Wrapping shield?

[kreenlover]

I keep seeing mention of a Wrapping Shield enhancement, or some such. It apparently lets you "stick" your shield t someone who hits it, giving them penalties?

Anyone know where to find it?

[Darrin]

I keep seeing mention of a Wrapping Shield enhancement, or some such. It apparently lets you "stick" your shield t someone who hits it, giving them penalties?m

Anyone know where to find it?

Arms & Equipment Guide p. 93. Possibly the most overlooked shield property in 3.x.

[kreenlover]

Awesome, thanks a million!

[Zaq]

Arms & Equipment Guide p. 93. Possibly the most overlooked shield property in 3.x.

I'll grant you "unnoticed" (I've never heard of it before), but "overlooked" implies that it's more useful than it is normally given credit for. I'll be honest, I don't see what type of character would benefit from using it, at least not mechanically. (For roleplaying and silliness, of course, it's a very amusing property, but on a mechanical level, it seems underwhelming at best.)

I mean, it's a +1 enhancement, which isn't crazy expensive, but still, that's 4k gp once you factor in the minimum +1 bonus you have to have in place ahead of time. Not going to bankrupt high-level characters, but it's a nontrivial investment at the levels where your enemies will be harmed by a –2 to attack rolls. But beyond that, you have to be using a shield, and you have to hit with a shield bash. These are generally not incredibly optimal choices. Remember that you can't bash with a buckler, so this has to be heavier than a buckler. (I admit that it's unclear if a dwarven buckler-axe can work with Wrapping, since you have to specifically make a "shield bash attack," and dwarven buckler-axes just mention attacking, not so much shield bash attacks. Unclear.) Anyway, your reward for going through all this is inflicting a –2 to attack rolls and a –5 to some skill checks that most folks don't make in combat by the time someone has closed in melee with them (with a possible exception for Tumble). And you suffer the same penalties until you take a move action to remove your shield. That just seems like a lot of work without a lot of payoff?

I mean, if you want to get really rules lawyer-y, you can argue that the fact that the shield "doesn't move" until the enchantment is released or until they break free with a STR check means that the shield is basically an Immovable Rod pinning them in place, but I feel like that's probably not RAI.

Though now that I think about it, maybe the benefit is less that the enemy is taking penalties and more that you've presumably got them stuck in place so they can't move away from you? I did literally just think of that right now. The rules actually aren't at all clear about what, if anything, the target can do to move away from the user, so maybe that's the primary benefit. I mean, nothing in the text actually says that they can't move away from you (or that you can't move away from them). It seems to make sense that you're basically handcuffed together until you say the command word (or maybe until anyone says the command word?), until you remove the shield as a move action, or until they pry themselves free with a STR check, but you do have to kind of assume a logical consequence that isn't actually spelled out in the text.

So maybe my gut reaction was wrong. There might be something to this. I can see this being a decent tool for a melee controller who wants to have some form of hard control handy. Most melee controllers will be better off with a reach weapon (so almost universally two-handed, kusari-gama aside) than with a bashable shield, so you'd need a way around that. And since it doesn't work on Huge or bigger targets, it's going to be less reliable at high levels. (You'll also want to make sure that your baseline numbers are good enough to soak the –2 penalty to attack rolls you accept while the shield is stuck—to-hit bonuses are easier to get in this edition than in other editions, but still, no one likes missing.) But the more I think about it, the more I like the idea. Huh.

Cool. My first couple paragraphs are basically wrong. I'll leave them there to kind of convey the thought process I went through while writing this. This is a neat enhancement, assuming that your GM allows you to apply a little bit of logic to how things work.

[Darrin]

My initial thought was you can wrap up an opponent with multiple shields, as the penalties should stack with each other. Beyond that, I was thinking it should work well with Throwing (but not Returning) and Fleshgrinding.

The other thing it has going for it is it's a +1 enhancement that gives sword-and-board meatbags a debuffing option, and there is a dearth of decent low-level shield properties in 3.x.

[Thurbane]

Make it an intelligent magic shield, with the speech property, and give it 10 ranks in Perform (rap)?

It's like a jungle sometimes, it makes me wonder how I keep from goin' under

[kreenlover]

You can also toss it on a Bloodwind Master's shield, and then, well, things start to get silly.

Do you want to hit someone at range with a shield that they stick to and then bounces back to you? Sure! What happens when the shield bounces back to you? No idea!

Or, attach an immovable rod to your shield that is activated by a trigger word. Chuck the shield at someone, and as soon as it hits, BAM, activate that immovable rod, and they're out of luck until they can get free.

All kinds of tricks, all kinds indeed.

[Fouredged Sword]

Make it out of riverin and stack piles of explosive runes onto it.

[barakaka]

Slather it in a contact poison. If they can't get off, then they're stuck with making saves every turn. This could be really fun on an alchemically focused character.