If you’re a melee build and have access to Races of Stone, you’ll probably want to use a Gnome Battle Cloak instead, as it doesn’t have a penalty To-Hit. So if you’re a caster, this is probably the shield for you. Basically you can accept a small penalty to hit, pick up the Improved Buckler Defense feat, and get all the benefits of a shield and it’s magical protections without the hassle of giving up two-handed fighting.

So if you're concerned about playing a sword and board build in a campaign with CoDzilla and the 1,000,000 damage charge combo guy, then ask if you can use some of the more obscure/powerful magical enhancements.īuckler: The poor man’s Animated shield.

One of the easiest ways to balance out party members is to give the weaker member(s) better magic items.

If you like the concept of sword and board (or just like higher AC at low levels) and want to contribute to your party without concern for optimizing, then this is the book for you.

The Tome of Battle is chock full of manuevers that deal respectable damage and/or special effects regardless of what weapon you're using or what feats you have.

If you get Pounce and Ride by Attack, you can use a lance and shield (using Shield Bash instead of TWF) for some very impressive damage.

While it’s less optimal then pretty much any other weapon due to it’s low damage, lack of reach, lack of special abilities, and requirement for Shield Bash, it can be done.

You can use a shield as a two-handed weapon.

Most of the powerful high damage combinations people write about don’t kick in until ECL 6 or higher, whereas many shield combos can start as early as level 1.

Boost your Shield AC bonus as high as possible, and then get your Shield AC to apply to as many things as possible (Touch AC, Bull Rush, other opposed checks, etc).

If you’re interested in massive damage, look elsewhere.

Your goals are defense and battlefield control.

So here are some useful tips and tactics when designing your shield build: But contained in this thread are a bunch of options that make shields playable and fun. A lot of people are going to tell you that you can do all of the cool stuff that a shield-centric build is capable of doing, but better, if only you do XYZ and/or use an Animated shield or buckler. The first thing you have to accept about sword and board is that in most cases, you’re not going to be amazing at offense.

Neo crusader shock trooper