I wanted some insight into possibly adding a buckler into my campaign.
For reference: My one of my players likes to come up with highly specialized builds that tend to push the boundaries of the rules, and I like to facilitate this as much as I can because I know that he has the most fun playing that way. I just don't want to push the rules too far, because I don't want to completely break the game.
The idea is to have a build that utilized grappling and magic at the same time, so the issue came up that he needed a free hand to grapple, and another to cast spells (if they had a material component). So I was thinking a small shield that you could essentially doff without using your action would do the trick. The mechanics for this shield would be:
You gain +1 AC while you have the buckler equipped.
You can use your shield hand to manipulate objects or perform the somatic components for spells. If you use your shield hand to perform any task, you lose the AC bonus provided by the shield until the start of your next turn.
This would allow the character to grapple someone, and still cast spells without dropping their shield.
My question is whether or not this breaks any game mechanics that I might not be thinking about? Does this make the War Caster feat pointless? Is there too much free action economy built in? Maybe other issues that I hadn't even considered?
You could also consider making a cast-off shield (similar to cast-off armor). Something like "you can doff this shield without using an action. It still takes an action to don."
Yeah, I thought about doing something like that. The biggest issue I see with this is that in combat you will only ever have a shield up until you decide to cast a spell. Since you'd have to go pick up your shield and use an action to don it, it isn't very likely to happen during combat. Maybe that is a good drawback though.
You are essentially just adding 1 AC to everyone who doesn't already have a shield.
I assume you would still need shield proficiency, and you can't dual wield or wield a 2 handed weapon. So it is really only useful to spellcasters with medium armor proficiency, who want to wield a shield and weapon, but don't want to take war caster feat. Or that want to grapple, like the OP said.
IRL bucklers require considerable skill to use effectively. Any idiot can pick up a shield ad get some benefit, not full benefit, shield use is still a skill to get full benefit out of it, but having a large wall in front of you gives some protection.
Allowing someone to freely use their buckler hand at the cost of the +1 AC until their next turn does have one potential problem. They would still gain the +1 AC against some attacks that occur in the round before their turn in the initiative order..
I came up with some rules for bucklers a little while ago. I haven't been able to playtest them yet, but hopefully you'll find them useful in some way. I'll copy the relevant bits here:
Parrying Equipment
An object with the parrying property is designed to be effective at deflecting melee weapons. When a creature hits you with a melee weapon attack, you can use your reaction to add your proficiency bonus to your AC for that attack, potentially causing it to miss. You must be proficient with the object, be able to see the attacker, and they must be your size or smaller.
Bucklers
Bucklers are small handheld shields. They offer no bonus to AC, but have the parrying property. Bucklers cost 5 gp and weigh 2 lbs.
Proficiency with light armor also grants proficiency with bucklers.
I don't grant a +1 AC bonus because a buckler is too small for passive protection (and I think turning it into a half-shield is kind of a cop out.) It's intentionally pretty good in a 1-on-1 situation and relatively weak in a battle, since historically they were something you carried around town for self-defense or duels. Note: I don't treat them as shields for rules purposes, but wizards lack proficiency by default and warlocks and bards are going to have problems casting if they can't use their weapon as a focus.
I also added some benefits to the Defensive Duelist feat to compensate for the fact that I repurposed its main mechanic; you can find that (and a bunch of other unrelated house rules) over here. There's also a parrying knife to go along with the buckler.
Allowing someone to freely use their buckler hand at the cost of the +1 AC until their next turn does have one potential problem. They would still gain the +1 AC against some attacks that occur in the round before their turn in the initiative order..
Why is that a problem? They have the AC until they do something else. Then they lose the AC until they start defending again.
I really like InquisitiveCoder's idea. It gives a potentially strong benefit at the cost of your reaction. If you want something for nothing, there's always the plain old shield.
I really like InquisitiveCoder's idea. It gives a potentially strong benefit at the cost of your reaction. If you want something for nothing, there's always the plain old shield.
I don't like it, honestly. It is too powerful. It is a free defensive duelist feat (which he had to redesign). It invalidates the battle master's parry and out classes shield at high levels. And it is too available, making tanks and squishy casters alike tougher.
