While worn on one hand, the Buckler increases the wearer’s AC by 1. This small shield is favored by duelists who focus on the enemy in front of their face and nothing else. While worn on one arm, the shield increases the bearer’s AC by 2. This medium-sized shield is forged from steel and often emblazoned with some form of heraldry or insignia. A creature can only benefit from one instance of this effect at a time. If the allied creature’s shield only grants them an AC bonus of 1, it becomes two.
If the wearer is within 5ft of a friendly creature also wielding a shield, the shield increases the wearer’s AC by 2. While worn on one arm, this shield increases the wearer’s AC by 1. This large, circular shield is made from wood with a brass or iron boss at the center. If you’re a low-level adventuring party or especially if you’re a DM running a game in a low-magic setting, we’ve thrown together some optional rules for making mundane shields just a little more exciting. In the rules as written for 5e, a shield is always a shield, whether you’re deftly knocking aside blows with a buckler or cowering behind a pavise.Īnd, while that’s absolutely fine, the only place where variety gets introduced to shields in fifth edition is with magic items. Die less,” but shield design – from the humble round shield to the buckler and the pavise – was rarely that simple. Obviously, the core purpose always remained “ hold thing in front of face. Die less,” a very long time ago.Įven if we restrict ourselves to the history of Western and Northern Europe we see a dazzling variety of shields, all built using different materials at different times to serve different purposes. Humans came up with the idea of “ hold thing in front of face. However, that’s not to say that shields in D&D 5e are especially interesting or, if you’re a bit of a history buff, particularly accurate. For the most part, I’d be inclined to say that, if something isn’t broken, don’t mess with it too much.
#SHIELD OF EXPRESSION 5E HOW TO#
There are many threads on many websites by many prospective homebrew enthusiasts that have tackled the “problem” of how to make shields interesting. Armor Class is an incredibly potent mechanic – an extra point reduces your chances of being hit by a melee or spell attack by 5% – so messing with it too much would almost certainly open up a whole pandora’s box of complications. Unlike when it comes to traps and puzzles, I actually don’t mind this approach to shields. Easy.Īs with many elements of 5e’s ruleset (as I elaborated on in my article on Puzzles and Traps – possibly the most hand-waved element of the game), when it comes to additional detail or a little variety, the designers happily pass the problem down the road to individual source material. If you know how to use it and you have one on your arm, you get a flat boost to your AC. Hardly anyone ever gets confused by the concept of a shield. In many ways, the game design for shields in D&D 5e is as beautiful as it is simple. That’s less space in the rulebook than is devoted to the description for a Block and Tackle. The official rules for shields are – considering how frequently used they are and how impactful one can be in the game – less than two lines long. Strapping extra shields to yourself doesn’t keep giving you AC bonuses.
If you try to use a shield and you aren’t proficient (because they use the same proficiency rules as armor) you still get the +2 to your AC, but you suffer disadvantage on any ability check, saving throw, or attack roll that involves Strength or Dexterity, and you can’t cast spells.Īlso – presumably after things got a little cheesy during playtesting – you can only use one shield at a time. In 5e, only the Barbarian, Cleric, Druid, Fighter, Paladin, and Ranger classes have proficiency with shields. Doing so increases your AC by 2 points – assuming you are proficient with shields. In D&D 5e, shields are a type of equipment made from wood or metal and exist as a subcategory of the rules for Armor.Ī shield costs 10 gold pieces (quite the princely sum for a humble low-level adventurer), weighs 6 lbs, and requires one hand to wield. Magical Shields in D&D 5e From the Early to Late Game.