Your experience / opinion on Sturdy Shields and blocking usefulness at 1-20 level range, especially in APs?


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Nobody plays them in all campaigns I play right now so I have no personal experience with them apart from some little math I did. I mostly think probably people just don't want to bother with tracking HP/BT, calculating how much damage they can block, having decision breaks in middle of combat (should I block that much damage or not?), repair after combat etc.

So I don't personally have an opinion whenever they are good or not and how Shield Block scales on levels 1-20 on characters that want to do it.

I know Blade Ally (Shield) is basically the stapple to buff that, so probably if you want to Shield Block you should be Champion or archetype into Champion for that. Sadly Quick Shield Block feat comes quite late (level 8 earliest) so that Block fights with AoO/Champion Reaction.

Anyway, what is your experience with Sturdy Shields and characters that build for Blocking. Do you consider it good enough? Does it scale well with average damage dealt as levels go up? Do you think it's worth investment over free-hand, dual or two-handed or just using shield for AC bonus and don't bother with blocking?

Would be nice to look at it from APs perspective where encounters level +2 and up are very common. And let's skip talk about Amp Shield as I know it's a great alternative free of all the HP/BT stuff. Let's just focus on Sturdy Shields and Shield Blocking.

Silver Crusade

Its a quite viable combat style but is neither overpowered nor underpowered.

You definitely want to get reactive shield and some extra reactions if at all possible.

Definitely want to combine with a maxed out armor class (either through plate mail or as a monk).

You (obviously) do less damage but you're also as much of a brick as this game allows. You REALLY shine in situations where you can hold a choke point with somebody with a reach weapon behind you and somebody pumping hit points into you.

I particularly like a sword (well, flick mace) and board paladin. Gives the opponent 2 poor choices (attack you or get whacked a bunch). Works will with a shield magus as well (where the loss in weapon damage is less important).


I have a shield paladin champion in my Strength of Thousands game I'm running, and I think that being able to tank hits with their shield has saved the party from losing a member in at least two fights, and made other fights a lot more viable.

It's actually gotten to the point that my champ has forgotten that he has a champion reaction sometimes because blocking with their shield has seemed more useful.


Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:
Nobody plays them in all campaigns I play right now so I have no personal experience with them apart from some little math I did. I mostly think probably people just don't want to bother with tracking HP/BT, calculating how much damage they can block, having decision breaks in middle of combat (should I block that much damage or not?), repair after combat etc.

It does work fine. My players have a tendancy to go more for strikers over defenders so I see it less.

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:
I know Blade Ally (Shield) is basically the stapple to buff that

If any complaint it would be that the Steed Ally is gimped in terms of level progression so I just don't see that. Plus Mounted Defense clashes with Shield - both being circumstance bonuses. Plus the Lance sucks. Those are a bigger concern to me.

Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:
so probably if you want to Shield Block you should be Champion or archetype into Champion for that. Sadly Quick Shield Block feat comes quite late (level 8 earliest) so that Block fights with AoO/Champion Reaction.

I still think it is a useful choice. I'd be happier with it if Paragon's Guard was avaiable to Champions.

Sovereign Court

I've seen it used to good effect all the way to level 20 (Age of Ashes). There are some things you want to pay attention to:

- It works best on champions and fighters, although you might be able to make it work with the various Lastwall themed archetypes too.
- Someone in the party needs to have serious Crafting to repair the shield. Quick Repair will come in handy too, as does a Crafter's eyepiece. In our case, the fighter dipped into wizard archetype and became the Intelligence main of the party.
- Action economy feats matter a lot. Reactive Shield at low levels, Quick Shield Block as soon as you can, Paragon's Guard and Stance Savant (fighter) as well.
- Because you'll still be spending some feats on raising shield, making the most of your remaining actions is important. Speed-enhancing options (Fleet, Longstrider, Boots of Bounding) are good for everyone but you want them really badly.
- You want the best sturdy shield for your level.
- You might want to look into doubling rings and doing clever things with backup special material weapons.
- As a fighter, you don't necessarily have to go for Double Slice though, the action cost is heavy when you're also raising a shield and your shield doesn't hit that hard. If you do go that way, make sure your shield hits Agile because better to hit tends to average out to higher damage than an awkward weapon with better base dice.

For a fighter you might be more forward-aggressive focused, as a champion a bit more hold the line focused. Champion reactions and AoO remain relevant because they put enemies in a lose-lose situation. They can attack you and you'll block them and they won't be too effective; or they can ignore you and you'll use your other reaction to punish them.


Pathfinder Lost Omens, Rulebook Subscriber

I played a sorcerer with champion dedication, and with a sturdy shield and shield ally (and shield spell to take some heat during long fights) and I became a pretty sustainable tank in Extinction Curse In fact, for a couple fights I tanked for the fighter with a bo staff who stood behind me. I held a staff of fire in the other hand.

If you build for blocking, it goes the distance. I don't think champion dedication is 100% necessary, but it definitely adds longevity. Also, use the 10 minutes for repairing (I would lay on hands, and then spend 10 minutes repairing to focus thinking about how bad ass a sorcerer I was in the last fight). Too bad mending is useless as a spell.


Parry wrote:

I played a sorcerer with champion dedication, and with a sturdy shield and shield ally (and shield spell to take some heat during long fights) and I became a pretty sustainable tank in Extinction Curse In fact, for a couple fights I tanked for the fighter with a bo staff who stood behind me. I held a staff of fire in the other hand.

If you build for blocking, it goes the distance. I don't think champion dedication is 100% necessary, but it definitely adds longevity. Also, use the 10 minutes for repairing (I would lay on hands, and then spend 10 minutes repairing to focus thinking about how bad ass a sorcerer I was in the last fight). Too bad mending is useless as a spell.

