|
So, I'm a fan of the fantasy archetype of the armored mage, complete with sword and shield. Naturally I'm a fan of the magus, but I find the Skirnir archetype... lacking. I was mulling over options from the Armor Master's Handbook, and was looking at Shielded Mage; not incredibly useful for magus, not as much as Unhindering Shield, but a lot more fun in my opinion. If I want to play a shielded magus, I want an actual shield, not a metal dinner plate strapped to my forearm. I know the benefits are virtually the same, but still...
I was thinking, though, when looking at shields. A quickdraw shield, combined with the Quick Draw feat, can be donned or put away as a free action. Now, could a magus (or any other mage), when casting a spell, simply put the shield away before casting and put it on after casting? Well, that's not the question, of course it's possible to do that, but would they get the shield bonus back? If we follow the buckler's example, no... But bucklers remain on your arm as you're doing something else; from a more meta perspective, they use language specific to bucklers, and I don't see rules consituting what using a hand for limits you to in combat. Now I could go either way on this, but whichever way seems to have sway, it could still be useful to use this tactic, since you could pick up Shielded Mage to be be able to cast spells with a shield anyway, provided you don't need a free hand for something like Spell Combat or one of the Dex-to-damage feats.