You also have to consider what it would be like if over half of the humanoid (or any with a hand) monsters used this.
Well, I can't change your mind on that, but I can try to explain why I made the design decisions I did.
It is a free defensive duelist feat (which he had to redesign).
Sort of. It's strictly weaker; Defensive Duelist works with any finesse weapon, doesn't have a size restriction, and doesn't require sight.
I would've redesigned Defensive Duelist anyways because the feat's benefits are so narrow that it doesn't see much use, and I feel traditional sword-and-buckler or rapier-and-dagger dueling shouldn't be strictly locked behind a feat (which is an optional rule). So instead I made it so the feat makes you really kick ass at historical dueling, while the Dual Wielder feat is there for the fantasy variety of two-weapon fighting the official rules support. The game also doesn't do a great job of highlighting the rapier's strengths as a dueling weapon, which is the fact that it's insanely long and if you come at someone with a rapier using a shorter sword, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle. The parallels to Polearm Master should be pretty clear.
It invalidates the battle master's parry...
They do different things. Parry is a damage reduction, it has almost no requirements, and even works against melee spell attacks. The rules already provide multiple avenues to arrive at roughly the same mechanics; that's why there's a bit of redundancy in things like Magic Initiate vs a 1 level dip in another class vs a subclass that dips into a different class's spell list. I don't think you should have to go 3 levels into Fighter for a basic parrying mechanic, and I don't think this completely invalidates the Battle Master's niche; it just adds another tool to their arsenal if you're going DEX fighter.
But if you're really concerned about the Battle Master, this makes riposte better. Which is exactly how this sort of thing went historically; you'd block with a buckler or parrying knife, and attack with the sword in your other hand. So I call that a win. Nope. I'm a dummy! Both abilities require a reaction.
I'm going to take a firm stance on this one: absolutely not. Shield lasts until the start of your next turn and 1st level slots are borderline useless in combat at the level this starts to provide a comparable AC bonus. I've run enough encounters with wizard monsters to know Shield poses a significant problem, to the point that a group will consider burning higher level slots on silence or counterspell to prevent it, because applying a +5 AC bonus round after round when D&D combat only lasts 3-5 rounds is crazy strong.
I also want to point out again that you need to see the attacker and they have to be your size or smaller. If you're getting mauled by a dragon or giant, a buckler will not help you.
And it is too available, making tanks and squishy casters alike tougher.
The tanks are likely to prefer a shield, because this only works against one attack (and doesn't work with Shield Master or Protection fighting style or Warding Maneuver.) Yes, squishy casters get a buff, but they're likely to want to stay at a distance anyways. The quintessential squishy caster is the wizard, which doesn't have proficiency, and they'd be better off using Shield. Plus, if a wizard really wants to be tough, the benefits from this are weaksauce compared to Arcane Ward, Bladesong or Arcane Deflection. And like I said, if a caster has a buckler in one hand and a weapon in the other, they don't have a hand free for many spells. And the concentration mechanic already discourages being in close combat.
There's also something you've overlooked: rogues. There's absolutely no reason to ever go single melee weapon as a melee rogue in the current rules, and that kinda sucks. TWF grants a massive offensive benefit when it comes to Sneak Attack, and a ranged weapon will also do the same thing as a single melee weapon from a much safer distance. Rogues are extremely squishy at tier 1 without Uncanny Dodge at their disposal, so low level non-TWF melee rogues are at a significant disadvantage in the official rules.
You also have to consider what it would be like if over half of the humanoid (or any with a hand) monsters used this.
Then just don't give it to monsters if it causes you problems. That's already something you have to think about while staying within the official rules! There's a reason very few monsters can stun or have counterspell on their spell list, even though monks can do that since low levels and counterspell is a favorite mechanic for players. D&D gameplay is asymmetrical and some mechanics just suck when used against players. I don't subscribe to the theory that whatever players can do, monsters should do too. Also, the Noble stat block already uses this mechanic. I'm not exactly treading new ground here (and there's something to be said for having consistency.)
But honestly, I don't think it's a problem. It only (maybe) protects against one attack. If the players gang up on one monster, the benefits of the buckler are minimized.