Yes this works really well for a caster as they don't have a lot of reaction abiliites.


Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

When I ran Age of Ashes, there was a fighter going heavily into shield use from 1-20, and with judicious use of the shield block (trying to block the small hits to get more mileage out of the shield) it really did add an enormous amount of survivability and made that character a pretty serious wall. Even more so at the high levels when shield related feats like Quick Block and Paragon Guard were in play, and he bought a large quantity of Fortifying Pebbles that he could use to make the shield potentially last through another hit per fight.


My Age of Ashes experience with a champion player Sturdy Shield + Shield Ally + Dwarven Reinforcement was pretty good. The shield was more effective than I think and endured way more than I predicted.

The interesting facts that I noticed about it:

  • Due the usually need to use one action to raise the shield, specially in the first turn, many time the player chooses to not rise the shield due limited actions available (when he need an action to move and usually chooses to Strike twice).
  • The high AC granted by heavy armor proficiency + shield AC makes the blocks less frequently than most people imagine saving your shield HP a lot.
  • Block a critical hit usually don't worth. The character still will get a lot of damage anyway and also will damage the shield too fast. It's better to take all damage and then heal yourself or ask for a heal.

    But outside this 3 things the shield block is very useful and usually is way more efficient then take the damage and heal.


  • First question, is how many run Shield Block like Resist All versus running Hardness aggregate damage?

    When I ran Shield Block with a sturdy shield with aggregate damage, it wasn't as effective and ruined a lot of shields even with Sturdy Shield.

    When I ran Hardness like Resist All, it was very good and shields lasted a long time with useful damage reduction.

    I haven't run Shield Block up to level 20. I've ran a Shield Block champion to level 17, 12, and 7. The level 17 shield block guy we ran in Age of Ashes without a sturdy shield and running Hardness as aggregate damage.

    Running it as I did in Age of Ashes, the champion had to be very careful what they chose to block with aggregate hardness. They were very careful not to use shield block against creatures that would ruin the shield. So they used it judiciously.

    After the change to running Hardness like resist all, the shield was usable more often and the champion used shield block far more often because the shield lasted longer with Hardness acting as resist all.

    The sturdy shield was a vast improvement over the other types of shields. Downside is it locks you in to a sturdy shield. I'm glad they are turning the sturdy shield into an add on or a rune or whatever they are doing. You really want to get a cool shield and have the sturdiness.

    I figure you'll be running Hardness as aggregate damage as we've had this discussion before. I would say be careful blocking something that does huge aggregate damage as that will rip your shield up real fast.

    Have a good repair person in your party.

    Buy feats to boost your number of reactions so you can alternate between shield block and other reaction abilities.

    Track that damage close. If you lose the shield to damage, you can no longer block or gain the AC.


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    Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

    I was running it as aggregate damage through the full 20 levels of Age of Ashes. Increasingly Sturdy Shields still provided a lot of value.


    HammerJack wrote:
    I was running it as aggregate damage through the full 20 levels of Age of Ashes. Increasingly Sturdy Shields still provided a lot of value.

    Did any of your players use that self-repairing shield? Molten Shield or whatever it is called? Was that any good? Or sturdy shield was better?


    Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game, Starfinder Society Subscriber

    That did actually end up getting used for a pretty good length of time, and was a pretty effective shield.


    I use the default Foundry (PF2e module + PF2e Workbench) rules to shield block because it's fully automated. I believe that the "aggregate" method that Deriven Firelion is talking about.

    Basically is: Physical Damage (non-physical damage can't be blocked by default) - resistances - hardness and it works fine.

    It's pretty strange that personal character resistances applies to shields too but it's how foundry module developers understood the rule in RAW but this grants a better shield survival.


    Kyle and I went back and forth on this.

    I'm hoping they clarify it more because Hardness is used for animated objects, hazards, objects, and the like. If Hardness doesn't work against energy damage as Shield Block implies, then cantrips would be a great deal more effective against creatures, objects, and hazards with hardness.

    Wall spells would be very ineffective against energy spells.

    So Foundry doesn't block any energy rune damage with weapons which is interesting that they interpreted Hardness and Shield Block that way. I can see the trigger only triggering on a physical strike, but I would think even if using the aggregate damage method you would still allow the shield to block the total damage including the runes given Hardness implies it blocks all types of damage on other things that use Hardness.

    This is definitely one of those rules I hope they make more clear in the remaster given that weapons use up to three energy runes and do a lot of aggregate damage when you add it all up with a bigger die weapon.


    Until we know this physical restriction only exists in Shield Block and comes from the Trigger restriction not from normal hardness and also is indirectly confirmed by Emblazon Energy and Sparkling Targe.

    The hardness of the rest of the thing follow the normal Item Damage rules and its Object Immunities and can be affected by energy damage normally except from immunities.


    YuriP wrote:

    Until we know this physical restriction only exists in Shield Block and comes from the Trigger restriction not from normal hardness and also is indirectly confirmed by Emblazon Energy and Sparkling Targe.

    The hardness of the rest of the thing follow the normal Item Damage rules and its Object Immunities and can be affected by energy damage normally except from immunities.

    I know of those rules. It changes the Shield Hardness to resistance in the case of Emblazon energy, which we know works differently. It does seem to push that aggregate damage is how Hardness works.

    The Sparkling Targe ability changes the Shield Block trigger and does seem to indicate it is aggregate damage over resistance.

    I will use aggregate damage from here on out. I don't like it, but I'll use it as that seems to be what is intended. I really would prefer a more consistent and easier to adjudicate Hardness rule.


