| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Can I never have a Sturdy Tower Shield? Sturdy Shields are steel and Tower Shields are wooden, evidently. So... I can never have a cool Tower Shield? They'll all be useless for shield blocking by mid levels?
That is unfortunately houserule territorry
talk with your gm but sturdy shield seem to be (by default) always enchanted steel shields
This whole thing is part of several discussions that just go on and on and on about how sturdy shields are treated compared to what one wants from shields
Really the benefit to Tower Shields isn't shield blocking with them, it's taking cover behind them for that sweet sweet +4 AC bonus. Carrying your own cover around is pretty nice.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Oh, absolutely. But it sounds as though my tower shield carrying dwarf is never going to find a cool tower shield.
Sadly, a large percentage of the shield feats currently out there are related to shield blocking.
My favorite part of the Tower Shield is that when I have it raised, I provide cover to my allies (not just lesser cover). That's a nice benefit for any reach weapon user or archer behind me.
Oh, absolutely. But it sounds as though my tower shield carrying dwarf is never going to find a cool tower shield.
Sadly, a large percentage of the shield feats currently out there are related to shield blocking.
My favorite part of the Tower Shield is that when I have it raised, I provide cover to my allies (not just lesser cover). That's a nice benefit for any reach weapon user or archer behind me.
It is unfortunate that there is a lack of progression for Tower Shields. If you want some options, and don't want to wait for more official ones, take a look at the Gamemastery Guide Item Building Rules and take a crack at building a couple with your GM.
Fully into house rule territory here, but you could even use those rules to create a sort of "sturdy" Tower Shield, simply using a Sturdy Shield as a benchmark, but perhaps reducing the Hardness and HP to account for the ability to take cover behind the shield. Or take a look at some of the other specific shields for an idea of what a shield should be capable of if you don't just want a Shield Block vector.
You could craft one out of Darkwood. It gives the amount of gp to add to the price; meaning it’s really expensive. Since a Sturdy Shield is Magical and has the Abjuration trait that would mean you use the stats of the Sturdy Shield you’re making it into. The Darkwood would make it 1 bulk lighter, so 3 bulk instead of 4; and give you a Tower Shield.
You could craft one out of Darkwood. It gives the amount of gp to add to the price; meaning it’s really expensive. Since a Sturdy Shield is Magical and has the Abjuration trait that would mean you use the stats of the Sturdy Shield you’re making it into. The Darkwood would make it 1 bulk lighter, so 3 bulk instead of 4; and give you a Tower Shield.
Yes, making a Sturdy Tower Sheild out of Darkwood would absolutely seem to make sense. And would simply be a new specific object. As per rules you would attempt to make your object fit into the guidelines given.
So by guidelines it shouldn't be better than a sturdy shield. Perhaps, if as mentioned, since the tower shield has some extra utility to it, maybe it shouldn't be as good as a sturdy shield. You could either drop the hardness by say 2, or make the BT of the shield be 3x the hardness instead of 4x with HP being 6x the hardness instead of 8x. Reflecting the shield is really hard, but as it is so large, individual parts can end up getting weakened allowing it to become more vulnerable to being broken.
You could also choose to potentially allow regular mithral tower shields, due to how it is considered so light for metal. Allow the tower shield to be made from it, but don't apply the lightening aspect of mithral to the item, as it is instead being used to allow the item to be made out of it.
You could craft one out of Darkwood. It gives the amount of gp to add to the price; meaning it’s really expensive. Since a Sturdy Shield is Magical and has the Abjuration trait that would mean you use the stats of the Sturdy Shield you’re making it into. The Darkwood would make it 1 bulk lighter, so 3 bulk instead of 4; and give you a Tower Shield.Yes, making a Sturdy Tower Sheild out of Darkwood would absolutely seem to make sense. And would simply be a new specific object. As per rules you would attempt to make your object fit into the guidelines given.
So by guidelines it shouldn't be better than a sturdy shield. Perhaps, if as mentioned, since the tower shield has some extra utility to it, maybe it shouldn't be as good as a sturdy shield. You could either drop the hardness by say 2, or make the BT of the shield be 3x the hardness instead of 4x with HP being 6x the hardness instead of 8x. Reflecting the shield is really hard, but as it is so large, individual parts can end up getting weakened allowing it to become more vulnerable to being broken.
You could also choose to potentially allow regular mithral tower shields, due to how it is considered so light for metal. Allow the tower shield to be made from it, but don't apply the lightening aspect of mithral to the item, as it is instead being used to allow the item to be made out of it.
I actually like the idea of a Mithril Tower Shield; it makes a good amount of sense from the similar weight.
Though i disagree on the rest. What I’m suggesting is much closer to how the rules suggest crafting with Precious Materials rather than making a new specific item. Take a look at the Reforging Shield; that’s more in line with lowering the shield’s stats in exchange of an extra ability for the item.
Why wouldn't a sturdy tower shield provide better defense than a sturdy shield? Why else it is huge and bulky?
Simplest answer is coverage. A smaller heater style steel shield can afford to be thicker overall, due to it's smaller overall footprint, and still be useable. A tower shield on the other hand has to sacrifice thickness to stretch that material over a wider area. If you made a tower shield as thick as a comparable steel shield, it would be an absolute nightmare to carry around and use, even if you were strong enough to do so.
A magic shield might weigh no more than a feather. They can make sturdy (or admantine) tower shields if they want to.
Unlikely. If the Paizo didn't put they until APG I don't think they will appear anymore.
The main problem of shields is because their mechanics was decided after second playtest of CRB. Before this they had a different mechanic called dents that was abandoned due bad reception by players in favor of current hardness/broken mechanic.
This is what probably created the current "most have" problem of sturdy shields that eclipsis other shields due their fragility when used to block and the lack of versions of better options for wooden shields, tower shields and precious material shields.
If they put something like this in Treasure Vault makes more sense to create some rune system for shields instead.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Yeah, I feel like Tower Shields are way too niche for them to be viable combat options, and require too much to be at the same effectiveness as any other shield item. They're about as niche as Bucklers, and really, Bucklers are bad because they still effectively take a hand to use while raised even though they were written to somehow not do that, which doesn't give you any benefit compared to just having a shield in that hand in the first place. (You can still hold an object in the hand of a normal shield.)
Honestly, the only time a Tower Shield becomes viable is if you have access to a feat like the Fighter's 12th level Paragon's Guard, where you just spend 1 action to have a constant shield-raised benefit, thus you're back to "normal" shield activity compared to any other shield wearer; you "raise" (or more accurately, press) for another +2 as your final action, giving you the +4 AC that puts Tower Shields over the top compared to standard shields. Heck, the fact that Champions can't properly wield Tower Shields until 20th level by requiring a feat and a Blade Ally specialization makes it pretty OP, I guess.
That being said, it's still pretty sad compared to the viability it had in PF1. Right now, it's so clunky to use, and has zero item support, that it's just not viable under any circumstance. I would have settled with a simple +3 AC bonus, weighing 3 bulk, with the only option that gives more is pressing against an actual surface/structure of total cover (making the press tactic still useful by comparison), while keeping everything else (even that pesky movement speed penalty) as-is.
Making cover on the battlefield seems like it could be useful in certain scenarios, as other creatures are also able to Take Cover using your raised tower shield.
Also I don't think writing off expanded tower shield options as never coming considering the developer insight offered in the basic armor options thread. Might just be that the game's only a few years old and the focus has been on other things.