Add shield as an option

[Verzen]

There are a lot of nifty things shields have been able to do and I see no reason why an inventor couldn't invent some nifty shield that offered greater protection. Maybe provide the shield with a return function so it can be thrown and deal 1d6 slashing damaging. *ala captain america* and eventually being able to use the shield block action for free as one of the breakthroughs. Exploding shield could be another breakthrough. The list is endless on the possibilities!

[TheGentlemanDM]

Actually, as well as looking at a Weapon approach to shields, having an integrated shield for the Armor Innovation is also an interesting design area.

Increased hardness/HP/BT/elemental blocking would be great for Inventors who want even more damage negation.

[Loreguard]

Actually, a shield boss or shield spikes are listed as weapons and would be 0-level. So I think out of the gate you can augment your shield with the rules as written, using the attachment as your base item. You probably want to be very careful that you don't block too often if you get that feat, since you don't want your innovation to get destroyed often, which could easily happen at higher levels.

Having an actual shield choice might be interesting however, as it could allow for a shield who's HP and hardness could automatically scale up a bit under sturdy shields (as I'm assuming you'd get other cool options on top of it).

[Dubious Scholar]

Integrated shield would work for both weapon and armor, yes. I'd lean to only the armor one having scaling hardness/HP, the weapon one would just be letting you get that sweet AC on 2h stuff and such.

[Tekrala]

Shields can technically be used for weapon innovation because of this, "A shield can be used as a martial weapon for attacks, using the statistics listed for a shield bash on Table 6–7: Melee Weapons (page 280). The shield bash is an option only for shields that weren’t designed to be used as weapons. A shield can’t have runes added to it. You can also buy and attach a shield boss or shield spikes to a shield to make it a more practical weapon. These can be found on Table 6–7. These work like other weapons and can even be etched with runes."