    I agree that these rules about damage types, instances, resistances and hardness are poorly written. I hope we can get them better explained in Player Core 1.

    Dark Archive

    I was the player in Hammerlocks campaign, from my perspective the sturdy shield use felt really strong and effective, it never felt like wasted actions or that it didn’t block enough to make a difference. The molten shield was definitely interesting and strong in longer fights where I could expect a regular sturdy shield to break eventually. I was a fighter so I got to use my floating feats to try out pretty much all of the shield use feats and overall I have no complaints, Shield Warden probably felt the only one that didn’t work well and that may well have been due to having a rogue as a melee partner, who wanted to be mobile and flanking a lot.


    I played a Warpriest through L20 in Extinction Curse. I used Shield Block a lot, and invested in purchasing and then upgrading a Sturdy Shield throughout. I even took Emblazon Armament to give the shield +1 Hardness (plus turn it into a cool looking holy symbol.)

    At the very end I swapped the sturdy shield for a specific L20 shield. The L20 shield was amazing in some ways, but I found I missed the sturdy shield.

    Scarab Sages

    I have a Dwarf Fighter with a Bastion archetype running 2 sturdy shields and making judicious use of Quick Repair in an AP I'm running. He blocks a lot, twice as much as most characters would. Blocking was nice but not amazing until he hit legendary crafting, now it's really good.


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    Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber

    I've only witnessed it up to level 6 so I can't say for the long arc. But in the low levels it's a major blessing to have around.

    Played through most of level 6 and we got to see a champion with a sturdy shield, divine ally (shield), and Shield Warden operate to great effect.

    He had crafting going so repaired his shield between every fight.

    Combined with Glimpse of redemption, the Champion kept a major portion of damage off of the party by using fairly simple tactics of just 'be in the thick of it and make very liberal use of reactions.'

    That shield was effectively a massive pool of hit points that got handed around and soaked up rather than a PC taking the hit - frequently leaving us still fighting in moments where we otherwise would not have been.

    You will obviously need to keep getting a better shield as the levels go up, but assuming it stays balanced to the damage it's likely to take - I'd imagine it only getting more and more useful as the Champion gets more abilities to use it.

    And I wouldn't put it past giving one to a fighter as well. It won't be as strong, but it will still let that fighter stay in there and take a lot more hits than otherwise. The DPS loss for a fighter is more of issue though, so it's debatable. I need to read up on fighter abilities more - if there's a good DPS path for a dual wield fighter where the weapons lack agile - then you can get shield spikes. Or you get Shield Augmentation and give it trip and either disarm or shove. Using the shield's trip set up main hand attacks.


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    I did some math here.

    Please note that I don't have real-play experience across all levels, but the numbers are pretty clear: in a typical combat situation, blocking with a level-appropriate Sturdy Shield reduces incoming damage by about 20-25%; this number is much higher (over 40%) with a steel shield at low levels, and stabilizes later. Non-sturdy shields aren't worth blocking with.

    So, assuming that you have the appropriate gear, using Shield Block is going to be incredibly good at start, and pretty good during the rest of the campaign. Even better against mooks, less good against bosses.


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    I disagree on that, you don't take into account shield hp. Steel Shields block more than Sturdy Shields compared to the average damage, but they have incredibly less hps making them much more fragile (BT 10 vs BT 32 for the level 4 Minor Sturdy Shield). Sturdy Shields may block less per hit but you can block each and every round as long as you avoid blocking critical hits and it should be fine when Steel Shields block more damage but you can't block any hard blow without losing your shield.


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    Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Superscriber; Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

    In an Extinction Curse game I was hosting I saw a dwarf champion use shields and sturdy shields to great effect all the way to level 14. Campaign fell apart after that, but I expect it would have continued to be amazing.

    Having Quick Repair and a High Crafting proficiency in the party didn't hurt either.


    SuperBidi wrote:
    I disagree on that, you don't take into account shield hp. Steel Shields block more than Sturdy Shields compared to the average damage, but they have incredibly less hps making them much more fragile (BT 10 vs BT 32 for the level 4 Minor Sturdy Shield). Sturdy Shields may block less per hit but you can block each and every round as long as you avoid blocking critical hits and it should be fine when Steel Shields block more damage but you can't block any hard blow without losing your shield.

    There are a lot of moving parts and it's impossible to consider them all.

    It's true that sturdy shields can withstand damage equal to 4 times their hardness before breaking, compared to the steel shield 2.
    However, let's see how many hits your shields can actually block in the cases covered by my analysis.

    Level 1: Hardness 5, BT 10; incoming damage 1d6+3.
    Average damage to the shield is 2.5 (because we don't count negatives) -> 4 hits blocked.
    With crits that's 8 -> 1.25 crits blocked.

    Level 6: Hardness 8, BT 32, incoming damage 2d8+9.
    Average damage to the shield is 10 -> 3.2 hits blocked.
    With crits that's 28 -> 1.14 crits blocked.

    Level 12: Hardness 15, BT 60, incoming damage 3d10+14.
    Average damage to the shield is 15.5 -> 3.9 hits blocked.
    With crits that's 46 -> 1.3 crits blocked.

    Level 20: Hardness 20, BT 80, incoming damage 4d10+22.
    Average damage to the shield is 24 -> 3.3 hits blocked.
    With crits that's 68 -> 1.2 crits blocked.

    The numbers are pretty consistent; the level 6 ones are probably a little low because I used a minor sturdy shield there, which is a little weak for that case (while level 12 is using a greater sturdy shield, which is stronger), but in general the number of possible blocks seem to trend slightly down as level increases, not up.
    Add the fact that at low levels you can really only block once per round, and thus your shield is more likely to last for the whole fight; and that a steel shield is much more replaceable than an on-level sturdy one.
    So, I don't think that the number of blocks can be considered a balancing factor in this case.


