Okay, so I have two shields, both I bought at the same place, same time, Feast of Elund. Both are Horn of plenty tower shields. One I had altered a few years back, the other I just dusted off from my vault.

Ok, so appraisal from unaltered one:

>app my shield
You are certain that it imposes a high maneuvering hinderance.

This shield is large in size.

You are certain that the shield offers low to incredible protection.

You are certain that it could do:
no puncture damage
no slice damage
severe impact damage

You are certain that the shield is poorly balanced and is reasonably suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.

You are certain that the tower shield is fairly sturdy, and is in pristine condition.

The tower shield is made with metal.
It appears that the tower shield can be slung over one shoulder.
You are confident that the tower shield might weigh a few hundred stones.
You are certain that the tower shield is worth exactly 32490 lirums.

Now appraisal from altered one:

>app my shield
>
You are certain that it imposes a high maneuvering hinderance.

This shield is large in size.

You are certain that the shield offers low to very impressive protection.

You are certain that it could do:
no puncture damage
no slice damage
severe impact damage

You are certain that the shield is poorly balanced and is reasonably suited to gaining extra attack power from your strength.

You are certain that the tower shield is fairly sturdy, and is in pristine condition.

The tower shield is made with metal.
It appears that the tower shield can be worn on the left arm.
You are confident that the tower shield might weigh a few hundred stones.
You are certain that the tower shield is worth exactly 32490 lirums.
Roundtime: 8 seconds.


Okay, now all is identical, including appraisal value, EXCEPT for high end protect, the unaltered one shows increadable, the altered on shows very impressive. Now, to confuse things more, the comparison:

>compare my shield to my other shield
You are certain that the tower shield is about as strong as the tower shield.
You are certain that the tower shield is about as easy to maneuver with as the tower shield.
You are certain that the tower shield has about as good of a basic defense as the tower shield.
You are certain that the tower shield has about as good of a full defense as the tower shield.
You estimate that the tower shield weighs about the same as the tower shield.
[Roundtime: 8 seconds]

Within the confines of comparison, they are "about the same". Is the altered one bugged? Do they actually have the same exact high end protection stat, but it is a boarderline stat which can go either way on its descriptor? When I got the one altered did it screw it up?

Interested to hear thoughts.

Wearing one on your arm maybe? An armworn shield caps at very impressive if I recall.

Oh.. and is one of them for sale? :)

the one with lesser high end appraisal is probably shifted to arm worn or on your arm.

Or could it be the old perma DA?

You're absolutely certain they were the exact same before the alteration? Seems like they are sitting right at the line between appraisal ranges, within a few points of each other, with one above the dividing line and the other below. They compare as about the same, because they are within a few points. Same happens if you compare a warrior's tower shield with a theren-crest tower shield. The warrior's apps as fairly sturdy. The theren one apps as moderately strong. Yet they compare as about as strong as each other. 'About the same' is a range, just like every other aspect of appraisal. So for whatever reason, the altered one is (very slightly) better. On second thought... God-like protection... It's probably horribly bugged, you should give it to me before it corrupts your character or something.

All figured out, I guess the confusing thing is that compare seems to ignore arm worn or not, while appraise takes it into account. I do wonder what the stat difference truely is between very impressive and god-like, should I stop arm wearing this thing when I am using single handed weapons? Arm wearing sure is handy, but god-like? Hmm.

<< The real odd thing I notice is that casting DA circumvents the protection cap for armworn shields. >>

Where do you notice that? Precicely because DA does not circumvent it is why I got confused in the first place, the shield stayed at very impressive and did not improve with DA.

>I say Down with the arm worn cap for Paladins! especially in light of further ill-effecting penalties soon to be applied.

Which ill-effecting penalties? The ones that will affect paladins less than any other guild, thus widening the gap and solidifying paladins position as the kings of shield usage even more than it already was?

>Soon to be applied... Shield hinderance and movement penalties are going to be differant... and in some parts much more restricting... applying multiple penalties at once.

The hindrance that shields currently give to evasion is going away. The weight-based hindrance applied to the shield skill is going away. A shield's hindrance will (as it shows in appraisal) will be applied to the shield skill, and can be trained down. Paladins can train it further than anyone else. Overall, shield hindrance and evasion hindrance when using a shield should be less after the changes than it is now, especially for paladins.

Using a shield with a two-handed weapon will apply a penalty to both shield and the weapon, both of which can be trained down. Paladins can reduce this further than anyone else.

Looks like a bunch of things that, along with arm-worn size restrictions and primary learning rates, are going to add up to paladins being a whole lot better at shield usage than anyone else. The only negative shield change, as it relates to paladins, that has I've seen discussed is lifting the arm-worn size restrictions. But as long as that comes with humongous hindrance penalties for non-paladins, I can live with it.

I don't think shield will get any better.

In fact, if any thing, I think it will be slightly worse while we are able to evade slightly better.

This is without considering the 2handed change. (still mindlessly backtraining HT)

Shield hindrance applying to evasion is better for paladins who have lower evasion.

Every one keeps implying that moving the hindrance to hinder the shield skill as opposed to evasion is good.

For me, I'd rather be hindered 5% evasion than 5% on my shield skill.

Even still, maybe removing the weight penalty will be enough to balance it out; but without that its going to be a loss for most of us I imagine.

Yeah, for paladins i don't think it will be noticable. My thief is excited about gaining more ranks of her primary defense, though while still using shield.

From the sound of it, if my main (pal) notices anything at all before the 2handed nerf it will be negligibly negative.

> i noticed with a rather new commoner that i had to turn down evasion a bunch to even learn shield in rats.


This isn't exactly surprising, but the reason this is true is probably not what you think.


- GM Dartenian


If you think you can do a thing or think you can't do a thing, you're right. - Henry Ford

>Shield hindrance applying to evasion is better for paladins who have lower evasion.

Except that currently, your shield is hindering both. The hindrance is applied to evasion, and a special magical hindrance based on the shields weight is applied to shield. Please correct me if I'm wrong, Dart, but from what I understand, this weight-based hindrance isn't really reduced by skill, and as a result is probably more of a penalty, in most cases, than the shield hindrance under the change.

>Even still, maybe removing the weight penalty will be enough to balance it out; but without that its going to be a loss for most of us I imagine.

Maybe I'm wrong, but I think the weight-based penalty for wearing a 190ish stone tower shield on your arm is bigger than what you are thinking it is.

<<Using a shield with a two-handed weapon will apply a penalty to both shield and the weapon, both of which can be trained down. Paladins can reduce this further than anyone else.>>

I would like to put in a request that Paladins train down the shield penalty part the most and Barbarians train down the weapons penalty part the most. Or both train down both the same. I mean Weapons Prim and Armor prime should be equivalent in this mixed scenerio.


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Kertig Heart Magdar Bluefletch, Legendary Barbarian of M'Riss