Shield weak W.P?

[The Dark Elf]

WP knife is better to parry with....

I use the bonuses for shield from 1st edition PFRPG.

[JuliusCreed]

I am new to the game and started with a palladin. Instantly I ran into a question. Why does the shield have no more effect as a defense than a sword? I feel like a shield would naturally, if profficient, provide an A.R. bonus, as its purpose is to provide a 'shield'. It is large and would be use by making your body small and using to cover and therefore make it hard to even hit the armour. I just don't see the point of a shield when you can use paired weapon sword to do the same defense plus higher attack. Is anybody else having this issue, am I missing something?

Sorry if this has been covered I just couldn't find anything mentioning in great detail.

After going through the Weapon Proficiencies with a fine tooth comb, the real advantage from WP Shields comes from a couple sources. Just for clarification, I'm only going to refer to melee weapon proficiencies, so ignore archery, targetting, mouth weapons, siege weapons and modern weapons. A shield is a melee weapon so we'll deal with the appropriate proficiencies. Also ignore paired weapons as it provides no combat bonuses along the lines of actual numbers.
There are a total of 13 melee weapon proficiencies consisting of Blunt, Chain, Forked/Trident, Knife, Net, Pole Arm, Battle Axe, Lance, Shield, Spear, Staff, Sword and Whip. Of those 13, only 6 provide a bonus to parry at level one for an early parrying advantage. Those 6 would be Blunt, Forked/Trident, Knife, Pole Arm, Shield and Spear.
Of these 6, just 2 of them provide a long term parrying advantage by granting a total bonus to parry at full mastery (15th lvl) of +6. Those 2 are Spear and, you guessed it, Shield. All other weapon proficiencies top out at +5 or less. Some WP's, such as Whip or Grappling Hook, don't get any bonuses to parry and even state the weapons themselves can't be used to parry. (I kinda get the ruling on this for whips, but think it's a bit bogus to rule that way for grappling hooks too, but I digress)
I have to admit that I do agree with the spirit of your observations personally. A shield should have a higher bonus to parry in combat than any other weapons, and while it certainly does have a higher bonus according to canon, I believe it should be higher than that. I have made occassional house rulings to compensate for this little "oversight", including upping first level proficiency parry bonus to +2 or +3, and/or adding additional level up bonuses. HYowever, I find it rare for my players to even bother with a shield in many of the games I've run, so the rulings are usually only made if a> a player actually makes use of a shield with his character on a regular basis and b> said player raises a stink about the parry bonuses for WP Shield seeming too low.
As for the question of why use a shield when a sword can be just as effective, I can only say it is a matter of personal style. Many of the sword fighting/fencing arts that started with sword and shield techniques soon started to disdain the use of a shield in favor of gaining an advantage using dexterity and speed. It just started to become more combat effective to leave behind the shield that could weigh upwards of 20 or so pounds in favor of parrying with a short sword, a dagger, or even just the sword you're fighting with. It was at this point that sword fighting took on a more artistic and stylish form, closely resembling modern fencing and what you see in many swashbuckling type movies, such as Zorro. This was also around the time that firearms were being introduced to the battlefield, which made the use of heavy armor obsolete and archaic, reserved for the hardliners that fought on the front lines after the ammo ran out or while the guns and cannons were being reloaded, and even then, heavy armor was reduced to the use of half suits of plate armor at best to maintain some level of mobility and speed as the sword arts had gotten faster and required that kind of mobility. It was at this point that a shield was seen as archaic and unneccessary for much more than its heraldric value.
In a Palladium Fantasy setting, shields are still quite viable as a defense, albeit not quite as viable by canon as I personally believe they should be. For an easy fix, add a couple points to the WP's Parry bonus in a couple spots and everything should work out alright. First hand reccomendation; +2 to parry at level 1 with an additional +1 at levels 2, 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15. Comes out to a +8 to parry by level 15 and doesn't stray too far from the canon set. But as with anything else, it's a grain of salt. use or lose as you see fit.

Good Luck and great gaming!

[Nightmask]

A very good point, and a good suggestion to add to the "Rules change; a little " topic. For my Paladin characters I still use the sword and board, or the 2 handers more for RP reasons than actual effectiveness. I'm ok with my characters being less powerful than possible for the sake of imagery.

Well with the existence of Captain America anyone who's ever been a fan or come close to it wants to see shields be the ultimate weapon and defense around. So they'd like to enjoy slinging that shield and really making it count.

[Cinos]

So after years of gaming, Shield offers +5% to Parry chance And unlike weapons, has SDC used to absorb hits and will break sooner or later. In game terms, it only makes sense to use W.P Paired, and offhand parry as needed (Thus also giving you the choice of the best melee offensive choices the game has as well).

My suggestion? Make a house rule to make this above statement not true.

[Cinos]

So after years of gaming, Shield offers +5% to Parry chance And unlike weapons, has SDC used to absorb hits and will break sooner or later. In game terms, it only makes sense to use W.P Paired, and offhand parry as needed (Thus also giving you the choice of the best melee offensive choices the game has as well).

My suggestion? Make a house rule to make this above statement not true.

That's easy. Shields provide a degree of cover, requiring a called shot of say, 10 or higher for small shields and 12 or higher for large shields. Missed shots hit the shield.

Another advantage easily missed is perhaps the ability to parry arrows and bolts with reduced or eliminated penalties.

There is that; Shields do allow parrying of Ranged weapons. But so does prowl, or a building / tree / standing next to people. And as I said, any ol' work around works nice, the former works good too. I personally gave shields an AR, and parries aren't full Mitigation of damage with weapons, but are with shields.