The way regular shields work in D&D also kind of sucks so it doesn't leave a lot of room for bucklers as an in-between. There's a massive difference in survivability between being totally naked and being naked with a shield, but in D&D carrying a big shield just makes you 10% less likely to get hit. Having a buckler is also a pretty big advantage in terms of not getting killed. And while I feel bucklers shouldn't be treated as weaker shields, if you did go that route, a +1 AC bonus barely justifies having to give up one of your free hands.
I definitely don't recommend blindly using my house rules, but I don't think they alter the game in a way that's significantly detrimental, and I can promise you I gave these changes a decent amount of thought. And the reason this rule hasn't been playtested is that the bard in my group didn't jump at the opportunity to grab a buckler, so that tells me something.
I tried to do this at the request of a player several years ago and never made much headway with it. I kept struggling between making it so good that literally everyone in the world would tape a buckler to their arm or more reasonably effective but so mechanically tedious that it was just a huge nuisance. I ended up telling him no and to just focus his creative energy on other aspects of his character; hated doing that, but it was such a headache for me.
I'm glad others have had more luck than I did exploring creative ways to offer the option!
i had assumed since you could sheath a sword as a free action, you could somehow put a shield away. I think some medieval soldiers used to let the shield hang from a strap of some sort. ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guige
but i suppose that could take a full action...not sure never seen it used in real life.
i had assumed since you could sheath a sword as a free action, you could somehow put a shield away. I think some medieval soldiers used to let the shield hang from a strap of some sort. ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guige
5e kind of abstracts away the differences between various types of shields and mostly assumes you're wearing the type that's strapped to your arm.
The really large round shields that were common in the viking era and early middle ages were just held by a grip in the center, so you could drop one of those easily. But they were also big enough that I don't think it would've been practical to hang them off your back on a guige. People were mostly wearing a helmet with padded armor and maybe a chain shirt, with very little in the way of limb protection, so you wanted a really big shield to protect you from projectiles (and to form shield walls with.) I don't think cavalry combat was very common in Europe at that point in time either. So you just carried the shield by hand everywhere you went, and no one was wearing such heavy armor that you'd absolutely need a two-handed weapon to kill them, so you wouldn't want to drop your shield anyways.
That kind of shield doesn't make as much sense for an adventurer, since you're usually not fighting hundreds of enemies, and a shield that can only be carried by hand is a problem if you ever need to climb or swim in a dungeon.
From what I understand guiges became popular later on along with kite/teardrop shields. And those (as well as heater shields) were narrower and usually strapped to your arm, so while you could hang them off your back, you had to slide your arm out of the straps and tighten up the guige. You can see someone talking about that in this video starting around 4:25.
I'm not sure if there were smaller center-grip shields with a guige, but even if there were you'd still have to either drop it on the floor quickly or take the time to tighten the strap so that it doesn't dangle off your body awkwardly.
i had assumed since you could sheath a sword as a free action, you could somehow put a shield away. I think some medieval soldiers used to let the shield hang from a strap of some sort. ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guige
That kind of shield doesn't make as much sense for an adventurer, since you're usually not fighting hundreds of enemies, and a shield that can only be carried by hand is a problem if you ever need to climb or swim in a dungeon.
From what I understand guiges became popular later on along with kite/teardrop shields. And those (as well as heater shields) were narrower and usually strapped to your arm, so while you could hang them off your back, you had to slide your arm out of the straps and tighten up the guige.
I'm not sure if there were smaller center-grip shields with a guige, but even if there were you'd still have to either drop it on the floor quickly or take the time to tighten the strap so that it doesn't dangle off your body awkwardly.
it does make sense, a shield with a guige would take an action to refasten it to your back barring any other mechanism that would make it easier.
but to that point, I wouldn't say it "doesn't make sense" for an adventurer to use a larger shield.
A longer kite shield can be strapped to your back when need be. Plus a lot of dnd these days is not dungeoneering.
