Talk:Shield, Broad (3.5e Equipment)

Dual Category

Can someone add the dual category back-to footer? --Sabre070 02:49, 17 November 2008 (MST)

Reply on Proposal for Deletion

“	The extreme steel shield already exists in races of stone. this thing is excessive for what it gives.	”
—Tivanir 11:05, 7 March 2013 (MST)

So what changes would be recommended to make it not seem excessive. Understand I'm not trying to recreate what's in the "Races of Stone". I'm just going for a slightly larger shield that can be used as an exotic one-handed weapon. I want the broad shield to be to the medium shield what the bastard sword is to the long sword. —Sledged (talk) 08:33, 15 March 2013 (MDT)

If you are going to actively improve it go ahead and remove the template. the main problem is the dex bonus max is extremely high. A large shield gives a max bonus of 2 why would this ever even approach +6?

My suggestion would be to lower the Dex to +4 to bring it inline with all other shields. From there mostly it just needs minor tweaking to bring it into line. Tivanir (talk) 09:43, 15 March 2013 (MDT)

What do you mean by "bring it inline with all other shields"? Shields don't typically have a max Dex bonus. The tower shield is the only exception. The broad shield was given a +6 merely as a concession. Keep in mind that in addition the character has to spend two feats (Tower Shield Prof and EWP) to make full use of a broad shield, and this is an item typically for a melee type which tend to fall short of the capability of casters. —Sledged (talk) 12:39, 15 March 2013 (MDT)

oh I actually made a mistake as I thought the extreme shield had a dex modifier of +6 on that one but that isn't the case. Using it as is my only concern is mobile cover, which is why there are so many drawbacks to trying to use a combat tower shield. Cover is worth a lot in and of itself so telling me you have cover 3 AC plus 6 plus armor makes it a little ridiculous. Hell I can make a fighter wearing nothing at level one with at least 18 AC with just this shield and that is without getting crazy. Tower shields max out at 6 for armor, which is far under the potential 9 plus the cover. The weapon qualities aside that is major. -Tivanir

Also keep this in mind just for a 3 AC shield that has no cover and you cannot make attacks with is an exotic shield proficiency; this means you have to pay a feat not be able to make attacks and don't get cover for 1 additional AC. Also the skill check penalty on this shield is the same as the extreme steel shield. If you wish to give a go at making it worthwhile to use by all means have at but as it stands for a fighter they can opt for a shield better than an extreme steel (which costs them a feat) and have cover while playing sword and board. It is unbalanced. Tivanir (talk) 10:46, 18 March 2013 (MDT)

That should say soft cover. So only protection from attacks of opportunity, and a +4 AC bonus against ranged attacks, provided you give up your attacks for the round. Outside the context of the broad shield, the benefits of the extreme shield don't seem worth the cost. Lastly, remember that the +6 Dex modifier only applies if (a) you have a Dex of at least 22, and (b) you're not wearing armor has an even lower Dex bonus (which limits you to padded armor, leather armor, or none). —Sledged (talk) 08:54, 20 March 2013 (MDT)

Actually the armor is more expansive than that as long as the individual is willing to go with rare materials like mithral. If it protects against attacks of opportunity only than it isn't terribly overbalanced but would still fit into the exotic shield proficiency. As a quick clarification most DnD advancements for both weapons and armor is it advances an additional step in one aspect hence why a normal large shield advances only 1 AC for the extreme steel shield. It isn't designed to make you feel godly it is all about balance versus other things that already exist. Whether or not someone views one additional AC as worthy of a feat is up to them. If it wasn't an exotic proficiency everyone would just opt for the extreme shield instead of looking at the lighter ones. Tivanir (talk) 13:54, 20 March 2013 (MDT)

Taking special materials into account only adds mithril chain shirt to the aforementioned list of armors. It's not that much more expansive.

As far as the advancement from the heavy shield to this, let's look at the additional benefits: soft cover, +1 to AC, and a slightly higher shield bash damage. The cost is giving up a round's worth of attacks to make use of the soft cover, a −1 attack penalty (sure your enemies have a harder chance of hitting you, but you now have a harder chance of hitting them), either two-handed use or Exotic WP to make use of the shield bash (which is mitigated by −1 attack penalty), spend a feat on Tower Shield Prof or take levels in fighter, a +6 max Dex bonus where there was none, twice the arcane spell failure chance, and a higher armor check penalty (though I wonder why I didn't make it −6).

