I actually solve it by treating the tower shield(when used for cover) as a separate item from the char. It resolves everything great. No worries about hiding because of gear...no worries about facing, since it has it's own little marker, and you can do perfectly logical things like interposing a shield between other people.
That said, such a solution is probably also not common sense, since it's not one the rules would naturally lead you toward.
Many reducers, such as Easy Metamagic, are limited to changing the modifier no lower than a +1. This rule would, if treated as overriding specific rules existing now, make these reducers more powerful, not less. This is...probably both not common sense and mechanically undesirable.I'm afraid you'll have to explain this to me.Note also that if this overrides all restrictions on reducers, this actually makes many reducers MORE powerful.
Hey, a tighter list is always a good thing, =)Which reminds me that I discovered some errata from another thread that quite possibly eliminates the need for 036 at all.
But yeah, the errata on Arcane Thesis is important to keep in mind.