Also if we're being realistic, hard to swim or climb with a 6ft+ spear or a backpack full of adventuring gear or a 50lb suit of armor. ( i know there are videos of people in full armor doing cartwheels)
I can drop a standard knight's heater shield pretty quickly, as long as I don't mind it taking my gauntlet and vambraces with it. Center grip shields are even faster to drop. Picking a shield up off the ground and getting it ready for use is a little harder. D&D abstracts a lot of stuff into its rules, some for purposes of game balance, some for smoothness of play. It is not a micro-detailed reality simulator. D&D shields don't work much like real world shields. Too little protection, not enough offensive potential.
Buclers, or similar small shields were often carried by archers, or even worn on their bow arms, strapped to the wrist rather than held in the hand.
Plate armor and shield wasn't really seen outside of the jousting lists.
All that being said, I like the idea of adding bucklers and other parring objects, batons, mailed gloves, cloaks, empty mugs, etc to D&D. Especially since the game includes rapiers, lightly armored fighters, two-weapon fighting, etc. The trick is to fit it into the rest of the mechanics.
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I wanted some insight into possibly adding a buckler into my campaign.
For reference: My one of my players likes to come up with highly specialized builds that tend to push the boundaries of the rules, and I like to facilitate this as much as I can because I know that he has the most fun playing that way. I just don't want to push the rules too far, because I don't want to completely break the game.
The idea is to have a build that utilized grappling and magic at the same time, so the issue came up that he needed a free hand to grapple, and another to cast spells (if they had a material component). So I was thinking a small shield that you could essentially doff without using your action would do the trick. The mechanics for this shield would be:
This would allow the character to grapple someone, and still cast spells without dropping their shield.
My question is whether or not this breaks any game mechanics that I might not be thinking about? Does this make the War Caster feat pointless? Is there too much free action economy built in? Maybe other issues that I hadn't even considered?
Thanks!
Looks fine to me.
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You could also consider making a cast-off shield (similar to cast-off armor). Something like "you can doff this shield without using an action. It still takes an action to don."
Yeah, I thought about doing something like that. The biggest issue I see with this is that in combat you will only ever have a shield up until you decide to cast a spell. Since you'd have to go pick up your shield and use an action to don it, it isn't very likely to happen during combat. Maybe that is a good drawback though.
Why would anyone not use such an item?
You are essentially just adding 1 AC to everyone who doesn't already have a shield.
I assume you would still need shield proficiency, and you can't dual wield or wield a 2 handed weapon. So it is really only useful to spellcasters with medium armor proficiency, who want to wield a shield and weapon, but don't want to take war caster feat. Or that want to grapple, like the OP said.
dumb question...could you not do that with a normal shield? i.e take it off as a free action, and then put it back on as a free action the next turn?
Jon wolf: Page 146 in phb explains that. It takes 1 action to don and one action to doff.
Your question is not dumb. Here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/equipment#GettingIntoandOutofArmor
IRL bucklers require considerable skill to use effectively. Any idiot can pick up a shield ad get some benefit, not full benefit, shield use is still a skill to get full benefit out of it, but having a large wall in front of you gives some protection.
Allowing someone to freely use their buckler hand at the cost of the +1 AC until their next turn does have one potential problem. They would still gain the +1 AC against some attacks that occur in the round before their turn in the initiative order..
I came up with some rules for bucklers a little while ago. I haven't been able to playtest them yet, but hopefully you'll find them useful in some way. I'll copy the relevant bits here:
I don't grant a +1 AC bonus because a buckler is too small for passive protection (and I think turning it into a half-shield is kind of a cop out.) It's intentionally pretty good in a 1-on-1 situation and relatively weak in a battle, since historically they were something you carried around town for self-defense or duels. Note: I don't treat them as shields for rules purposes, but wizards lack proficiency by default and warlocks and bards are going to have problems casting if they can't use their weapon as a focus.
I also added some benefits to the Defensive Duelist feat to compensate for the fact that I repurposed its main mechanic; you can find that (and a bunch of other unrelated house rules) over here. There's also a parrying knife to go along with the buckler.
Why is that a problem? They have the AC until they do something else. Then they lose the AC until they start defending again.
