Shields

Shields are pieces of personal armor held in the offhand. Other things that you can carry in your offhand are Orbs and Rune Arms.

Proficiency
Not all characters are proficient with shields. However, the penalties for using a shield you are not proficient with are fairly low. You take a penalty on attack rolls equal to the shield's Armor Check Penalty.


 * The General Shield Proficiency feat allows a character to use any of the following shields (except tower shields) without incurring a non-proficiency penalty.
 * The Tower Shield Proficiency feat allows a character to use tower shields without incurring a non-proficiency penalty.
 * Master's Touch spell can make you proficient with any shield.

Benefits

 * Armor class: Shields grant Shield bonus to AC.
 * Shield bashing: You can use shields to attack your enemy.
 * PRR and MRR (bonuses stack with Sheltering enchantment)
 * {| class="wikitable" style="display: inline-table;"

! style="text-align:left;"|Shield type ! PRR and MRR
 * Bucklers/Orbs
 * 0
 * Small shields
 * 5
 * Large shields
 * 10
 * Tower shields
 * 15
 * }
 * PRR and MRR multiplier: Wearing a large or tower shield double your effective PRR and MRR vs effects that require a Reflex saving throw.
 * Extra damage reduction while actively blocking.
 * Extra gear slot that can be used for various enchantments. See Shield enchantment summary.
 * }
 * PRR and MRR multiplier: Wearing a large or tower shield double your effective PRR and MRR vs effects that require a Reflex saving throw.
 * Extra damage reduction while actively blocking.
 * Extra gear slot that can be used for various enchantments. See Shield enchantment summary.

Penalties
Wearing a shield might also cause a few penalties for your character:
 * Armor check penalty
 * Arcane spell failure
 * Cannot use Evasion (heavy / tower shield only)
 * (tower shield only): Dodge cap, attack penalty -2

Often, the increased defense granted by shield use can also reduce your DPS.

Types of shields

 * Buckler
 * Small
 * Large
 * Tower

Basic shields overview
The following table lists the basic shields in the game. Note that random-gen Bound to Account shields from chain end rewards (or quest end rewards in The Sharn Syndicate quests) use an older algorithm and do not match these stats. *1 Shields can get +1[W] as an enchantment, which overrides the AML to 20, even if the AML was higher; note that this currently applies to all lootgen shields (as of U15.2) Seems fixed with U18.1.

*2 Note that shields don't raise the MRR Cap

*3 This is for disjuncted shields. If the shield is enchanted, reduce this value by 1

*4 invokes a -2 penalty to attack rolls


 * See also: Armor