Martial Archetype
Comments from the Finger: I'm not sure if it's the Captain America theme, but this one's been requested a lot, actually.
Shield Expert
The longest-lived know all too well the value of a shield. An aegis to the weapons of men and a bulwark to the claws and teeth of monsters, a shield is your first and most important defense. Experts in its use are often legendary warriors in their own right, surviving where others would fall and using their shield itself as a weapon when all other options fail.
Fighting Style
Beginning when you select this archetype at 3rd level, you gain the following fighting style:
Shield Fighting. You can bash enemies with your shield. If you hold a shield, you can treat it as a light melee weapon dealing 1d6 bludgeoning damage on a hit. You are proficient in using your shield as a weapon.
Shield Throw
Starting at 3rd level, you can hurl your shield at nearby enemies. If you choose to do so, your shield acts as a thrown melee weapon with a range of 15/30 feet, dealing 1d6 bludgeoning damage on a hit.
At 7th level, you throw your shield with such force that it ricochets off of its target and returns to you if you strike a target within 15 feet of you.
Sled
At 7th level, once per turn, you can slide downhill, even across stairs and other rough terrain, atop your shield, up to half your movement speed, without expending movement.
Tower Shield
At 10th level, you are proficient in the use of tower shields. Tower shields grant a +3 bonus to AC and grant you three-quarters cover from ranged attacks. When used to make an attack or thrown, a tower shield deals 1d8 damage.
Ironclad Defense
At 15th level, when you take damage from an attack or spell that you can see while you are holding a shield, you can use your reaction to halve the attack or spell's damage against you.
Dual Shields
Starting at 18th level, you can hold two shields at one time and gain the Armor Class benefits of each.
Changelog: 12/9/15: Tower Shield: 1d8 damage on attacks
12/18/15: Ironclad Evasion changed to Ironclad Defense, which acts like Uncanny Dodge, but also allows you to half damage against spells.
Sled: Simplified. No more slope calculations.
1/28/16: Ironclad Defense: level clause added
Do tower shields still count as light melee weapons when used in shield bash? Also, despite being much larger, can they be thrown the same distance for shield throw?
ReplyDeleteThis sounds like a fun build!
One more question: with dual shields can you make an offhand attack (shield bash) with the second one?
DeleteWhen using two shields, you can effectively use Two Weapon Fighting using them.
DeleteTower shields should count as shields for all other purposes, including shield bash and being thrown. I'll make an edit to ensure this is more explicit
does the 15th level thinf stack with shield master?
ReplyDeleteIf you already add your shield bonus to Dexterity, you don't add it twice.
Deletethats kind of a shame that one archetype benefit makes a feat based around shields useless
DeleteI dislike that the level 15 feat makes the Shieldmaster feat, which would seem like a natural fit for a shieldwielding fighter, nearly completly useless. This is even more true because the Fighter has so many ASI´s but there aren´t that many good combat related feats for a Sword´n´Board type fighter. I´d like to see something different here.
ReplyDeleteI intended to make this feature broader than the benefits offered by the shield master feat, but it seems that this got edited out at some point. I'll consider some changes I can make to accomplish this
DeleteSo I've been thinking, what if I replaced this feature with a flat +2 reduction to all nonmagical damage?
DeleteI don´t know if that´s smart, seeing as how a shield bearing fighter will most likely wear heavy armor. So instead of invalidating the shield master feat, now it would invalidate the heavy armor feat (unless you´d let them stack, but I think that might be a bit too much).
DeleteI would be allowing this to stack, actually. I'm not 100% happy with the solution, but it might be an improvement.
DeleteWhat about making it more like uncanny dodge and less like evasion, some what of a blocking ability so you can half damage. It gives you something to use your reaction on and it fits the theme without overshadowing any feats
DeleteI was thinking about that yesterday, actually. Totally going to use it; that's for the help, Nail!
DeleteCaptain america
ReplyDeleteThe upcoming pugilist class gives yo another way to play the Cap. Keep looking for that one.
DeleteLets make an Avengers campaign.
DeleteWait, half the party is fighters...
How do the Avengers get by without a healer?
I'm kind of confused about Sled. I feel like it would depend on the steepness of the hill or slope, so I'm not sure the numbers should be static like that.
ReplyDeleteHow would you recommend fixing this? I wasn't perfectly happy with my solution, but it does somewhat take slope into account
Deletewell, what's awkward about the current Sled is on a slope thats 10 feet horizontally and 10 feet vertically, after going down 5 feet you're now 5 feet in the air above the bottom of the slope
DeleteI think it might be better to just make it that you can go from the top to the bottom of a slope in a straight line on your shield at no movement cost, or something like that. Going 2 feet horizontally for every 1 foot you fall only works on slopes that are twice as wide as they are tall!
What about just removing the 2/1 part so it would read something like this "at 7th level, once per turn, you can slide downhill, even across stairs and other rough terrain, atop your shield, a distance up to your movement speed, without expending any movement speed."
ReplyDeleteThat'll work. It's simpler, and I don't have to worry about people making slope calculations.
DeleteYeah, I didn't make my first post very clear, but my intent was that the numbers be removed.
DeleteWhen do they get Ironclad Defense?
ReplyDeleteWhen do they get Ironclad Defense?
ReplyDeleteI've been looking I might have to multi class for the real cap this with pugilist
ReplyDeleteHow does this interact with the dual weirder feat? Do you get the +1 bonus from the feat in addition to the bonus from your shield, since a shield is now, technically, a weapon for you?
ReplyDelete