Building a Better Shield Fighter

[jiriku]

These feats are considerably better than most published feats, being balanced on the principle that feats ought to scale with level. For example, Agile Shield Fighter makes weapon-and-shield fighting considerably more optimal when considered against standard TWF feats -- but IMC, the TWF feats are similarly boosted and the two options are balanced against one another.

All of these feats are fighter bonus feats.

ACTIVE SHIELD DEFENSE [Fighter, General]
Your expert use of your shield allows you to strike at vulnerable foes even when you forgo your own attacks in favor of defense.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with shields, Shield Specialization
Benefit: When fighting defensively and wielding a shield in your off hand, you can use a shield bash to make an attack of opportunity without the standard penalties. When taking Total Defense, you still threaten the area around you and can use shield bashes to make attacks of opportunity with a -4 penalty.
Advancement: Reduce the penalty you take on shield bashes while in Total Defense by ½ of your base attack bonus.
If you have base attack bonus +12 or greater and are using a shield, then once per round you may declare Total Defense as a swift action immediately after performing a successful shield bash.
Normal: You take a -4 penalty on all attacks while fighting defensively. You cannot attack while using the Total Defense action, and declaring the Total Defense action requires a standard action.


AGILE SHIELD FIGHTER [Fighter, General]
You are skilled in combining your shield bash attack with an armed strike. When you use your shield in unison with a weapon, your training allows you to score telling blows with both.
Prerequisites: Proficiency with shields, Improved Shield Bash, Shield Specialization
Benefit: Your penalties on attack rolls for fighting with two weapons are reduced when your off-hand weapon is a shield. The penalty for your primary hand lessens by two and the one for your off hand lessens by 6.
You gain an additional attack at your highest base attack bonus with your offhand shield (you perform a shield bash). You gain additional attacks with the offhand shield at progressively lower attack bonuses whenever your base attack bonus grants you additional attacks with your primary weapon.
Advancement: If you also have the Combat Reflexes feat and a base attack bonus of +6 or greater, then you may choose to attack once with your primary weapon and once with a shield bash when making an attack of opportunity (incurring the normal penalties for attacking with weapon and shield).

SHIELD SPECIALIZATION [Fighter, General]
You are skilled in using a shield, allowing you to gain greater defensive benefits from it.
Prerequisite: Proficiency with at least one type of shield.
Benefit: Choose one type of shield with which you are proficient. When wielding a shield of the appropriate type in your off hand, you increase its shield bonus to AC by 1, and your shield bonus also applies to your Reflex saves.
Special: You can take this feat more than once. Each time you select it, choose a different type of shield.

SHIELDMATE [Fighter, General]
You can protect those near you with your shield.
Prerequisite: Base attack bonus +1, proficiency with at least one type of shield.
Benefit: When you are wielding a shield with which you are proficient in your off hand, friendly creatures within the range of your natural reach get a +1 shield bonus to their Armor Class. If you are using a tower shield, those creatures get a +2 shield bonus.
The creatures lose the bonus if they are no longer within your reach, if you're grappling, or if you're stunned, paralyzed, or otherwise unable to take actions.
The shield bonus doesn't stack with other shield bonuses the allied creatures may have.
Advancement: If you have base attack bonus +4 or greater, the bonus increases to +2, or +4 if you are using a tower shield. If you have a base attack bonus +18 or greater, the bonus is +3, or +6 if you are using a tower shield.
If you also have the Shield Specialization feat, you grant your allies an additional +1 AC when you use a shield with which you are specialized.

[n00b killa]

Mmm... nice feat chain.

It doesn't seem too overpowered, since sword and board is already suboptimal.

Should make a clarification to state that fighters can take them with bonus feats (though that's quite obvious)

[Pechvarry]

First, thanks for posting these!

I'm not sure I understand Active Shield Defense. It looks like you just added the condition "as long as you're making those AoOs with your shield" to the existing feat. I suppose that's good enough, but I don't see why it's necessary. I think changing "when using a shield" to "when wielding a shield" would be a good enough change, for me (I HATE animated shields!).

I also really love your shield specialization. I'm so entirely going to steal that from you.

Another minor shield change I like:

Shield Charge: remove the bit about creatures immune to critical hits being immune. Daze is a beloved status effect precisely because everything crit-immune is also stun-immune. Why did the shield method of dazing have to be the crappy one?

[Temotei]

I'm totally using these. They were approved and all that.

[DracoDei]

For cross-reference purposes(IE making the Homebrew forums more like Wikipedia), two disciplines:
Steel Mountain
Iron Tortoise

[jiriku]

Should make a clarification to state that fighters can take them with bonus feats (though that's quite obvious)

Consider it done.

First, thanks for posting these!

I'm not sure I understand Active Shield Defense. It looks like you just added the condition "as long as you're making those AoOs with your shield" to the existing feat.

This version of the feat causes that attack roll penalty to decrease down to 0 by BAB+8, and at BAB +12 grants the ability to declare Full Defense as a swift action instead of a standard action. You can have your cake and hide behind it too. I'll update the description to clarify.

I think changing "when using a shield" to "when wielding a shield" would be a good enough change, for me (I HATE animated shields!).

Good point. These feats are intended to improve the sword & board style, not make animated shields even more annoyingly better. I've modified all the feats to require the shield to be wielded in hand.