.
A little harder to carry around with you, but there are ways.
potion of Invisibility.
Dump a bag of Arrow Magnets in front of you. They're somewhat pricy at 600 gold apiece, but they will absolutely neuter low-level archers.
Note: This solution may infuriate GMs. Use with caution.
The arrow Catching shield enchantment could work, provided the guy holding the shield is okay with attracting what sounds like a quite literal arrow storm.
Other than that, there are a fair few spells that'll get you there. Wall of Force or Wall of Stone is an obvious and hard counter to archery, but it also obstructs your charge lane. Cloud spells are a good idea. As for soft counters, Displacement and Mirror Image will get you a fair way. The tower shield idea is good as well.
Tower shield doesn't help you at all. A 5ft step defeats the total cover entirely.Presumably the scenario here involves a significant number of archers at a decent range, so I'm not entirely sure that would be practical?
RAW the tower shield only protects you along a single line of squares directly in front of you -- if an enemy can draw a line to your flank, however narrow, you don't get any cover. An archer 300ft away can still draw a line to your flank as long as he isn't directly in front of you, as ridiculous in practise as that is.
Thus, a tower shield is useless against a line of archers as you are only getting cover from the one directly in front of you --- and he can just 5ft step to defeat that too.
Of course, this is all pretty stupid. Tower shield rules are very poorly written and need to be adjusted substantially to make sense. However, given we know nothing about the circumstances of the player it would be remiss to give advice which require DM fiat to function..
No, that's for total cover. Cover just requires that any corner to any corner passes through a solid wall. Total cover is every corner to every corner. The tower shield totally provides cover, provided they're in the front 180 degrees or so. That being said, yes, tower shields are weird, because they only provide that cover for the person using the shield.
Tower shields explicitly do not provide cover, only total cover for attacks passing through that edge (and no cover for attacks that do not).
It would be reasonable to house-rule tower shield providing cover too outside of that line but as written it provides total cover only.
Yes, and it's inconsistent within itself.No, that's for total cover. Cover just requires that any corner to any corner passes through a solid wall. Total cover is every corner to every corner. The tower shield totally provides cover, provided they're in the front 180 degrees or so. That being said, yes, tower shields are weird, because they only provide that cover for the person using the shield.Tower shields explicitly do not provide cover, only total cover for attacks passing through that edge (and no cover for attacks that do not).
It would be reasonable to house-rule tower shield providing cover too outside of that line but as written it provides total cover only.
Benefit: In most situations, a tower shield provides the indicated shield bonus to your Armor Class. 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. You gain total cover for attacks that pass through this edge and no cover for attacks that do not pass through this edge (see Combat). The shield does not, however, provide cover against targeted spells; a spellcaster can cast a spell on you by targeting the shield you are holding. You cannot bash with a tower shield, nor can you use your shield hand for anything else.These two sentences are two separate statements, neither clauses of the other, that should both be true, and explicitly disagree with each other. If the edge is treated as a solid wall it should provide cover in some circumstances. The sentence after then says it either provides total cover or no cover. So... yeah, tower shields really could use a rewrite.
Shouldn't a tower shield also provide concealment?
Shouldn't a tower shield also provide concealment?Yes, and it's inconsistent within itself.No, that's for total cover. Cover just requires that any corner to any corner passes through a solid wall. Total cover is every corner to every corner. The tower shield totally provides cover, provided they're in the front 180 degrees or so. That being said, yes, tower shields are weird, because they only provide that cover for the person using the shield.Tower shields explicitly do not provide cover, only total cover for attacks passing through that edge (and no cover for attacks that do not).
It would be reasonable to house-rule tower shield providing cover too outside of that line but as written it provides total cover only.
Benefit: In most situations, a tower shield provides the indicated shield bonus to your Armor Class. 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. You gain total cover for attacks that pass through this edge and no cover for attacks that do not pass through this edge (see Combat). The shield does not, however, provide cover against targeted spells; a spellcaster can cast a spell on you by targeting the shield you are holding. You cannot bash with a tower shield, nor can you use your shield hand for anything else.These two sentences are two separate statements, neither clauses of the other, that should both be true, and explicitly disagree with each other. If the edge is treated as a solid wall it should provide cover in some circumstances. The sentence after then says it either provides total cover or no cover. So... yeah, tower shields really could use a rewrite.
That's another whole kettle of worms, and we have probably derailed this thread enough, heh! For the purposes of the thread, I think we can all agree, tower shield rules are generally pretty borked.
Another fun (stupid) thing about tower shields: Technically an opponent can ready an action to shoot/attack you, with the trigger as something like 'takes any action' --- Because tower shields explicitly only protect you until the start of your next turn and you have to use another standard action to ready it again, this completely defeats cover of any kind the shield would provide (you lose the cover at the start of your turn, and then use a standard to gain it again... which the readied action interrupts, giving you no cover).