Shield AC and QoL improvements

[wurdpass]

My thoughts on this are:

My character is specifically built to use a shield. That's why he gets good shield AC. That's one of the bonuses of being say, a fighter.

if suddenly everything shield related is as good and long lasting as the literal piece of wood/metal strapped to the warrior's arm, or whatever, then that to me is a case of: "The magic casters can't get the raw AC of the fighters. We need to have the high tank AC as well as all our raw power, DPS potential, etc, to keep up with the warriors" who are, honestly, kind of out in the cold a lot when it comes to any sort of buffs due to how easy wands and broaches and such are dispelled.

Shield users get the benefit of the shield AC being more reliable and Higher simply because that's their build. The same way casters get their buffs and spells and such more powerful, because that's their build. The way that DPS builds do more damage than the shield user...

It's a give and take thing. That said, if Shield spell gets a duration buff, that's pretty legit as it's kinda meh as it is because the turn by turn tabletop its designed for ends up working differently in realtime, so it it IS really a bit too short.

This suggestion would not really impact full casters. It is a QOL improvement for the various characters that do not use shields and instead keep several magic items in their inventory that cast the spell at a lower CL.

They are generally benefiting significantly in terms of damage by not having a shield but also gaining the benefit of having the shield AC always on - as long as they remember to use each of their shield brooch magic items every time the last one expired.

This strategy is so effective that many characters are carrying 8+ of this magic items

[artemitavik]

Yeah, I'm fully onboard with just a buff to the Shield spell length/duration

[Quartz]

Why not make 2 versions of the spell? One with a visual indicator of the buff and one without one? This seems like it would satisfy all grievances.

[GeneralShenanigans]

Why not make 2 versions of the spell? One with a visual indicator of the buff and one without one? This seems like it would satisfy all grievances.

It would be helpful, though there is extra effort in having to create new entries and scripts for a separate spell, put it in the necessary spellbooks, create new item blueprints that utilize it, give ways of purchasing it to all the valid vendors, create the spell effect attachment for wands and scrolls and attach them to the necessary items and systems as well.

[Quartz]

Why not make 2 versions of the spell? One with a visual indicator of the buff and one without one? This seems like it would satisfy all grievances.

It would be helpful, though there is extra effort in having to create new entries and scripts for a separate spell, put it in the necessary spellbooks, give ways of purchasing it to all the valid vendors, create the spell effect attachment for wands and scrolls and attach them to the necessary items and systems as well.

Could always be made a radial like for spell shadow conjuration. That way you don't need to do any of that.

[Aspect of Sorrow]

Hidden: show

Why not make 2 versions of the spell? One with a visual indicator of the buff and one without one? This seems like it would satisfy all grievances.

It would be helpful, though there is extra effort in having to create new entries and scripts for a separate spell, put it in the necessary spellbooks, create new item blueprints that utilize it, give ways of purchasing it to all the valid vendors, create the spell effect attachment for wands and scrolls and attach them to the necessary items and systems as well.

Unnecessary, can just have the visual effect based on a slash command toggle.

[Gnomocratic]

This discussion is misguided.

The real problem is the butterfly effect of the shield brooch. A single small item has had tremendous consequences upon the culture of player combat mechanics and build planning of the server.

That the proposed solution to this would-be problem would be an increased duration to the shield spell reads to me like a conceited variation of "the shield brooch has low CL, I'm tired of reapplying it, increase it".

The unadulterated design prescription I have for you is that no character should have access to shield AC without wielding a shield.

Historically the only alternative to wielding shields to unlock shield EB and base shield AC is the shield spell, which is for wizard/sorcerer only and self-cast only at that, meaning, it cannot be used as a buff to third parties, this limits its spread, it's intentional. BGTSCC has a custom spell called Deez's, a spell created by a character through a DM plot. And then there's Shades which is a sort of compilation spell, an upper level variant of Shadow Conjuration and Greater Shadow Conj.
They're all variations of the basic level 1 Shield spell for the purposes of this discussion.

