Cosmic Hunters (OOC)

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Also, nice list of stuff, Geeks. I know of only some. What does the crawling shield do?

Here is the Crawling Shield Web Article. Or you can...

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"You look like an idiot with that turtle crawling all over you," said Regdar. "Why don't you learn a little basic footwork or something?"

"Throw a dagger at me," said Mialee.

"This is a trick, right?" said Regdar. "It's too good to be true. I've dreamed of this day."

"Shut up and throw it."

"Just remember, you asked for it. Hey, how are you moving that thing?"

A crawling shield is a mobile construct about the size of a standard buckler shield. It detects motion and moves to protect its wearer, somehow moving by prescience to ward off true threats and ignoring false ones.

The crawling shields are believed to be items of drow manufacture from Xen'drik, and so far the secrets of their construction have resisted investigation by all of Khorvaire's finest artificers and scholars. They are still found with some regularity by expeditions to the dark continent.

Appearance

The typical crawling shield is made of mithral, and has three or four hooked legs that it uses to swing, jump, or climb around the body of its owner. It rarely moves at all when not in a combat situation, but during combat it scuttles slowly from place to place like an aggressive turtle on its hooked legs.

A crawling shield is roughly 15 inches in diameter, with a curve like a shield boss or turtle shell. Sometimes it is reinforced with metal strips or bars. Some have been found with enameled eyes on the outside, and others have silver, amber, or even mithral specks and dots. The theme of putting eyes on the shell is both quite obvious and quite common. However, a few have been decorated with spirals or zigzags.

A crawling shield seems to bond with whoever picks it up and touches it to his or her wrist. Once bonded this way, the shield doesn't obey anyone but its owner. A crawling shield abandons an owner only after being left behind for seven days or more without use.

Use and Powers

The beauty of the crawling shield is that it doesn't require shield proficiency to function; the shield itself knows where to go to provide the best protection. So far, the only crawling shields found have been made for Small and Medium creatures; no larger ones are known to exist.

A crawling shield provides a +1 shield bonus to Armor Class and weighs as much as a standard buckler. This protection applies even when the owner is unconscious or flat-footed because the crawling shield is still active. It takes up a bracer slot on the body, so the owner could use another shield. The shield bonuses would overlap, but the crawling shield could be enchanted with different abilities than the other shield and both sets of special properties would work.

This strange clockwork construct is not without its flaws. The largest problem is that its movement sometimes interferes with the owner's attack rolls and spellcasting. Any character wearing a crawling shield suffers a -1 circumstance penalty to all melee and ranged attack rolls, and a 10% chance for spell failure.

The crawling shield can move 5 feet per round on its own, but rarely does so unless separated from its owner. It always moves directly toward the owner or in the last known direction of the owner.

CL 9th; Craft Construct; Price 9,000 gp; Cost 4,500 gp + 360 XP.

The TL/DR is that it is a tiny buckler-shaped construct that can be enhanced like a shield, crawls around on your body adding its shield bonus (+1 unenhanced) to your character even if you have no shield proficiencies (and you don't get a penalty for not being shield proficient), even if unconscious at the cost of -1 to all your melee/ranged attacks and +10% Spell Failure chance with a 9,000gp base cost.


Used one in a game where the DM kept giving us escort missions. Ended up getting one enchanted as hell and forcing our current NPC principal to take it out of the box and touch it to their wrist so they would live. Ended up a +5 Averter Death Ward Ghost Touch Heartening Crawling Shield with a Shield Crystal of Greater Arrow Defense attached, if I remember correctly. We had an Eternal Wand of Greater Mage Armor for the same reason. I still hate bards and wild magic casters with a burning passion to this day because of that campaign. I swear to god that DM channeled every terrible escort quest design in videogame history with that campaign.

My character ended up changing alignment to Chaotic Evil because I kept accidentally-on-purpose poisoning the bard at night with drow knockout poison after the Paladin had already conked off to sleep so he'd stay in his damn bed until morning. His intruments may or may not have also been 'accidentally' mistaken for firewood a few times.