First change is that anyone can choose to forgo any amount of actions to gain that many reactions that can be used when it is not their turn as normal.
Second is a bit more detailed and spawns from my confusion with why damage is both given to you and your shield when you block. What I have opted for is the damage dealt is first reduced by the Hardness of the shield and then the shield's HP is reduced by remaining damage, while the wielder only takes a single point of damage that can not be reduced in any way. Once the Shield is 'broken' (It's HP is below the broken threshold) The Shield can still be used but each individual instance of damage blocked now also reduces the hardness of the shield by one.
I've also increased the cost of all shields by double their default cost in the Core Book and looking into adding custom Runes for shields too.
After using this in two campaigns, it provides a more realistic feel to using a shield and it makes them worth the effort of maintaining, instead of just buying a new one.
Curious to know what people think of both of these changes.
Actions for Reactions...eh. If I were to do it I'd instead make the Ready action give you a second Reaction vice a 1 for 1 trade.
Your shield rules would make shields VERY expensive compared to other permanent magic items. It also does nothing really towards solving the issue of them being "throw-away" items if used for shield blocking since most shields are going to get wrecked pretty quickly a couple of levels after they show up. Even more so with the doubling of cost since it'll be less likely that players can afford to pay for them at the levels they're supposed to start showing up, let alone them be willing to pay that much for them at that time.
Shield runes or some other way for shields to scale with you are absolutely necessary with how many feats Paizo made to modify shield block.
Actions for Reactions...eh. If I were to do it I'd instead make the Ready action give you a second Reaction vice a 1 for 1 trade.
Your shield rules would make shields VERY expensive compared to other permanent magic items. It also does nothing really towards solving the issue of them being "throw-away" items if used for shield blocking since most shields are going to get wrecked pretty quickly a couple of levels after they show up. Even more so with the doubling of cost since it'll be less likely that players can afford to pay for them at the levels they're supposed to start showing up, let alone them be willing to pay that much for them at that time.
Shield runes or some other way for shields to scale with you are absolutely necessary with how many feats Paizo made to modify shield block.
The first bit definitely makes more sense for simplicity.
I've since gone back and reworked it a bit.
Shields can now have two new runes applied to them. One reduces the damage taken by the user to a single point. The second one doubles the hardness when blocking, but for each instance of damage taken the hardness is reduced by 1.
After discussion with my table this seemed better for everyone involved and it actually lets characters decide whether or not to add it on. I just need to settle on the level/cost of the Runes.