I really like InquisitiveCoder's idea. It gives a potentially strong benefit at the cost of your reaction. If you want something for nothing, there's always the plain old shield.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I don't like it, honestly. It is too powerful. It is a free defensive duelist feat (which he had to redesign). It invalidates the battle master's parry and out classes shield at high levels. And it is too available, making tanks and squishy casters alike tougher.
You also have to consider what it would be like if over half of the humanoid (or any with a hand) monsters used this.
Well, I can't change your mind on that, but I can try to explain why I made the design decisions I did.
Sort of. It's strictly weaker; Defensive Duelist works with any finesse weapon, doesn't have a size restriction, and doesn't require sight.
I would've redesigned Defensive Duelist anyways because the feat's benefits are so narrow that it doesn't see much use, and I feel traditional sword-and-buckler or rapier-and-dagger dueling shouldn't be strictly locked behind a feat (which is an optional rule). So instead I made it so the feat makes you really kick ass at historical dueling, while the Dual Wielder feat is there for the fantasy variety of two-weapon fighting the official rules support. The game also doesn't do a great job of highlighting the rapier's strengths as a dueling weapon, which is the fact that it's insanely long and if you come at someone with a rapier using a shorter sword, you're going to be fighting an uphill battle. The parallels to Polearm Master should be pretty clear.
They do different things. Parry is a damage reduction, it has almost no requirements, and even works against melee spell attacks. The rules already provide multiple avenues to arrive at roughly the same mechanics; that's why there's a bit of redundancy in things like Magic Initiate vs a 1 level dip in another class vs a subclass that dips into a different class's spell list. I don't think you should have to go 3 levels into Fighter for a basic parrying mechanic, and I don't think this completely invalidates the Battle Master's niche; it just adds another tool to their arsenal if you're going DEX fighter.
But if you're really concerned about the Battle Master, this makes riposte better. Which is exactly how this sort of thing went historically; you'd block with a buckler or parrying knife, and attack with the sword in your other hand. So I call that a win.Nope. I'm a dummy! Both abilities require a reaction.I'm going to take a firm stance on this one: absolutely not. Shield lasts until the start of your next turn and 1st level slots are borderline useless in combat at the level this starts to provide a comparable AC bonus. I've run enough encounters with wizard monsters to know Shield poses a significant problem, to the point that a group will consider burning higher level slots on silence or counterspell to prevent it, because applying a +5 AC bonus round after round when D&D combat only lasts 3-5 rounds is crazy strong.
I also want to point out again that you need to see the attacker and they have to be your size or smaller. If you're getting mauled by a dragon or giant, a buckler will not help you.
The tanks are likely to prefer a shield, because this only works against one attack (and doesn't work with Shield Master or Protection fighting style or Warding Maneuver.) Yes, squishy casters get a buff, but they're likely to want to stay at a distance anyways. The quintessential squishy caster is the wizard, which doesn't have proficiency, and they'd be better off using Shield. Plus, if a wizard really wants to be tough, the benefits from this are weaksauce compared to Arcane Ward, Bladesong or Arcane Deflection. And like I said, if a caster has a buckler in one hand and a weapon in the other, they don't have a hand free for many spells. And the concentration mechanic already discourages being in close combat.
There's also something you've overlooked: rogues. There's absolutely no reason to ever go single melee weapon as a melee rogue in the current rules, and that kinda sucks. TWF grants a massive offensive benefit when it comes to Sneak Attack, and a ranged weapon will also do the same thing as a single melee weapon from a much safer distance. Rogues are extremely squishy at tier 1 without Uncanny Dodge at their disposal, so low level non-TWF melee rogues are at a significant disadvantage in the official rules.
Then just don't give it to monsters if it causes you problems. That's already something you have to think about while staying within the official rules! There's a reason very few monsters can stun or have counterspell on their spell list, even though monks can do that since low levels and counterspell is a favorite mechanic for players. D&D gameplay is asymmetrical and some mechanics just suck when used against players. I don't subscribe to the theory that whatever players can do, monsters should do too. Also, the Noble stat block already uses this mechanic. I'm not exactly treading new ground here (and there's something to be said for having consistency.)
But honestly, I don't think it's a problem. It only (maybe) protects against one attack. If the players gang up on one monster, the benefits of the buckler are minimized.
