Tower Shields with Paragon's Guard

[EKruze]

With a tower shield raised you can get a greater cover bonus of +4 with a Take Cover action. This is supposed to last "until the shield is no longer raised."

How does this interact with Paragon's Guard stance? Entering this stance keeps a shield raised all of combat. It would seem that this should allow the +4 Greater Cover bonus to last for the duration of combat but this feels a little weird.

Is it necessary to repeat the Take Cover action once a round or is this really as good as it would seem?

[TheFinish]

On Tower Shields, the Core Rulebook says:

"When you have a tower shield raised, you can use the
Take Cover action (page 471) to increase the circumstance
bonus to AC to +4. This lasts until the shield is no longer
raised."

The Take Cover Action States:

"This lasts until you move from your current space, use an attack action, become unconscious, or end this effect as a free action."

If you use Paragon's Guard, your shield will always be Raised. However, I think you'd lose the Cover bonus if you do any of the things listed under Take Cover.

But I'll admit I'm not sure if "This lasts until the shield is no longer raised" overrules the other considerations. I could see it going either way.

[EKruze]

TheFinish wrote:

On Tower Shields, the Core Rulebook says:

"When you have a tower shield raised, you can use the
Take Cover action (page 471) to increase the circumstance
bonus to AC to +4. This lasts until the shield is no longer
raised."

The Take Cover Action States:

"This lasts until you move from your current space, use an attack action, become unconscious, or end this effect as a free action."

If you use Paragon's Guard, your shield will always be Raised. However, I think you'd lose the Cover bonus if you do any of the things listed under Take Cover.

But I'll admit I'm not sure if "This lasts until the shield is no longer raised" overrules the other considerations. I could see it going either way.

It would seem that if the Tower Shield is only enabling a character to use the Take Cover action then the +4 bonus would be lost any time an attack is made, be it during your turn or even making an Attack of Opportunity, whether Paragon's Guard is active or not.

If instead it's a specialized use of Take Cover that increases the Tower Shield's AC bonus without that limitation, then a strict reading of the rule would keep it up indefinitely with Paragon's Guard.

I wonder which reading is intended. One seems to really diminish the utility of the Tower Shield and the other seems far stronger than was probably meant to be.

[TheFinish]

Given the current state of the rules, and after some rereading, I think the second interpretation (that is, that the bonus is kept up indefinitely) is the "correct" one per RAW, but like you said, I'm unsure if it's intended.

I should point out though that at 12th level, if you're still using a bog-standard Tower Shield...sure, take the extra +2 AC. There's no way to upgrade it (besides Darkwood, which is incredibly questionable for the price), no magical Tower Shields have been printed (that I know of, I don't own every module). You can't use it to block (it will get obliterated instantly), you can't slap any nifty effects on it (because shield runes aren't a thing)...so yeah, if your player wants to run around with a Tower Shield, why not. It's not gonna break anything, I don't think.

[EKruze]

TheFinish wrote:

Given the current state of the rules, and after some rereading, I think the second interpretation (that is, that the bonus is kept up indefinitely) is the "correct" one per RAW, but like you said, I'm unsure if it's intended.

I should point out though that at 12th level, if you're still using a bog-standard Tower Shield...sure, take the extra +2 AC. There's no way to upgrade it (besides Darkwood, which is incredibly questionable for the price), no magical Tower Shields have been printed (that I know of, I don't own every module). You can't use it to block (it will get obliterated instantly), you can't slap any nifty effects on it (because shield runes aren't a thing)...so yeah, if your player wants to run around with a Tower Shield, why not. It's not gonna break anything, I don't think.

I think you're correct. If the activation of the Tower Shield were a standard Take Cover action it would be providing +4 Reflex Saves and Stealth checks as well which are not mentioned at all in the Tower Shield entry.