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    Megistone wrote:
    There are a lot of moving parts and it's impossible to consider them all.

    Definitely. But your calculations clearly advantage the Steel Shield.

    If you look at level 3, when you still use the Steel Shield, the Steel Shield hardly blocks a single blow. At level 6, the last level of the Minor Sturdy Shield, it blocks 3 hits. So there's definitely a strong difference between the amount of blocks a Sturdy Shield can do against a Steel Shield once you face anything above level 1.


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    Special material shields are tissue paper compared to sturdy shields. They are the equivalent of a disposable consumable that you use only because your better shield has not been repaired yet.


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    Pathfinder Adventure Path Subscriber

    I believe that there was mention of shields getting a slight rework in the remastery and that there will be runes that can be added to shields, especially to make them more durable. I don't remember if it was just in the remastery panel or mentioned somewhere else.


    SuperBidi wrote:
    Megistone wrote:
    There are a lot of moving parts and it's impossible to consider them all.

    Definitely. But your calculations clearly advantage the Steel Shield.

    If you look at level 3, when you still use the Steel Shield, the Steel Shield hardly blocks a single blow. At level 6, the last level of the Minor Sturdy Shield, it blocks 3 hits. So there's definitely a strong difference between the amount of blocks a Sturdy Shield can do against a Steel Shield once you face anything above level 1.

    I didn't intend to write a praise of the steel shield as of itself; it's just that at level 1, unless you are facing big bosses (their damage goes up brutally), the shield block reaction is much more effective than it becomes later. Against mooks you can probably keep them at bay with barely a scratch, and that's something that just doesn't happen later on.

    By level 3 you are indeed in a spot where the steel shield is outdated and rather weak: the damage stopped is still decent, but it breaks easily. I guess you have enough money to just bring some spare, though.
    After that, if you go with sturdy, the numbers remain rather stable.


    Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Adventure Path, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
    Unicore wrote:
    I believe that there was mention of shields getting a slight rework in the remastery and that there will be runes that can be added to shields, especially to make them more durable. I don't remember if it was just in the remastery panel or mentioned somewhere else.

    Actually, it was. Since I'll be playing a Champion in the PFS scenario I'm in this Saturday, I looked a bit into the technicalities of shield blocking and came upon this part in the Remaster panel video in my research just today.


    Megistone's math is why I prefer the shield as resist all for Hardness. They aren't worth using instead of a bigger, higher damage weapon to kill faster. They don't reduce enough damage and are too easily avoidable on any class but the champion. It's also why I house ruled that the shield and the PC each take half the damage that gets through otherwise it's a double up on the shield and the PC. Makes them more worthwhile to use.

    I'll wait and see what they do in the remaster, but I may houserule the shield my own way at some point to make it worth using in comparison to focusing on more damage.


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    Thank you all so far for giving all your opinion. I will add few cents from me:

    1. I do not like that there are Sturdy Shields. Period. It's wierd design decision, seemed last last-minute hotfix to hot-garbage shields were before it was applied. All shields should (depending on their level) scale just like a Sturdy Shield do. I know they add some runes for that in Remaster but that again just looks like desperate patching a mechanic that was (in my personal opinion) a failed experiement. The whole Shield Block, Raise, HP, BT is overcompliated. More moving mechanisms: more chance of something will break.

    2. The fact that first Sturdy Shield is level 4 is something I don't like. The first one should be level 2 becasue level 4 in some scenarios (like 1-10 campaigns) is actuall very late. Of course GM can throw him one earlier (I know I would) but I just think the gap on level 2-4 is too big as Steel Shield becomes wet noodle

    3. The BT mechanic didn't make any sense for me. Ever. I can't wrap my head around why it does exist even. Why not just have HP and simplify it. HP 0 = shield broken and you can't use it to Raise/Block. I don't see a reason for HP and BT to even exists aprat from desperately trying to make Crafting do something... Same is why shields do even get destroyed? Our weapons don't get destroyed, runes don't wear out, armor (aprt from very very situational scenarios that I never see anyway) don't get destroyed, wear magic items don't get destroyed. Yet shields, even magical, do... why?

    Overall I find them lackluster myself, taking free-hand, with overcomplicated mechanics attached to them, requiring quite a feat investement and don't do much in return. I mean, they feel good when you block all those attacks, but I would rather just have some self-heal/Amp shield as damage mitigation and still have free-hand/two-handed. At least that's how I see it after looking at people feedback and general thoughts everywhere.


    I agree with Kyle about the zero hit points. It's a shield. It should work until destroyed or have a much lower break threshold. It's made to take hits. They wanted to design it like a common object without much consideration that a shield is made to take hits and shouldn't break like a common object.


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    This whole weirdness stems from how shield block was originally designed and what it ended up becoming.

    During the PF2 playtest the original design of the objects, including the shields, somewhat resembled the mechanics of dying.
    The objects had their hardness value like today, but instead of having HPs, whenever the hardness value was exceeded they received Dents, a condition unique to objects and the dents of all objects obeyed the same pattern, the first dent did not it did nothing, it just got marked, the "second" dent broke the object, while a "third" dent destroyed the object.
    Also, just like dying, crits deal 2 dents in a single attack.

    This exact mechanic was applied to shields, when the character blocked with it and the damage went beyond hardness, the shield suffered 1 dent, if it blocked again and went beyond hardness it received the 2nd dent and broke. And finally, if the shield was already on the verge of breaking (1 dent) and the character suffers a critical hit and still chooses to block it, it will automatically go to the 3rd dent and be destroyed.

