The stalwart knight raises his shield against the dragon's searing jet of flame. Axe bites into shield as the two sea raiders begin a duel of honor. The wild barbarians crash and break like the sea against the well-ordered legion's tight shield wall. The brave warrior's crushed and bloody body is carried home on his shield.
Shields are an iconic part of ancient and medieval warfare, and naturally of fantasy roleplaying games as well. They are also the subject of this week's Improved Armor Tables. The last edition of Improved Armor Tables focused on the fantasy staples of hide and chitin armor, but from here on out they will largely be focused on bringing historical accuracy to the armor tables. I have a degree in medieval history and I'm using it to shake things up in the world of fantasy RPGs. Unlike my Fixing the Weapons Table posts, these fixes should be considered entirely optional and a GM should carefully consider whether they want to use them in their game, because it might mean a lot of tweaking stat blocks behind the scenes. These changes are designed for GMs who love history and want their fantasy worlds to be a little more grounded in it.
In the d20 system, melee fighters face a dilemma: strap on a shield for a boost to your armor class, or leave that hand free to wield a two handed weapon - or maybe two weapons - to deal extra damage. It's a trade off every RPG player is familiar with, but historically speaking it is not the only trade off about when to use a shield. In ancient times, the Greek hoplite was the ultimate heavy infantry unit. It didn't matter whether he was wearing bronze armor, leather or simple linen, as long as he had that great round bronze shield - the hoplon, the hoplite's namesake. Think of Roman legionnaires and you'll probably picture them with those iconic tower shields, perhaps taking the impenetrable testudo formation. The vikings had those round wooden shields, three feet in diameter and rimmed with iron. But as time went on, the shields got smaller. The long Norman 'kite' shield gave way to the smaller knightly 'heater' shield. In the later Middle Ages, the small buckler - a foot or less in diameter - rose to prominence for foot combat. As armor improved, cavalry and heavy infantry abandoned shields altogether, even in tournament jousts. Why? Because shields are heavy and cumbersome. In ancient times, when armor was less advanced, larger shields meant more protection - for some warriors, a shield was the only armor they had. But knight in full plate is actually more protected without a shield than with it because the shield weighs him down and slows his movements.
To reflect this, I have completely reworked shields. They have gained a boost to AC, but have more taxing armor check penalties and max Dex bonuses. There are more types of shields now, to reflect the greater historical variety of materials they were made from. These different types are largely distinguished from each other by weight and by their hardness and hit points, which I have added to the table - this is important when someone tries to sunder a shield, or when you roll a natural 1 on a reflex save vs a fireball. You will also notice that I have scrapped the light/heavy shield dichotomy. There are now small and large shields (and tower shields), and light shields form a separate class of shield. Read on to learn more!
The following items and rules in gold and their accompanying tables are available as Open Game Content under the OGL. Open Game Content is ©2015 Jonah Bomgaars and d20 Despot.
