D&D (2024) Is Shield to strong of a spell? Should and how would it be changed for OneD&D?

[TheSword]

Yes, I’ve seen it most broken on Paladins, that potentially already have a shield of faith up, a shield, and full plate armour. The 22 AC at first level will mean most creatures are hitting them on 18+ on the off chance in a combat that the enemy get an attack through they bump to 27. Even at higher levels you can end up with Paladins only hit on nat 20’s

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Yes, I’ve seen it most broken on Paladins, that potentially already have a shield of faith up, a shield, and full plate armour. The 22 AC at first level will mean most creatures are hitting them on 18+ on the off chance in a combat that the enemy get an attack through they bump to 27. Even at higher levels you can end up with Paladins only hit on nat 20’s

The answer there is not to let paladins have it, not to ban or nerf shield.

 

[TheSword]

The answer there is not to let paladins have it, not to ban or nerf shield.

Well it isn’t just Paladins, it’s any high AC class with spell slots. I also don’t see how you can do that without removing… multi-classing and Magic initiate. Both of which are great for the game. Except by asking the player not to take it. Which I am fine with as a nuclear option.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

Well I don’t see how you can do that without removing… multi-classing and Magic initiate. Both of which are great for the game. Except by asking the player not to take it. Which I am fine with as a nuclear option.

The thing is, in my experience, with a bladesinger, AC 22 with bladesong, is that I still get hit often enough and liberal use of shield can see all first level fights used in short order which impacts on a lot of other options. It is very easy to burn though all the available spell slots in a couple of fights and then one is running on empty. The Pally is also going to want to burn slots on smites, sometimes more than one slot per round. Adding in reaction shields that paladin is going to burn resources in no time and have a very short working day.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

False. They can only fall in love Proficiency Bonus times per day. This means it takes them months to apply Proficiency Bonus to everything.

You're right of course. In 5.5 Shield will be a class feature to add your proficiency bonus to your AC, for a maximum number of attacks before your next turn equal to your proficiency bonus, proficiency bonus times per day.

 

[TheSword]

The thing is, in my experience, with a bladesinger, AC 22 with bladesong, is that I still get hit often enough and liberal use of shield can see all first level fights used in short order which impacts on a lot of other options. It is very easy to burn though all the available spell slots in a couple of fights and then one is running on empty. The Pally is also going to want to burn slots on smites, sometimes more than one slot per round. Adding in reaction shields that paladin is going to burn resources in no time and have a very short working day.

I don’t really understand how your maths is working on this. AC 22 is high.

A hard hitting CR creature like an ogre (+6) is hitting you 25% of the time. That’s one casting of shield per four rounds.

If we go tougher to a CR 5 Hill giant (+8), it’s hitting you 35% of the time. A shield every 3 rounds.

… and these are hard hitting combat characters… it’s worse for creatures with more mixed abilities.

I don’t agree with your idea that these slots are burnt through quickly. Unless of course your GM is upping the difficulty by throwing multiples of these monsters at lower levels… in which that’s fine for your bladesinger, but sucks for everyone else.

I originally thought that this would resolve itself at higher levels, but then the hit rates of higher CR creatures also slow down. CR 15 Purple Worm +9, CR 14 Ice devil +10, CR 16 Iron Golem +13, CR 13 Storm giant +14.

Bounded Accuracy only works if the challenge DCs of rolls is similarly bounded.

 

[Tales and Chronicles]

Maybe one possibility would be to change the restriction on casting to restrict out-of-turn leveled spells.

- When you cast a spell of 1st level or higher on your turn, you can only cast 0-level spells until the start of your next turn (buff-able with Feats like War Caster, frex).

That way, if you use your Chain Lightning on your turn, no Shield or Counterspell for you. To keep time for reactive defensive casting, you must keep to those quick'n easy 0-level spells.

 

[Mephista]

Uncanny dodge is way better than shield in my opinion. Shield has a good but not guaranteed chance of stopping one round of attack rolls versus the caster at the cost of a resource and a reaction.

Uncanny Dodge is guaranteed to halve damage from any one source of damage once a round for as many rounds as the rogue would take damage at the cost of a reaction.

You're entitled to your opinion and I'm not going to argue that even if I disagree with it. That said, aren't you being a little lopsided in your portrayal here?

You make a point that Shield costs a resource and a reaction. Fair enough. But you avoid saying that Uncanny Dodge also costs a reaction, hinting as if its not a concern for that ability even as it is for Shield. The net difference is that Shield costs a low level resource. Limited resources versus spamming for free is a good point to make, though its a debatable one, given the nature of spellcasting versus martial endurance and the length of adventurer workdays.