    The sturdy shield was developed at the same time, the difference between it and the normal shield was that it could hold 1 tooth more and had greater hardness.

    However, this mechanic did not work or was not well accepted, and in the interval between the 2nd playtest and the final version, the objects returned to HP, but received the BT, probably to not need to rewrite all the part related to broken objects .

    And that's where the whole weird part of the shields started. Magic shields, which like any regular shield, lasted 1-2 attacks, now lasted even less due to still being based on normal shields.
    At the same time, the sturdy shield that should just have a higher hardness and therefore only block a little more damage and once more, is actually much better than any shield, as now they have a value in HP depending on from the amount of damage it took, it was able to easily last and withstand far more attacks than any other shield.

    And this created the abyss we have today between shield types, where at the same time several magic shields are disposable because they are so weak that they are compared to higher-level damage, while the robust shield started to have an effectiveness even greater than the that I had before.

    And Paizo basically left it that way for a long time. She just came back a little in this part with the release of the Treasure Vault, where the shields that were launched there now have their hardness and HP in fact proportional to their levels, but still ensuring that the Sturdy Shield remains slightly better in hardness and proportionally with twice the HP.

    And probably they would keep it that way until the OGL crisis hit.

    And as we already know, with the change of license to ORC, the designers decided to revise several mechanics from their foundations, among them shields and with that, instead of following this pattern of shields having several levels in the block representing their hardness and HP, they finally decided to meet a demand from the community and created a rune for it, making the mechanics much more similar to those already used in weapons and armor.

    That said, it is certain that these runes despite solving the problem of many shields, will still leave the Sturdy Shield as the main shield in terms of hardness and mainly HP.

    As for the BT part, honestly it is just a way to avoid negative HP, it basically exists today to say how much the shield can withstand massive damage when it is being broken. But in practice the BT is the true HP of your shield, the rest is basically there in case you don't mind breaking it.


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    Deriven Firelion wrote:
    Megistone's math is why I prefer the shield as resist all for Hardness. They aren't worth using instead of a bigger, higher damage weapon to kill faster. They don't reduce enough damage and are too easily avoidable on any class but the champion. It's also why I house ruled that the shield and the PC each take half the damage that gets through otherwise it's a double up on the shield and the PC. Makes them more worthwhile to use.

    I'm not so sure about that. Just raising the shield is a 20-25% damage reduction in the scenarios I did the math for; if you also block the first hit each round, the total reduction reaches 45-50% (65% at level 1).

    Switching to a two-handed weapon and using the second action to attack instead of raising a shield can almost double your damage output (I did the math for a level 1 fighter; I think that the damage output increase is relatively lower at higher levels), and that saves your reaction for something else. In a 1 vs 1 fight it's a wash: you either halve the damage you take, or double the damage you dish out. In a group combat situation it's more complicated: your damage is just a fraction of your team's output, and if the enemy focuses on you then having a shield is a phenomenal boon; conversely, if you aren't a preferred target, then your shield is useless and you have wasted potential damage output.


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    Megistone wrote:
    Deriven Firelion wrote:
    Megistone's math is why I prefer the shield as resist all for Hardness. They aren't worth using instead of a bigger, higher damage weapon to kill faster. They don't reduce enough damage and are too easily avoidable on any class but the champion. It's also why I house ruled that the shield and the PC each take half the damage that gets through otherwise it's a double up on the shield and the PC. Makes them more worthwhile to use.

    I'm not so sure about that. Just raising the shield is a 20-25% damage reduction in the scenarios I did the math for; if you also block the first hit each round, the total reduction reaches 45-50% (65% at level 1).

    Switching to a two-handed weapon and using the second action to attack instead of raising a shield can almost double your damage output (I did the math for a level 1 fighter; I think that the damage output increase is relatively lower at higher levels), and that saves your reaction for something else. In a 1 vs 1 fight it's a wash: you either halve the damage you take, or double the damage you dish out. In a group combat situation it's more complicated: your damage is just a fraction of your team's output, and if the enemy focuses on you then having a shield is a phenomenal boon; conversely, if you aren't a preferred target, then your shield is useless and you have wasted potential damage output.

    If not a champion or possessing Champion's Reaction, you don't have a way to force the creature to attack you and you also risk limiting your actions per round as you have to use an action to raise a shield. You may want to use a feat like Knockdown to prone the creature and set up AoOs. Or move. Or some other 2 action feat.

    The monk and the champion use the shield best. The champion because of the reaction to force the creature to choose. The monk due to Flurry which has superior action economy.

    The fighter has the means to greatly increase damage, so there is no real reason to focus on a shield over damage as it would make your worse. I tested this out with a maul fighter with champion's reaction versus hammer and shield and the maul fighter using Paladin's Champion reaction with Combat reflexes was better off going with the maul and not bothering with the shield.

    Now the pure champion was better off using the shield because their extra reaction feats are focused on shields and champion's reaction and have abilities to substantially boost the shield. Hardness, BT, and hit points as well as force the target to hit them and do damage if they choose to hit another target.

    The monk has flurry of blows and flurry of maneuvers and no access to a higher weapon die with d10 being the highest with dragon style, which they can do with flurry. So spending an action to raise a shield doesn't hurt them much.

    If you don't have action economy enhancers that make a shield almost free to use like a monk or a way to force attacks in your direction like a champion, the shield isn't worth it in my opinion.

    I also use it at early levels on casters. The druid is especially good with a shield, another reason they are a great class. Free shield block for a caster is great.


    I'm with Deriven on that: Taking a shield impacts your damage output more than it helps the party defense ability. Especially considering that it reduces your offensive ability and as such the attention you raise.
    I'm not even convinced by using a shield on a Champion, especially Paladins who are more offense oriented.


