To shield, or not to shield

 

[4 min read]

Tomas started his adventuring career as a Paladin focused on dealing damage with long pointy sticks using Polearm Mastery and Great Weapon fighting style, all in the name of vengeance on behalf of his god, Tyr. Recently Tomas was infused with Arcane power, multiclassing into a Divine Soul Sorcerer, which was a much deliberated character choice (you can see my analysis here). And that is where the theorycrafting stops, right?

Wrong! Tomas is yet again confronted with a potential character-defining choice - whether to use a shield. Ok, so maybe not as character-defining as multiclassing, but one that deserves some analysis.

But first, how did this choice come about?

In our most recent adventure in the Moonsea Madness campaign, while exploring the incredibly disturbing mountain hideaway of the Cult of the Shadowmoon, the party defeated a gelatinous cube (the first in all our player's living memories, across decades of D&D!). The Cube was destroyed, leaving a pile of items from prior adventurers, clearly not as powerful as our heroes, who were engulfed and devoured by the strange ooze. Producing a set of surplus adventuring clothes from his backpack, Tomas tentatively cleaned off the acidic goo left on an intriguing shield, emblazoned with a symbol of an eye. Needless to say the clothes were destroyed, but Tomas claimed a Sentinel Shield for his troubles, a fair trade it would seem.

But those following along might shout - Tomas doesn't use a shield, right?! And true, Tomas wouldn't think too much of it until he was presented with a shield which addresses a couple of major deficiencies - poor initiative (owing to a -1 dexterity modifier), and low passive perception (being 11). The Sentinel Shield provides advantage on initiative and perception checks, and increased passive perception by 5 (back to the party average of 16).

Cue the angst of now choosing between the aforementioned benefits of the shield (not to mention bringing Tomas' Armour Class to a beastly 20 in full plate), and the original thesis of his character - the Great Weapon style polearm wielder. 

And you might say - but Tomas can use both options as the situation requires! And you'd be right. And that is what I will do in the next session. But as someone who prides themselves on both optimising their character and sticking to a design and narrative choice when creating them, it almost feels like sullying my original work by having Tomas wield the shield instead of his halberd. Let's dig into the analysis:

BENEFITS

• +2 AC
• Advantage on Initiative
• Advantage on Perception
• Thematic irony - adding a magical eye to a shield for a follower of Tyr (known as the ‘blind god’)

DRAWBACKS

• Reduced damage: -13 damage potential per round (1d8 warhammer vs 1d10 halberd, x2 attacks, and no 1d4+5 bonus damage from Polearm Mastery)
• Reduced damage: cannot reroll 1s and 2s on damage (using Great Weapon fighting style)
• Reduced reach: 5 ft reach with warhammer vs 10 feet with halberd
• Opportunity attacks: no opportunity attack when enemy moves within range (Polearm Mastery)
• Spellcasting: need a free hand to cast spells with Somatic and Material components
• Actions: donning and doffing a shield is a full action, not an interaction

So effectively, using a shield would reduce damage output and make spellcasting and weapon switching very complicated given it takes an action to equip or stow a shield.  A pretty steep cost. The cost of increased survivability, acting earlier in combat, and potentially avoiding surprise due to higher Perception.

With high hit points and AC already, Tomas is pretty tanky, so the survivability isn't that valuable unless you consider saving resources in a long, drawn out dungeon crawl where it would make a difference. But acting earlier in the round is pretty crucial, especially when Tomas will have the Sorcerer abilities to quicken a spell and attack in the same round. Earlier IS better.

MITIGATION

I can see two main areas to reduce the impact of the drawbacks. 

1. Pre-combat preparedness - always have shield on hand to get the passive benefits, and if the situation calls for the polearm - drop it and draw the halberd as an interaction before attacking. [Edit: one cannot drop a shield - it takes an action to 'doff' it, presumably since it is attached to your arm].

2. Track down a magical quarterstaff to keep polearm benefits of opportunity attacks, bonus polearm attack and Great Weapon fighting style (if wielding two handed), although one handed base damage is reduced to 1d6.

For now this is all theorycraft. But I am interested enough in the benefits of using the Sentinel Shield to compromise on my original vision for Tomas, and test practical uses in the next session. I shall report back!