[AmasCole]

well it really boil's down to the GM. and how thay feel the shield W.P should be handled. i usely add in P.S for shield bashing with the strike Bonus of +1 at 2,4,6,8,10,12,13,15. and then P.S. + Knife dammage if the Player want's to add a spike or the like to the shield.

[maasenstodt]

Here's my house rule for shields:

Shields add to a character’s A.R. Small shields provide a bonus to A.R. of 1 plus an amount equal to their parry bonus from W.P. Shield, if any. Large shields provide an A.R. bonus of 3 plus any W.P. Shield parry bonus. When an attack hits a character with a shield but it doesn’t best their A.R., the player character can choose whether to deduct the damage from her armor or her shield.

I've used this ruling for several years and it has worked very well though extensive play testing.

[drewkitty ~..~]

Shields give the user a bonus to parry. However, PB forgot to put said parry bonus in the PF book.
*yawns and points @ the AU book*

Yes, all you purists don't like mixing the settings up, but sometimes that is the only place a specific text is found.

[Cinos]

Shields give the user a bonus to parry. However, PB forgot to put said parry bonus in the PF book.
*yawns and points @ the AU book*

Yes, all you purists don't like mixing the settings up, but sometimes that is the only place a specific text is found.

Could you translate your acronyms for a newbie?

PB = Palladium Books

PF = Palladium Fantasy

AU = Aliens Unlimited

[drewkitty ~..~]

*hand toofarjimmy some assigned reading* viewtopic.php?f=44&t=79167

[St. Evil]

Here's my house rule for shields:

Shields add to a character’s A.R. Small shields provide a bonus to A.R. of 1 plus an amount equal to their parry bonus from W.P. Shield, if any. Large shields provide an A.R. bonus of 3 plus any W.P. Shield parry bonus. When an attack hits a character with a shield but it doesn’t best their A.R., the player character can choose whether to deduct the damage from her armor or her shield.

I've used this ruling for several years and it has worked very well though extensive play testing.

I like it a lot I may just have to use this if any one wants to have WP Shield. Thanks

[Janus]

I always treated shields as a free paired weapon for the classes that get them to start instead of having to buy them outright from available skills.

Some people like the Mad Martigan way of combat (dual wield) and some prefer sword and board.

I never messed with the shield other than saying it takes 1/4 of the damage to its SDC. Also I allow them to block things that a sword or dagger could not. Like arrows, fire, magic bolts, etc.

[JuliusCreed]

I always treated shields as a free paired weapon for the classes that get them to start instead of having to buy them outright from available skills.

Some people like the Mad Martigan way of combat (dual wield) and some prefer sword and board.

I never messed with the shield other than saying it takes 1/4 of the damage to its SDC. Also I allow them to block things that a sword or dagger could not. Like arrows, fire, magic bolts, etc.

Heartilly seconded. Paired weapons is great in a stand up fight when it comes to versatility in combat, especially when compared to sword and board. Sure, a sword or mace or dagger has basically equivalent bonuses when parrying, but the protection they provide against missile weapons like arrows, bolts, sling stones, etc. is virtually nil. For something like that you need a shield.
As a side note, against spells that can only be Dodged, such as a Fireball, as long as the character has a suitable shield, I allow it to be Parried. Just make the same save roll of 18 or better, Parry and WP bonuses allowed. Of course, the working term here is 'suitable'. I don't see Fireballs getting parried with bucklers roughly the size of a large dinner plate, but with something like a standard heater shield or larger, absolutely.

[Cinos]

I don't really like your rule on parries not being full mitigation of weapon damage. It pretty much makes certain styles of combat useless and breaks suspension of disbelief, especially where you have one character parrying with a spear or polearm and his opponent is using a short sword. Combined with the AR, this makes the shield too powerful with no one in their right mind using anything but a shield.

Go have a friend swing a baseball bat at you for an hour, and block it with another baseball bat. Tell me you don't feel like hell afterwards even if you stop every swing from connecting with something important, and show my how many time's you've gotten 'nicked' from being a tenth second too slow. Not enough for a full on, shoulder shattering hit, but enough to hurt.

And I never said there where not other circumstances to deal with problems like Spears vs Short weapons, and there are other factors that go into your parry mitigation, such as your class, weapons training and such. Most Warriors can get their mitigation with weapons up to 80% without difficulty even in low levels, by mid-game, any melee class with the car to could get up to 100% (mind you, these choices would be at the expense of other abilities, like higher strike, dodge, damage, crits, etc). It's just that shields get a flat +50% to the mitigation, and the WP Shield has an immense mitigation boost that is low cost, the ability to get it up past 200% is not difficult (which matters as many blunt force weapons, axes and pole arms ignore an amount of it, an ideal counter for someone parrying and turtling).

As to historical accuracy, Palladia's history is a tad different then Earth's, by my figure, Shields have been an accepted military weapon as Melee Protection, since at least the Elf Dwarf War, if not well before in the Age of Chaos.

Don't be vague, what styles of combat would be made useless by changing weapon parries to partial mitigation to you?

Any counter points to the Prowl bit depends on if you use conditional skill modifiers or not, and the extent in which you use them, and if you feel a counter balance to detecting prowls is used (perception / detect ambush). If you use the former, Prowl is honestly much more likely to work then numerous parries (given that each parry attempt is about 55% success rate, over the course of a fight, you're looking at getting hit by half of every attack), while prowl can easily pass that (and still have backup options should it fall, like parry / get cover). Or you can just nix the whole 'risk' plan, and cast cloak of shadows / Invisi of any brand / Chamelaon / Cloud of Smoke / Blinding Flash / dozens of other low level spells that completely counter ranged weapons.