    1 person marked this as a favorite.

    My own experience on shields is generally very positive.

    Apart from monk's and champions, I find it very good on more support oriented characters like alchemists, warpriests, and such, where a second attack isn't really worthwhile.

    Apart from those, I had a very positive experience with my high level armor Inventor using one.

    In the above case, action enhancing feats were a must though to fully utilise the shield. In particular Bastion and Flurry made certain that I could do my stuff and still raise shield and block with it.

    So overall I would say:
    Low levels: extremely strong
    Mid levels: so and so
    Above mid levels: strong option if you build around it.


    There's another thing about shields block effectiveness that can be considered after mid-game that's the number os creatures that casts or use magical abilities rises a lot!

    This indirectly changes the overall shield effectiveness, with notable exception of Sparkling Targe Magus and Reflective Shield for reflexes magic, once they are useless against magic in general. This made some of my players consider to abandon shields in order of get stronger weapons due high investment needed to keep a Sturdy Shield and its reduced utility when they face a spellcaster that usually is a boss or a boss like creature.


    What Yuri is describing is why I run the shield as resist all or at least aggregate damage blocking energy as well and all other damage enhancers. It kind of sucks to use your reaction and still get pasted by the extra energy or other types of damage. Lots of high level creatures have multiple damage sources on a single attack, usually two, but sometimes three.

    Not sure they'll get the time, but it would be nice to rethink the shield a bit, clarify hardness or make it better, and get that shield worthwhile for someone wanting to focus on it without having to super boost it like the champion does.

    When I run it with the monk, I never bother to block unless I'm playing dual class and take a class that gives Shield Block. It's not worth it as I'd rather use my reaction for Stand Still since I build monk trip specialists.


    Deriven Firelion wrote:
    Megistone wrote:
    Deriven Firelion wrote:
    Megistone's math is why I prefer the shield as resist all for Hardness. They aren't worth using instead of a bigger, higher damage weapon to kill faster. They don't reduce enough damage and are too easily avoidable on any class but the champion. It's also why I house ruled that the shield and the PC each take half the damage that gets through otherwise it's a double up on the shield and the PC. Makes them more worthwhile to use.

    I'm not so sure about that. Just raising the shield is a 20-25% damage reduction in the scenarios I did the math for; if you also block the first hit each round, the total reduction reaches 45-50% (65% at level 1).

    Switching to a two-handed weapon and using the second action to attack instead of raising a shield can almost double your damage output (I did the math for a level 1 fighter; I think that the damage output increase is relatively lower at higher levels), and that saves your reaction for something else. In a 1 vs 1 fight it's a wash: you either halve the damage you take, or double the damage you dish out. In a group combat situation it's more complicated: your damage is just a fraction of your team's output, and if the enemy focuses on you then having a shield is a phenomenal boon; conversely, if you aren't a preferred target, then your shield is useless and you have wasted potential damage output.

    If not a champion or possessing Champion's Reaction, you don't have a way to force the creature to attack you and you also risk limiting your actions per round as you have to use an action to raise a shield. You may want to use a feat like Knockdown to prone the creature and set up AoOs. Or move. Or some other 2 action feat.

    The monk and the champion use the shield best. The champion because of the reaction to force the creature to choose. The monk due to Flurry which has superior action economy.

    The fighter has the means to greatly increase damage, so there is no real reason to focus on a shield over...

    Truth to be told if you want to be "tank" you are much better with using Combat Grab (or Grapple action) combined with AoO to force enemy to fight with you. Shields make you nice brick, but brick can just be ignored.

    Monk later has stumbling stance which works simillar, forcing enemy to focus on you.

    If I were to make best "tank" I would probably do Combat Grapple/Wrestler Fighter, Champion or Animal Barbarian. Even Knockdown Fighter will force enemy to attack him as you already waste 1 action of him per turn and he has to Step away from you or eat AoO. Improved Knockdown into Combat Grab is probably best combo. Or Suplex->Combat Grab next turn if you went Wrestler and grabbed Martial Artist to also get unarmed scalling without your Weapon Mastery.

    I wish Shield Bash could like immobilize for a round or something to enchance shield-tank gameplay.


    YuriP wrote:

    This whole weirdness stems from how shield block was originally designed and what it ended up becoming.

    During the PF2 playtest the original design of the objects, including the shields, somewhat resembled the mechanics of dying.
    The objects had their hardness value like today, but instead of having HPs, whenever the hardness value was exceeded they received Dents, a condition unique to objects and the dents of all objects obeyed the same pattern, the first dent did not it did nothing, it just got marked, the "second" dent broke the object, while a "third" dent destroyed the object.
    Also, just like dying, crits deal 2 dents in a single attack.

    This exact mechanic was applied to shields, when the character blocked with it and the damage went beyond hardness, the shield suffered 1 dent, if it blocked again and went beyond hardness it received the 2nd dent and broke. And finally, if the shield was already on the verge of breaking (1 dent) and the character suffers a critical hit and still chooses to block it, it will automatically go to the 3rd dent and be destroyed.

    The sturdy shield was developed at the same time, the difference between it and the normal shield was that it could hold 1 tooth more and had greater hardness.

    However, this mechanic did not work or was not well accepted, and in the interval between the 2nd playtest and the final version, the objects returned to HP, but received the BT, probably to not need to rewrite all the part related to broken objects .

    And that's where the whole weird part of the shields started. Magic shields, which like any regular shield, lasted 1-2 attacks, now lasted even less due to still being based on normal shields.
    At the same time, the sturdy shield that should just have a higher hardness and therefore only block a little more damage and once more, is actually much better than any shield, as now they have a value in HP depending on from the amount of damage it took, it was able to easily last and withstand far more attacks than any other shield....