Comparatively this this may look like a sweet deal, and at low levels it might be. But at mid levels and higher, I'm willing to bet that the characters that can make the most of this shield are still going to come up short next to the casters in the party. (Tome of Battle classes might be an exception, but I doubt it.) I'm looking at the overall balance, not just the closest equivalents.

Ultimately, the most effective way of to determine its effect on balance is play-testing, which I will admit that I haven't done. —Sledged (talk) 16:57, 25 March 2013 (MDT)

Short of tossing 90% of dnd you won't make fighters and magic balanced simply because one is made to be used sustained and the other is burst. Its like a rogue that does massive damage - he can't take the hits a fighter can but his average damage is a lot higher due to the average of 29 from the sneak attack damage when he flanks. The fighter isn't going to be on par with a wizard ever for the simple fact that a fighter can do his ability all day. The wizard has a certain number of spells (and at level 20 once you burn 9th 8th and 7th you aren't going to do much comparitively so 12 or so casts) which is why he does higher burst damage. Hell a rogue and fighter tank geared right can clear practically anything if they work out their tactics before hand. It still stands to reason that this would still be feasible for a high level fighter, since high level fighters still find tower shields usable. This is a tower shield on steroids and doesn't even require a feat. On a side note I made a fighter once that was nearly balanced with magic and you know what happened? Everyone else wondered why they were there because hard to kill + massive damage = boring for everyone else. Tivanir (talk) 13:57, 27 March 2013 (MDT)

None of that supports the claim that the benefits of this shield are excessive. —Sledged (talk) 08:19, 29 March 2013 (MDT)

Alright then I will use numbers to support my claim. Currently for the max dex you can wear a mithral chain shirt max out both for dex and have a combined ac of 23 before enchantment and you have cover. conversely someone with a tower shield can effectively max out with mithral field plate and a tower shield at 25 armor before enchantments. One of these individuals moves at 30 feet a round and the other at 20, not to mention the disparities in weight or anything else. So this helps remove any reason to play a heavy fighter since at most he has 1 or 2 AC on you. Also the difference in price for making this gear is over 16k which is easily a couple of bonuses to bring you up to the heavy fighter. So how is it not overpowered that the light fighter is effectively better than the heavy fighter and has a lesser minus to Attack? Tivanir (talk) 09:03, 29 March 2013 (MDT)

The issues you bring up with your comparison have very little to do with any imbalance the broad shield may have and more to do with other elements of the d20 system. If you swap out the mobile fighter's broad shield with a heavy shield the AC between the two fighters is still only 2 or 3 points, which buys the mobile fighter a better attack bonus, and the disparity in price between the two sets of equipment still exists. —Sledged (talk) 16:57, 31 March 2013 (MDT)

M point was that the fighter gives up cover more than anything. The AC being relatively close can still happen but the cover is the only reason to pretty much take a tower shield. Cover is powerful and there is a reason it is limited to tower shields. Tivanir (talk) 17:17, 31 March 2013 (MDT)

Then let us note that the cover provided by the broad shield is only soft "only-effective-against-ranged-attacks" cover which is a far cry from the total "nullifies-all-melee-and-ranged-attacks" cover that the tower shield provides.

Now that I look closer at it, I notice that in both cases the character has to give up the shield bonus to get the benefits of cover. This doesn't matter so much for the tower shield, but it increases the broad shield user's vulnerability to melee attacks by 3 + enhancement bonus. With such weak cover, if the broad shield has any magical/psionic enhancements, the user will very little reason to use the cover option.

You may think the benefits are too much, but under closer inspection, I think it may be too weak. —Sledged (talk) 10:37, 1 April 2013 (MDT)

Actually since it is soft cover the differences between this and a extreme steel shield are you can make bash attacks with it and it gives you a -1 to attack. The idea is presented as a movement with cover which isn't too bad actually and maximum dex could come off. It should be an exotic weapon proficiency still (since this is same AC as extreme shield and it lets you bash but gives a minus to hit so null on the extras.) My first read through made me think it was full cover, which would be excessive as you would still be able to advance. Tivanir (talk) 10:54, 1 April 2013 (MDT)