I, like many others, disagree hardly with the way shields are currently being mechanically portrayed in the Playtest. They make no sense compared to history, simulate no popular fiction about them and is simply no worth it in game.
I thought about my greatest grievances with shield mechanics and came to the following solutions. They weren't tested yet, I just came up with them and decided to submit them to evaluation.
Having said all that, here are my points:
1st- Eliminate completely the Reaction expenditure to block with a shield. Make it an automatic result of having spent an action to Raise your shield on your turn. You Raise you shield, you get its bonus to AC and block any attacks directed at you until you next turn, reducing their damage by the shield's Hardness;
2nd- Allow any character to Raise a shield as a Reaction. Simple as that. No "ifs", "buts" or conditions, no Feat tax, just allow it as base function of shields themselves;
3rd- Eliminate completely the possibility of shields being damaged by Blocking attacks. One exception to this: if the attack the shield blocks is a Critical Hit, then it takes the normal damage of the attack, possibly being damaged or even broken in the process;
4th- Make that any attack that causes damage above a certain threshold to a blocking opponent, makes the shield "un-Raised" until the opponent have the opportunity to Raise it again. This threshold could be Hardness + Strength or Hardness + Constitution (or both, more likely).
These suggestions allows shield users to feel a lot more empowered, making shields actually worth using instead of being a chore coupled with a money sink.
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1- I do not agree with getting permanent DR from a shields hardness. Otherwise why not give plate armor wearers permanent DR since they are covered in metal.
What your proposing is effectively a Permanent DR for a character equal to its shields hardness given that even a light steel shield is 5 hardness, that's a permanent 5 DR for all characters (except druids) who can use a shield!
By virtue, the shield cantrip would also need to be changed to be ongoing DR of 4, 10 at 3rd, 15, at 5th and 20 at 7th! what spellcaster wouldn't want that!
It would just throw out the balance of the game in favour of having a shield as a must. DR is way too powerful of an ability to be given away so freely.
2- The concept of a shield is a weapon of war and needs to be an instrument of those classes trained in war. Paladins and Fighters predominantly. By giving everyone the ability to prevent damage through reactions (coupled with permanent DR) will effectively weaken the importance of a Fighter and make any other "reaction" ability pointless and a waste.
3- Ok so you want permanent DR AND indestructible shields? So my character with his Steel Shield at 1st level has a permanent 5 DR and will absorb dozens of hits before getting even a scratch! While I do think the dents and broken rules seem too low, what you are proposing is completely unbalancing and unrealistic.
4- not a bad idea in its own right but coupled with 1-3 the average fighter (assuming min maxed 18str 18 con) would need to be taking hits in excess of 13 points of damage just to lower the shield and would only need to use a reaction to raise it again!
Lets take these rules you propose and apply them to the monsters? Any PC that cant deal more than 5 points of damage regularly (which given the average simple melee weapon does 1d6 damage), will have a hard time winning any encounter with shield bearing creatures.
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Here's what I've always felt about how armor and shields should work. It's pretty different, but we've run it this way in my games for years and it's always worked well.
Characters have a Defense trait instead of an AC that comes from 10 + their Dex bonus + a bonus based on class. Shields add to this so long as you have it equipped. If something hits your Defense, it hits you, if it doesn't it's because you dodged or interposed something else, like a shield or terrain you're using for cover, to take the hit instead of you.
Armor is a different story. It's damage reduction. Armor does not make you harder to hit--if anything it makes you easier to hit (as reflected by the fact that the 'max Dex to AC' would lower your Defense the same as it used to). The real benefit of armor is that it absorbs much of the injury from weapon attack...exactly the way shields are supposed to be doing in the playtest. You have a set of leather armor with a DR of 1, it will knock a point off of any attacks you receive. Heavier armor grants increasingly heavy DR. We just translated the AC bonus straight over to DR and that worked fine for us, but for this game you'd probably want something with more math behind it.
But yeah, truth be told, with a armor system like this you'd get a game that's a lot less lethal at early levels, which from our experience of the game so far, could really do the new edition a lot of good.
Personally I'm of the idea that shields simply need to get dented only when actively parrying damages twice their hardness or more, more value for the user and more realism to the fact that many small attacks don't damage the shield itself but can severely start to bruise the wielder, while shield breakage remains delegated to particularly heavy hits or bad luck (criticals, magical weapons, important opponents and the like)
It would give a more realistic and lesss pathetic feel without need to change too much...
Don't forget that the damage reduction is eating the character reaction for the turn and can absorb only one of the potential three attacks incoming.
We already have crits and botches where we have to gauge how high above or below each creature's AC which has been dragging out every round of combat considerably. If on top of that you have to compare the damage roll to another different threshold that's another step that needs to be done anytime anyone uses a shield--I can't say I love that idea. Whatever it ends up being, I'd like it to at least be a nice fast system.
What you're proposing is effectively a Permanent DR for a character equal to its shields hardness
The proposed system uses a hand for the shield, an action every round, and if your shield is hit hard, you either lose its protection for the rest of the round or the shield is damaged. That's not as good as Permanent DR.
A sequence of Move/Attack/Raise Shield has significantly less average damage output than Move/Attack/Attack with a two-handed weapon. There ought to be a decent reward.
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What you're proposing is effectively a Permanent DR for a character equal to its shields hardnessThe proposed system uses a hand for the shield, an action every round, and if your shield is hit hard, you either lose its protection for the rest of the round or the shield is damaged. That's not as good as Permanent DR.
A sequence of Move/Attack/Raise Shield has significantly less average damage output than Move/Attack/Attack with a two-handed weapon. There ought to be a decent reward.
If you read the whole OP and my reply you will see this is almost as good as a permanent DR.
The result of the OP suggestions allows ANY character to raise a shield as a reaction, prevents damage to shields unless its a critical hit in excess of its hardness, and would require excessive amounts of damage to force the shield to be dropped. If you choose to use an action to raise a shield, you then have a reaction available should someone hit it hard enough to lower it.
Lets take a minute to view this with a couple of characters.
Any level 6 character
Typical treasure of 7 would likely have a sturdy expert heavy steel shield Hardness 10 with 2 dents before being broken.
Paladin level 6
Typical treasure of 7 would likely have a sturdy expert heavy steel shield Hardness 12(10 +2 for shield Ally) with 4 dents before being broken. And has access to shield warden to provide shield block for your allies!
Lets take 18 str and con, his shield remains raised until he took over 20 points of damage from a critical hit.
Vs
Cleric of equal level
+1 potency Expert mace(2d6) str (+3 being generous )
Average Damage: 7+3 = 10 - hardness = 0 ( -2 vs Paladin )
Max Damage: 12+3 = 15 - hardness = 5 ( 3 )
Average Critical hit Damage: (non-deadly) 14+6 = 20
Vs
Raging barbarian (titan mauler) of equal level
+1 potency Expert scythe (2d10) str (+4)
Rage +6 (+3x2 large size) damage
Average Damage: 11+10 = 21 - hardness = 11 ( 9 vs Paladin )
Max Damage: 20+10 = 30 - hardness = 20 ( 18 )
Average Critical hit Damage: (deadly d10) 27+20 = 47
So as you can see. An average character will see over 50% of their successful attacks doing no damage due to the shield and would need alot of luck to get a crit and roll high enough to drop the shield. Even a damage machine like the barbarian would be in for a long fight unless he crits often.
And this is not even considering how hard it would be to actually hit a character AC benefiting from a shield all the time. (I'd put the paladin at 30+)