Should shields have the Shove trait?

[Penthau]

I was surprised to discover recently that I couldn't Shove someone with my Shield on a Champion. He is sword and board, so freeing up a hand to Shove is clumsy at best. It seems odd to me that a light mace is better at Shoving than a shield, when it feels like a shield should be among the best item for shoving.

[K1]

For a matter of balance they only have it as a critical specialization.

I would like different kind of shields with different perks.

Combat shields > raise shield and shove

Block shields > raise shield and shield block

These are just examples.

However, it is definitely odd to see but if you think about shields perks you will find out that they will be overpower ed if compared to other weapons

Shields already have raise shield, shield block and eventually some extra perks if the shields are magic ( if you Plan to use shields just for the ac but not to block attacks ).

A choice would be nice, but even like this it seems balanced enough.

[K1]

Eventually, I could see a shield showing with the new stance they gave to fighters and champion, everstand stance, which allows you to use a shield with 2 hands.

Since you won't have the traits from the 1h weapon you wIll be using instead, the could also give the shove trait to the shield.

However, the stance seems pretty crap.

A press attack on a champion is like i want to believe! And a fighter has the paragon stance which is way better.

[Tender Tendrils]

Yeah, the critical spec for shields is to shove someone.
Fighters also have agressive block, where you can turn a shield block into a shove.

So basically, to pull off a shield shove you need a bit of training in how to do it, in the form of gaining access to the crit spec or taking a feat.

[K1]

Tender Tendrils wrote:

Yeah, the critical spec for shields is to shove someone.

Fighters also have agressive block, where you can turn a shield block into a shove.

So basically, to pull off a shield shove you need a bit of training in how to do it, in the form of gaining access to the crit spec or taking a feat.

Unfortunately the fighter feat is on the enemy.

Ex: If you have an enemy next to a Cliff, it is the enemy the one who chose whether he is moved or become flat footed.

So even with a fighter perk you don’t have any way to decide to shove when you want.

[Schadenfreude]

In terms of balance though, *would* it make much difference if shields had the shove trait (and the feats and critical specialisations still worked normally, usually to provide better action economy)?

Would that be different if shields only had the shove trait if they didn't have spikes or bosses?

[K1]

Schadenfreude wrote:

In terms of balance though, *would* it make much difference if shields had the shove trait (and the feats and critical specialisations still worked normally, usually to provide better action economy)?

Would that be different if shields only had the shove trait if they didn't have spikes or bosses?

There are different problems here.

Because you can't enhance a shield, but their boss or spikes.

Imagine the possibility to add those stuff to a shield, or a shield to being created with one of those already part of it.

I can only suppose they did this way to let you decide your damage type, and then enhance it, instead of changing dmg by swapping a boss with spikes and vice versa.

But if the whole point would be to turn a shield into a tactical instrument, then wouldn't be any issue.

To me, your idea could be nice.

1d4 instead of 1d6, with shove instead.

[Parduss]

Simple rule change.

Shield Boss, D4, Shove.

This will also add a possible gold sink for players who want to give their shove a +3

[Quandary]

Wouldn't change situation with gold sink/item bonus in general, since Unarmed Wraps already can do that, it just makes normal Shields able to fulfill that function and not leave Bucklers + Unarmed Wraps as better at Shoving than normal Shields.

(According to SRMF (former dev who worked on CRB), all Athletics "free hand" "maneuvers" are normally done with Unarmed Strike, thus eligible for Wraps item bonus.)

This is ripe for Errata IMHO, as RAW doesn't make it clear, just saying 'you must have one hand free' (only Grapple saying 'you attempt to grab with your free hand' which itself doesn't clearly indicate it is via Unarmed Strike/Fist. And it would certainly be more straight-forward to just give Fist the Trip, Shove, Disarm, Grapple etc traits if the intended mechanics wouldn't be any different from that (probably clarifying 'drop a weapon' doesn't apply to Unarmed, which already applies to stuff like Wolf Trip).