Shield is not quite predicated on chance. You do get to activate the ability when you know it will absolutely negate an attack, so its not like you're wasting resources, which is an important point to make, even if its not one you mean to. With the potential for further negation.

You also don't mention that complete negation of an attack is worth two Uncanny Dodges. If we assume 50% chance of hitting (someone else can run real numbers from MM), reducing that by half again with Shield means that, for every two attacks that would land on the rogue, Shield blocking one of them on the mage. So, its evening out before we factor in the round long defense versus single attack-ness. Over the course of the battle, Shield at least equals UD in terms of damage negated.

Uncanny dodge does not halve damage from any one source for a round. It halves the damage from a single attack - that damage source can make more than one attack and stack more damage on that Uncanny Dodge has zero effect on. It also doesn't work against spells without attack rolls or traps. I'm not saying the others like Shield do, but that you're being inaccurate in your portrayal here. As you grow in level, multiattacks grow to be bigger and bigger concerns, so you're going to be hit by more attacks from a single source instead of a powerful single attack. So, the value of halving a singular attack decreases as you grow higher and higher in level when you face more and more multiasttacks, whereas Shield's round long defense actively grows in value. Granted, most games end before it becomes majorly noticable, but still.

 

[Staffan]

I don’t really understand how your maths is working on this. AC 22 is high.

A hard hitting CR creature like an ogre (+6) is hitting you 25% of the time. That’s one casting of shield per four rounds.

If we go tougher to a CR 5 Hill giant (+8), it’s hitting you 35% of the time. A shield every 3 rounds.

… and these are hard hitting combat characters… it’s worse for creatures with more mixed abilities.

I don’t agree with your idea that these slots are burnt through quickly. Unless of course your GM is upping the difficulty by throwing multiples of these monsters at lower levels… in which that’s fine for your bladesinger, but sucks for everyone else.

I originally thought that this would resolve itself at higher levels, but then the hit rates of higher CR creatures also slow down. CR 15 Purple Worm +9, CR 14 Ice devil +10, CR 16 Iron Golem +13, CR 13 Storm giant +14.

Bounded Accuracy only works if the challenge DCs of rolls is similarly bounded.

Other than the ogre, your example monsters all have multi-attack, making it much more likely that they'll hit a shield-relevant AC. It also means that if other characters are in reach, they can stop attacking a shielded target and hit someone softer.

Come to think of it, a shield isn't a guaranteed miss either. In any scenario where you would normally be hit 30% or more of the time (meaning your AC isn't more than 15 points over your enemies' attack bonus, barring disadvantage-inflicting stuff), it turns one out of four attacks from a hit to a miss.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

I don’t really understand how your maths is working on this AC 22 is high


A hard hitting CR creature like an ogre (+6) is hitting you 25% of the time. That’s one casting of shield per four rounds.

At the level I would have been fighting Ogres, the character would have had a base AC of 15 (Studded leather and Dex 17) and with Bladesong the AC would have reached +3 (Int 17)
So the Ogre would have been hitting on rolls from 12 and up.

If we go tougher to a CR 5 Hill giant (+8), it’s hitting you 35% of the time. A shield every 3 rounds.

… and these are hard hitting combat characters… it’s worse for creatures with more mixed abilities.

I don’t agree with your idea that these slots are burnt through quickly. Unless of course your GM is upping the difficulty by throwing multiples of these monsters at lower levels… in which that’s fine for your bladesinger, but sucks for everyone else.

I originally thought that this would resolve itself at higher levels, but then the hit rates of higher CR creatures also slow down. CR 15 Purple Worm +9, CR 14 Ice devil +10, CR 16 Iron Golem +13, CR 13 Storm giant +14.

Bounded Accuracy works if the challenge DCs of rolls is similarly bounded.

From the numbers I am looking at on FantasyGrounds a purple worm has +14 to hit so it hits AC 27 on a 13 or better
So, by my calculations the Ogre can only hit on criticals, the Purple Worm has a 40% chance to hit AC 27 (Which is the Shielded AC), the same as the Storm Giant, the Ice devil has a 19% change and the Iron Golem a 35% chance, a +2 to the Bladesinger's int would drop all of these chances by 5%
Against Bladesong (AC 22) the chances are; Purple Worm or Storm Giant (65%) so for about a third of the hits shield will be useful, the rest get through.
My point is that hits will get through and that is it a nontrivial cost. You have a base of 4 slots, I would hesitate to use second level slots and then you are blowing a lot of your Arcane Recovery into shield. A lot depends on the number of combat rounds per working day.

I think that is where a lot of the experience differs. It is not just the number of combats per long rest but the rounds in combat. or the number of rounds before an opportunity of a short rest.