Lightning Swap lets you Interact to stow any number of things you are holding then draw up to two weapons or one weapon and a shield.
I know detaching a shield strapped to your arm is one Interact.
Is strapping the shield to your arm also its own Interact, or is it done as part of the Interact to draw the shield in the first place?
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It's been a problem since Player Core added "must be strapped on" to all shields. They never defined the actions involved in strapping on shields, anywhere, making it a point of table variation how and if a lot of things even work.
Things that end up in a limbo of table rulings include, but aren't limited to:
Lightning Swap with shields
Second Shield, from Viking (which was strangely reprinted with no changes to account for the new rule)
Every variation of throwing shields (some address having quick releases to unstrap them as part of throwing, none talk about strapping them back on when it's back in your hand)
TLDR: Paizo never answered this, and you'll have to talk to your GM about a table ruling
Actually, even the CRB says it costs 1 Interact to "Detach a shield or item strapped to you" and also doesn't talk about the action cost of strapping the shield to you. I guess the remaster just added language to the shield rules themselves to clarify that shields need to be strapped.
Additionally, it looks like Lightning Swap is a new feat introduced in Player Core.
Yes, the CRB always had an action cost for unstrapping shields, but adding a rule that ALL shields must be strapped is a big change. Before, they only ones that definitely always had to be strapped on were bucklers.
To be honest, I'd treat the "need to be strapped on" as flavor text and not rules, since the action to strap on a shield is undefined.
To be honest, I'd treat the "need to be strapped on" as flavor text and not rules, since the action to strap on a shield is undefined.
When I first read it, I thought it was a buff to martials to keep them from having to pick up their shields whenever they recover from unconscious. But it turns out you have to Interact even to restore your grip to a strapped shield.
But it does let a revived fighter Stand, Interact to pick up their sword, and Stride away without worrying about leaving the shield behind.
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To be honest, I'd treat the "need to be strapped on" as flavor text and not rules, since the action to strap on a shield is undefined.
It doesn't really make sense. If we look at the actual quote:
Raise a Shield is the action most commonly used with shields. All shields, unless specifically noted or described otherwise, must be strapped to your arm and held in one hand, so you can’t hold anything with that hand and Raise a Shield, and you lose the shield’s benefits if that hand is no longer free. A buckler, however, doesn’t take up your hand, so you can Raise a Shield with a buckler if the hand is free (or, at the GM’s discretion, if it’s holding a simple, lightweight object that’s not a weapon).
Nothing about that is written like it's flavor text, and not rules.
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Yes, but it’s also phrased in a way that you can have the shield strapped to your arm and not be holding it. It goes on to say what happens if you are holding something (you can’t Raise a Shield and you lose the shield’s benefits while the hand isn’t free). It doesn’t even explicitly say that you can’t wield a weapon while the shield is strapped to your arm. It seems like the only thing it really prevents you doing is having another shield strapped to that arm. From just the quoted text, it seems like you could (free action) release your grip on the shield, (1 action) Interact to grip a weapon 2-handed, (1-action) attack, (free action) release one hand from the weapon, (1-action) grip the shield. If you’re hasted, that could have been the attack action, and you could raise your shield with your last action. Not necessarily the optimal use of actions, but it seems to be permitted.
Yes, or it suggests that you could climb in an emergency, just needing to fix your grip on the shield afterward, instead of needing to ditch it first. That's always seemed more like a feature of the change than a bug.
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There is already an action tax for re gripping the shield if you've released your grip on it to use the hand for something else.
and then another action to raise it.
I don't know that I want to make a turn of drawing out the shield also require an action to strap it. Also drawing out a shield seems to assume you have your hand gripping it too.
So for me strapping on a shield is not an action separate from drawing it or picking it up.
It just gets way to micro and obnoxious to have to deal with.