The Gaming Den

Part of the reason I didn't go in and just change the ACP's was I prefer to implement changes in larger clearly defined updates rather than just tweak things here and there. Personally I hate it when the rules I'm using have minor changes implemented with little fanfare - I'm never sure if something has changed that might trip me up.

That said, updating the Great Shields to use Tarkis's ACP values is fine. I might even give it a go to get used to the wiki language.

Regarding Demon Armor, yeah the ability isn't really hot enough for a Medium item. I was thinking the DR being harder to bypass kind of made up for that, but it could do with a boost.

Go ahead and wiki-edit if you want, it's a small bite-sized chunk (just changing a couple values in the tables). Link is http://dnd-wiki.org/wiki/Tome_Armor_%28 ... nt_Rule%29

Updated the wiki and this thread with the new ACP and rules for Great Shields.

I'm currently working on some modifications to Tome Items, when that's finalised I'll be going through these updating the costs against the abilities to make sure they are in line, changing the Medium and Greater armors to Wish Economy currency costs, and bringing the magic abilities in line with those in Tome Items. I'll also revamp any armors that are a bit lacking, such as the Demon Armor.

I went and edited the wiki version so it's a complete drop in replacement. Imported rules bits from RoW, sidebarred the commentary on their changes, compiled the armor and shield tables, that sort of thing. Figured I'd let you know in case you preferred the forum flow and wanted to change it back.

Looks fine - the only thing I'm a little uneasy about is attribution. It kind of looks like I'm taking credit for Frank's work, with the "Author - RedRob" bit. I mean, people who've been using Tome for a while will know the added bits straight away, but you might want to run it past Frank.

Great shields with a permanent -2 seems like a crap deal to be honest. If you just use Expertise to take the -2 while using a normal shield you'll end up with 1 or 2 higher AC for each listed shield.

I'll fix the attribution bits. I'm pretty sure Frank has said repeatedly he doesn't care, but I still prefer to make credit as transparent as possible. Which I guess it isn't right now. (edit - should be clear now)

On great shields, I only suggested it because they used to have something similar. Haven't looked at them critically enough to guess if that penalty is countered by better defensive option things. I don't care if it just goes away. I doubt that the legionnaire pictured above was taking a -2 anyway.

If you spent a feat to replace wearing armor, what should it give in return?

Abilities that are more than just number relocation.

Something like this.

Yeah, having looked at the assorted shields I guess the -2 attack isn't necessary anymore and can die in a fire. I don't think it's worth re-adding anything to the kappa in its place though.

Some specific questions about the shields though:
[*]Why no moderate or greater magic item shields?
[*]Force shield doesn't include the "+enhancement bonus" line that ice aegis and vine shield and similar abilities do. Oversight?
[*]I want a second opinion on the Mithral Shield. 20% miss chance on a mundane shield that's only countered by flanking makes it pretty awesome. Since the only other armor that has inherent miss chance is the robe of many colors (a moderate item), it seems like it might be out of place a bit. Gaze reflection as immediate instead maybe?

The danger of just allowing Great Shields with no usage penalty is that AC is already pretty easy to raise to "I don't get hit" at low levels in Tome. But then again, heavier armor gives more AC than light armor and the only controls there are needing proficiency and a higher ACP, so having Great Shields be the same is no different.

TarkisFlux wrote:Some specific questions about the shields though:
[*]Why no moderate or greater magic item shields?
[*]Force shield doesn't include the "+enhancement bonus" line that ice aegis and vine shield and similar abilities do. Oversight?
[*]I want a second opinion on the Mithral Shield. 20% miss chance on a mundane shield that's only countered by flanking makes it pretty awesome. Since the only other armor that has inherent miss chance is the robe of many colors (a moderate item), it seems like it might be out of place a bit. Gaze reflection as immediate instead maybe?

The lack of Moderate and Greater magic shields was partly because there were only a few shields in the original RoW writeup and none of them seemed particularly powerful, and partly because I wasn't sure anyone would use them. Sword and Board is kind of a low-level concept in Tome due to the overwhelming power of TWF and attacking in general, and the inflation of To-Hit > AC meant Shields just seemed sub-par past the early levels. I think I had recently read this thread when doing the writeup and kind of agreed that Shields weren't something you'd spend a Medium or Greater item on anyway.

Yes, Force Shield should include the Enhancement bonus. In fact, everything I wrote that references applying the Armor or Shield bonus to something else should include any Enhancement bonus you have to it. I know it's not how the game actually works, but I like to pretend that applying an Enhancement bonus to something is like raising the original value. So sometimes I forget you actually need to mention it...

With the Mithral shield, I'd like to look at it another way. How good actually is a 20% miss chance? Is it something to write home about? Whenever I've had Blur active it doesn't seem that gamechanging - it only stops one in 5 attacks, you can seriously go whole fights without it having an effect. If anything, I was thinking the Robe of Colours is a little weak and might need a boost to be worth it as a Medium Armor.

If anyone can dream up some Moderate or Greater shields that'd be pretty cool, I have a character concept or two that uses the sword-and-board thing (they're all related to Knights, go figure).

Red_Rob wrote: Yes, Force Shield should include the Enhancement bonus. In fact, everything I wrote that references applying the Armor or Shield bonus to something else should include any Enhancement bonus you have to it. I know it's not how the game actually works, but I like to pretend that applying an Enhancement bonus to something is like raising the original value. So sometimes I forget you actually need to mention it...

Actually, I think that is how it works.

SRD wrote: An enhancement bonus represents an increase in the sturdiness and/or effectiveness of armor or natural armor, or the effectiveness of a weapon, or a general bonus to an ability score. Multiple enhancement bonuses on the same object (in the case of armor and weapons), creature (in the case of natural armor), or ability score do not stack. Only the highest enhancement bonus applies. Since enhancement bonuses to armor or natural armor effectively increase the armor or natural armor's bonus to AC, they don't apply against touch attacks.

Enhancement bonuses to armor and shields are bonuses to a statistic of the item, not a bonus to a statistic of the user. Therefore enhancement bonus to armor/shields actually increase the AC bonus that the armor/shield provides. That's why enhancement bonuses from armor and shields stack, they actually don't! They just aren't direct bonuses to your AC.