thanks!
Appreciate the help! I'd already cut the text from the FAQ before I saw the link, so here it is for the sake of completeness:
I'm a little unclear on how the tower shield works. I assume if you crouch behind it, you can get total cover against ranged attacks. If you plan to peek around and, say, throw a javelin, how much cover does it provide against enemy missiles? How much cover does a tower shield provide against melee attacks?
The tower shield gives cover against both ranged and melee attacks. It also can provide cover against spells and other magical attacks - see the next question.
To determine how effective a tower shield is, you have to know where it is in relation to the character trying to use it, just like any other form of cover. If you think of the tower shield user occupying a square, the user can place the shield either along one of the square's sides or at one of the square's corners. Placing the shield along a side gives total cover against attacks that come from or through the square across from that side, half cover from attacks coming from or through squares at the adjacent corners, and no cover against attacks coming from anywhere else.
The user also can place the shield at a corner of his square at a 45-degree angle or at a shallower angle. If placed at a 45- degree angle, the shield gives total cover against attacks coming from or through the square at the corner, half cover against attacks coming from or through the squares next to the adjacent sides, and no cover against attacks from anywhere else. A shallow angle gives total cover at the corner, as described above, three quarters cover along one side, and quarter cover along the other side.
Each round on his turn, the tower shield user decides where to place the shield, and there it stays until the user's next turn. When the user isn't engaged in combat, he decides where the shield will be as he's walking around; when combat starts, he
cannot change the shield's location until his turn.
When the shield's user attacks, his foes get the same cover that the shield would give him against them.
To resolve ranged attacks or melee attacks made with reach, draw a line from the center of the attacker's square to the center
of the defender's square. The defender gets the cover from whatever square the line passes through. If the line passes
through more than one square the shield covers, use the highest cover value.
Will a tower shield protect against dragon's breath, magical rays, and the like? Can the user automatically
make a save against a fireball or even take no damage if taking total cover behind the shield?
It depends on the type of magical attack. The shield is a piece of the user's equipment and attacking a creature's equipment is the same as attacking the creature.
If the magical attack has the shield user as a specific target (that is it does not merely affect the area that contains the shield
user but is aimed right at the shield user), the shield has no effect. All rays fall into this category, as does any spell that has a Target entry in its header and any spell that has an Effect entry and affects creatures (provided, of course, that the attacker can and does choose the shield user as a target).
Magical attacks that fill areas (bursts, cones, cylinders, lines, emanations, and spreads) are subject to all the rules for cover on page 133 of the Player's Handbook. Note that spread effects
might be able to reach around the shield; if so, the shield provides only one half cover.
