Shields as Weapons in D&D
If you haven’t seen it yet, Deadliest Warrior on Spike TV is a great show for anyone interested in historical weapons and armour. Each episode compares two historical (or modern) warriors and poses the question – who would win in a fight? The historical research and scientific testing of the weapons is tremendously interesting and backs up some suspicions I’ve had about how much sense the stats given to weapons and armour in games like D&D make.
After watching the Spartan vs Ninja episode I was surprised at not only how much protection the Spartan’s shield provided them, but also how effective it was as a weapon. Blows from the edge of the heavy shield were as deadly as those from other weapons. This definitely supported my ideas about making shields more effective in D&D by blocking damage – but made me think they should provide some offensive benefit as well.
Building on previous house-rules, a Fighter with a shield benefits from the rules in the earlier “In Defence of the Shield” article:
Shield
A character with a shield may roll a single d4 for one attack causing damage on them per round. If the roll is greater than the amount of damage from the attack, the shield blocks it and no hit points are lost. If the roll is equal or less than the damage, the attack causes the regular amount of hit point loss.
In addition to this, a Fighter using a shield is also considered to be fighting with two weapons (from the “Choose Your Weapon” article):
Two Weapons
Characters fighting with two weapons roll to attack normally. After rolling for damage with their primary weapon, they may choose to re-roll using the dice for their secondary weapon. This second roll is used for damage, even if it is less than the first roll.
When used as a weapon a shield does the same damage as a club:
Shield – d4
A shield may not be used as a weapon in the same round that a defensive shield roll is “given” to a nearby ally.
I think it makes sense to restrict this use of a shield to the Fighter class. Other classes can still use shields defensively, but only the Fighter’s martial training should allow them to benefit from using a shield offensively. I could even see it being something that’s only introduced at the 2nd or 3rd level, or that requires a minimum strength score. For now though, I’ll plan on letting all 1st level Fighters use their shields as weapons.
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Neat! I’m always interested in rules that make shields a more likely part of a fighter’s arsenal. I’d like players to favor shields under the sorts of circumstances that fighters favored shields historically (basically all the time until the advent of full plate armor, as far as I can tell), even if not for exactly the same reason. I’m already using shield-splintering rules (more or less swiped from Trollsmyth, though the mechanics differ. I’m definitely going to consider adapting one or more of these, as well.
Thank! I was actually chatting with James (Trollsmyth) on Twitter about this after watching that episode of Deadliest Warrior.
I think it depends on what style of shields / setting you want to use. I don’t see Greek/Roman/Knight style shields shattering apart very often, so the shield-splintering rules didn’t work for me. If I were running a campaign set in a Viking style setting I could see using it though.
I have no doubt the bronze shield was an effective piece of equipment, but attributing “kill shots” to it (altering the tv show computations) seemed a bit of a stretch. They wanted to forget that Ninja have feet.
Also, I’d think that a “secondary weapon” shield might be more expensive too…
I think you’re right that not all shields could be used as weapons. Some light shields (eg. hide, wicker, etc) wouldn’t deliver the same kind of force than a bronze/steel shield would. Some editions of D&D list shields as light or heavy – and if you use that I’d perhaps limit offensive use to only heavy shields.
The bronze shield could deliver kill shots – they did the research on the show on how much force was applied to a crash-test mannequins head/neck from a blow from the shield. I don’t think it would be as effective as other weapons though, which is why it only gets a d4 instead of the d6 or d8 a primary weapon would probably get.
I thought it was interesting to see the actual data on the Ninja’s weapons and the Katana vs. Chainmail (in the Samurai vs. Viking episode) – things that often receive very high stats in RPGs. I’m looking forward to seeing more episodes of Deadliest Warrior.
First – Reverend!
Second – i think it calls for its own build, sword and shield, very basic, you hit with a primary attack you get a secondary shield attack that dazes, simple
My current thinking is that I’ll make it so that if you’re equipped with a shield and you roll minimum damage on your weapon, you substitute a d4 strike with the shield instead. It produces a small increase in the expected value (and smaller the nastier your main weapon is, which I like) but a nice bit of flavor.
Shield use varies quite a lot by period and region as you noted above. In the late middle ages, knights in heavy armor often had the shield strapped in very tight to their side to they would still protect when resting the shield arm. That would prevent most offensive use, but this was mostly for mounted warriors, which D&D combat has never represented well so you can probably ignore it. I have never used the hoplite or roman shield, the most easy shield to attack with I have used was the viking shield. It is held pretty far forward and can deliver a very hard punch.
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