It's no big deal there because wiz/sorcs are generally low AC, so low in fact that even with a 4 shield AC bonus, they're still on the low end of character AC rankings, arcane spell failure contributes to most of these characters never wearing armor. It's a set of mechanics that draws the whole picture, not the design of a single spell.

So the shield brooch has made it free for everyone to amass free shield AC, it has had an outsized and completely unintended influence and has very much diminished the appeal of shield-using builds. People now plan builds of non-shield using characters with the shield brooch's benefit in mind, it's cost-free and ubiquitous. A mandatory buff before every combat, many characters have half a dozen or more brooches in their inventories, mine included to be sure.

It's terrible design, it's an oversight. These are the sort of "weeds" you have to take a step back every now and then -and then- decide to "root out". They bog down the server design. They leave no room for other plants to grow, sort of.

It really should just be removed, or be made a use once consumable.

The addition of the shield brooch is in the family of small unambitious changes that start as an item added to a shop, with little oversight because item blueprints are changes less monitored, and because of the difficulty of verifying an entire bus of items, eg a store of dozens upon dozens of items; or an increase in drop ratings for some particular property -that then- have an immense unbalancing effect: in this case, we've watered down an entire branch of character build options/choices, we've added an extra step to everyone's first combat turn, an unintended contribution to combat preparation inflation.

Nerf the shield brooch.

[wurdpass]

I for one agree with Gnomocratic.

When everyone’s build AC math includes a +4 Shield Enhancement, even if it’s a class that doesn’t cast spells and doesn’t have shield proficiency, I think that’s not quite right.

You’d probably have to get rid of the wands too. But the fact that the spell is wandable but we’re talking about QOL so people can avoid even having to recharge wands by using a dozen one a day items.. the player base has just come to accept that they are entitled to a +4 shield enhancement bonus. Is that the intention?

[GeneralShenanigans]

Nerf the shield brooch.

I do too many dungeons for the brooches to be worth the inventory space, personally. There are potions and wands of shield as well, both drop commonly with potions also being dirt cheap. Not to mention scrolls. Where do we draw the line? Because anything less than total inaccessibility to consumable shield AC isn't going to change the mechanical environment meaningfully. You would need to completely remove shield AC in all forms but shields themselves to bring about noticeable change.

All server content at the moment is cleared with consumable magic use in mind, even at level 1. Mage armor potions, lesser restoration pots, antidotes, etc. are what allow fresh newbies to do content at all. The veterans all have at minimum 5 wands a piece to be able to go out and do content. It is the current expectation. If the issue is from people deriving too much value out of consumable magic, then other changes have to be made to consumable magic as a whole, not just taking away one source of the many sources for a single spell.

It all comes down to personal preference on how you think the server should go in direction. A world without UMD- or shield AC being accessed through magic at all- is probably better, but mechanically, much of BG was created in response to UMD being the meta. Builders would see what players were doing and design content to try and challenge them, to keep them from soloing things, and it always failed because everyone is an omni-caster limited only by their wallets. Consumable magic allows builds to become one-man armies, and it is this fact that you should target if you wanted to make meaningful change to the mechanical environment, rather than taking away just one of the five universal sources of the shield spell.

Also wizards can and do hit 60+ AC nowadays, they're only low-AC by player choice.

I also agree. It trivializes the investments of people who actually use shields when everyone can get a shield AC bonus. It's at odds with the give and take of balancing damage and offense that naturally comes with the choice to use a shield.

An aspect of this to note is that, typically, 1h + shield and 2h fighting styles are mechanically weaker because they take less investment. You don't need any feats or stat investments for them to work, and the feats that do exist for shields are all highly optional. TWF and ranged take several hard feats and stat requirements comparatively, as well as further feats that specialize in weapon types to boost their damage in most cases, so their DPS is higher because they are spending a lot to get there.

That being said, I do agree that AC is getting out of control and I wouldn't mind if shield AC was totally removed and inaccessible from everything but shields.