The way regular shields work in D&D also kind of sucks so it doesn't leave a lot of room for bucklers as an in-between. There's a massive difference in survivability between being totally naked and being naked with a shield, but in D&D carrying a big shield just makes you 10% less likely to get hit. Having a buckler is also a pretty big advantage in terms of not getting killed. And while I feel bucklers shouldn't be treated as weaker shields, if you did go that route, a +1 AC bonus barely justifies having to give up one of your free hands.
I definitely don't recommend blindly using my house rules, but I don't think they alter the game in a way that's significantly detrimental, and I can promise you I gave these changes a decent amount of thought. And the reason this rule hasn't been playtested is that the bard in my group didn't jump at the opportunity to grab a buckler, so that tells me something.
I tried to do this at the request of a player several years ago and never made much headway with it. I kept struggling between making it so good that literally everyone in the world would tape a buckler to their arm or more reasonably effective but so mechanically tedious that it was just a huge nuisance. I ended up telling him no and to just focus his creative energy on other aspects of his character; hated doing that, but it was such a headache for me.
I'm glad others have had more luck than I did exploring creative ways to offer the option!
@DxJxC thanks!
i had assumed since you could sheath a sword as a free action, you could somehow put a shield away. I think some medieval soldiers used to let the shield hang from a strap of some sort. ie https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guige
but i suppose that could take a full action...not sure never seen it used in real life.
5e kind of abstracts away the differences between various types of shields and mostly assumes you're wearing the type that's strapped to your arm.
The really large round shields that were common in the viking era and early middle ages were just held by a grip in the center, so you could drop one of those easily. But they were also big enough that I don't think it would've been practical to hang them off your back on a guige. People were mostly wearing a helmet with padded armor and maybe a chain shirt, with very little in the way of limb protection, so you wanted a really big shield to protect you from projectiles (and to form shield walls with.) I don't think cavalry combat was very common in Europe at that point in time either. So you just carried the shield by hand everywhere you went, and no one was wearing such heavy armor that you'd absolutely need a two-handed weapon to kill them, so you wouldn't want to drop your shield anyways.
That kind of shield doesn't make as much sense for an adventurer, since you're usually not fighting hundreds of enemies, and a shield that can only be carried by hand is a problem if you ever need to climb or swim in a dungeon.
From what I understand guiges became popular later on along with kite/teardrop shields. And those (as well as heater shields) were narrower and usually strapped to your arm, so while you could hang them off your back, you had to slide your arm out of the straps and tighten up the guige. You can see someone talking about that in this video starting around 4:25.
I'm not sure if there were smaller center-grip shields with a guige, but even if there were you'd still have to either drop it on the floor quickly or take the time to tighten the strap so that it doesn't dangle off your body awkwardly.
it does make sense, a shield with a guige would take an action to refasten it to your back barring any other mechanism that would make it easier.
but to that point, I wouldn't say it "doesn't make sense" for an adventurer to use a larger shield.
A longer kite shield can be strapped to your back when need be. Plus a lot of dnd these days is not dungeoneering.
Also if we're being realistic, hard to swim or climb with a 6ft+ spear or a backpack full of adventuring gear or a 50lb suit of armor. ( i know there are videos of people in full armor doing cartwheels)
I can drop a standard knight's heater shield pretty quickly, as long as I don't mind it taking my gauntlet and vambraces with it. Center grip shields are even faster to drop. Picking a shield up off the ground and getting it ready for use is a little harder. D&D abstracts a lot of stuff into its rules, some for purposes of game balance, some for smoothness of play. It is not a micro-detailed reality simulator. D&D shields don't work much like real world shields. Too little protection, not enough offensive potential.
Buclers, or similar small shields were often carried by archers, or even worn on their bow arms, strapped to the wrist rather than held in the hand.
Plate armor and shield wasn't really seen outside of the jousting lists.
All that being said, I like the idea of adding bucklers and other parring objects, batons, mailed gloves, cloaks, empty mugs, etc to D&D. Especially since the game includes rapiers, lightly armored fighters, two-weapon fighting, etc. The trick is to fit it into the rest of the mechanics.