    To add to this:

    The break treshhold is actually how items generally work. After they get damage so much they break and you can potentially fix it, but if it breaks to much the items is just destroyed. Previous editions had that rules as "half the item's HP" because that is easy; But PF2 codified it in such a way that in theory an item could have a BT that is 1% to 99% of durability, even if in actual practice they use 50%.

    The dent system that they tried in the playtest had 2 effects on shields: Large hits did not destroyed it in 1 hit, but 2 medium hits could do so. This was disliked by the community because it does not make sense that if a shield with hardness 10 blocks 11 damage 1/3 of its durability would be lost. It also did not make sense that if you block a ton of damage that the shield would still be fine. HP fixes that issue and allows a shield to last much longer vs weak hits.

    The shield values themselves came from a set of self imposed contraints:
    1) Sturdy shields are the best blocking shield.
    2) special material shields are worse than magical shields.
    3) Shields cannot have runes and cannot transfer shield effects to other shields.
    4) Even if there is no dent system weak shields should last no more than 3 medium hits before getting destroyed (ignoring champion and repair).
    That set of constraints is why shield are the way they are today. Why the HP value is so low, despite the fact shields should be durable. Why you decide to block after you know the damage not before. Why when you block, both you and the shield take the same damage instead of just half. Why shields have not been able to be enchanted with runes until the remaster. Why "everything is working as intended" despite all the complaints by players over the last 4 years.


    1 person marked this as a favorite.
    Temperans wrote:
    YuriP wrote:

    This whole weirdness stems from how shield block was originally designed and what it ended up becoming.

    During the PF2 playtest the original design of the objects, including the shields, somewhat resembled the mechanics of dying.
    The objects had their hardness value like today, but instead of having HPs, whenever the hardness value was exceeded they received Dents, a condition unique to objects and the dents of all objects obeyed the same pattern, the first dent did not it did nothing, it just got marked, the "second" dent broke the object, while a "third" dent destroyed the object.
    Also, just like dying, crits deal 2 dents in a single attack.

    This exact mechanic was applied to shields, when the character blocked with it and the damage went beyond hardness, the shield suffered 1 dent, if it blocked again and went beyond hardness it received the 2nd dent and broke. And finally, if the shield was already on the verge of breaking (1 dent) and the character suffers a critical hit and still chooses to block it, it will automatically go to the 3rd dent and be destroyed.

    The sturdy shield was developed at the same time, the difference between it and the normal shield was that it could hold 1 tooth more and had greater hardness.

    However, this mechanic did not work or was not well accepted, and in the interval between the 2nd playtest and the final version, the objects returned to HP, but received the BT, probably to not need to rewrite all the part related to broken objects .

    And that's where the whole weird part of the shields started. Magic shields, which like any regular shield, lasted 1-2 attacks, now lasted even less due to still being based on normal shields.
    At the same time, the sturdy shield that should just have a higher hardness and therefore only block a little more damage and once more, is actually much better than any shield, as now they have a value in HP depending on from the amount of damage it took, it was able to easily last and withstand far more attacks

    ...

    As much as I like PF2e mechanics overall, I will be first to say that Shield rules as whole are big failure. They tried too hard to make overcomplicated mechanics, they overshot and then they had too little time and way too many things already in rules (like hardness, broken thresholds etc.) to redo Shields from scratch. And we ended up with Frankeinstein of shield mechanics we have no with Sturdy Shields we can't get rid off.

    Shields should have been just tools without any stats for blocking, HP/BT, nothing. Just Raise for AC and feats that would allow you to use Shield Block with greater damage reduction effect. For example Shield Block feat should give you entry "you can block X Points of damage when you use Shield Block" and then every other shield feat you take (Reactive, Reflexive, Warden, Quick Block, Aggresive Block etc) increase that amount by X (how much is unknown, would have to been calculated from scratch. Simillar to how feats increase your weapon damage dice number, damage bonus, how focus spells increase focus points, how feats decrease MAP etc. You invest in being shield martial: you get better at blocking, that's not hard concept to grasp.

    And in the end nothing would be missed. You'd able to use any shield you want/get and throw to trash bin whole HP/BT mechanic, becasue as harsh as I sound here, I think that's the place of those two stats for Shields and Sturdy Shields (meaning all shields shoulds scale like Sturdy ones).


    Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:
    Temperans wrote:
    YuriP wrote:

    This whole weirdness stems from how shield block was originally designed and what it ended up becoming.

    During the PF2 playtest the original design of the objects, including the shields, somewhat resembled the mechanics of dying.
    The objects had their hardness value like today, but instead of having HPs, whenever the hardness value was exceeded they received Dents, a condition unique to objects and the dents of all objects obeyed the same pattern, the first dent did not it did nothing, it just got marked, the "second" dent broke the object, while a "third" dent destroyed the object.
    Also, just like dying, crits deal 2 dents in a single attack.

    This exact mechanic was applied to shields, when the character blocked with it and the damage went beyond hardness, the shield suffered 1 dent, if it blocked again and went beyond hardness it received the 2nd dent and broke. And finally, if the shield was already on the verge of breaking (1 dent) and the character suffers a critical hit and still chooses to block it, it will automatically go to the 3rd dent and be destroyed.

    The sturdy shield was developed at the same time, the difference between it and the normal shield was that it could hold 1 tooth more and had greater hardness.

    However, this mechanic did not work or was not well accepted, and in the interval between the 2nd playtest and the final version, the objects returned to HP, but received the BT, probably to not need to rewrite all the part related to broken objects .

    And that's where the whole weird part of the shields started. Magic shields, which like any regular shield, lasted 1-2 attacks, now lasted even less due to still being based on normal shields.
    At the same time, the sturdy shield that should just have a higher hardness and therefore only block a little more damage and once more, is actually much better than any shield, as now they have a value in HP depending on from the amount of damage it took, it was able to easily last and

    ...

    I disagree, the existence of those stats are fine even if the exact values are not.


    Temperans wrote:
    Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:
    Temperans wrote:
    YuriP wrote:

    This whole weirdness stems from how shield block was originally designed and what it ended up becoming.

    During the PF2 playtest the original design of the objects, including the shields, somewhat resembled the mechanics of dying.
    The objects had their hardness value like today, but instead of having HPs, whenever the hardness value was exceeded they received Dents, a condition unique to objects and the dents of all objects obeyed the same pattern, the first dent did not it did nothing, it just got marked, the "second" dent broke the object, while a "third" dent destroyed the object.
    Also, just like dying, crits deal 2 dents in a single attack.

    This exact mechanic was applied to shields, when the character blocked with it and the damage went beyond hardness, the shield suffered 1 dent, if it blocked again and went beyond hardness it received the 2nd dent and broke. And finally, if the shield was already on the verge of breaking (1 dent) and the character suffers a critical hit and still chooses to block it, it will automatically go to the 3rd dent and be destroyed.

    The sturdy shield was developed at the same time, the difference between it and the normal shield was that it could hold 1 tooth more and had greater hardness.

    However, this mechanic did not work or was not well accepted, and in the interval between the 2nd playtest and the final version, the objects returned to HP, but received the BT, probably to not need to rewrite all the part related to broken objects .

    And that's where the whole weird part of the shields started. Magic shields, which like any regular shield, lasted 1-2 attacks, now lasted even less due to still being based on normal shields.
    At the same time, the sturdy shield that should just have a higher hardness and therefore only block a little more damage and once more, is actually much better than any shield, as now they have a value in HP depending on from the amount of damage it

    ...

    So let me ask the question: if we removed HP/BT, adjust Hardness (damage mitigation), remove Sturdy Shields and let all shields scale same as Sturdy Shields but with using Runes instead that would scale all shields: what would we lose that would make it worse than better?


    1 person marked this as a favorite.
    Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:
    Temperans wrote:
    Kyle_TheBuilder wrote:
    Temperans wrote:
    YuriP wrote:

    This whole weirdness stems from how shield block was originally designed and what it ended up becoming.

    During the PF2 playtest the original design of the objects, including the shields, somewhat resembled the mechanics of dying.
    The objects had their hardness value like today, but instead of having HPs, whenever the hardness value was exceeded they received Dents, a condition unique to objects and the dents of all objects obeyed the same pattern, the first dent did not it did nothing, it just got marked, the "second" dent broke the object, while a "third" dent destroyed the object.
    Also, just like dying, crits deal 2 dents in a single attack.

    This exact mechanic was applied to shields, when the character blocked with it and the damage went beyond hardness, the shield suffered 1 dent, if it blocked again and went beyond hardness it received the 2nd dent and broke. And finally, if the shield was already on the verge of breaking (1 dent) and the character suffers a critical hit and still chooses to block it, it will automatically go to the 3rd dent and be destroyed.

    The sturdy shield was developed at the same time, the difference between it and the normal shield was that it could hold 1 tooth more and had greater hardness.

    However, this mechanic did not work or was not well accepted, and in the interval between the 2nd playtest and the final version, the objects returned to HP, but received the BT, probably to not need to rewrite all the part related to broken objects .

    And that's where the whole weird part of the shields started. Magic shields, which like any regular shield, lasted 1-2 attacks, now lasted even less due to still being based on normal shields.
    At the same time, the sturdy shield that should just have a higher hardness and therefore only block a little more damage and once more, is actually much better than any shield, as now they have a value in HP depending on from

    ...

    I think you are not understand what I said.

    I don't like the current stance of sturdy shields being the best and that other shields cannot be updraged with runes. But I do like the fact that you have to be careful about making sure not to break your shield or having spares if it does break.

    What you lose from removing HP is the fact that if you keep blocking large hits with a shield it should break. But you can block as many hits lower than its hardness as you want.

    My stance is that the sturdiest shield should be a Sturdy Adamantine Tower Shield with a Hardness that is higher than 20 and not even an Adamantine weapon can easily bypass, but it being accordingly expensive and heavy (swinging around a door). While the weakest shield should be a mundane wooden buckler, which can still take a could of hits from a 1st level weapon and be cheap (just some planks of wood with a handle).


    1 person marked this as a favorite.

    sturdy shields being made into runes with the new rules should help a lot with the issues of sturdy shields eclipsing other magical shields.

    as far as hp/bp/hardness works, i actually love the system.

    it's the first shield system i've seen that makes some sense, and it also has decision making when you can and can't afford to block.

    can the numbers be tweaked a bit? probably.
    but is the system fine? for me, it's perfect.


    1 person marked this as a favorite.

    Keep in mind that the developers have stated that Sturdy Shields will still be the pinnacle of shield blocking options. The new runes (although I believe they're using another name than rune) will go a good ways to opening up other options, but Sturdy Shield will still be the best one for shield block.


    1 person marked this as a favorite.
    ottdmk wrote:
    Keep in mind that the developers have stated that Sturdy Shields will still be the pinnacle of shield blocking options. The new runes (although I believe they're using another name than rune) will go a good ways to opening up other options, but Sturdy Shield will still be the best one for shield block.

    But it will be a rune so you can upgrade other types of magical shields right?

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