Sword and Shield Proficiency

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According to the description, it gives you a +2 armor class bonus against missile weapons. What about small shields and bucklers? The item description says you get NO protection against missile weapons if you're using a small shield or buckler, but does that still apply if you take the sword and shield proficiency? The reason I'm asking is that I currently have Imoen using Firetooth as her main weapon. I have the item upgrade mod, and thought to myself, what the hell, I'll make the Holy Buckler of Amunator. (Combine buckler+1, Holy Symbol of Amunator, 5 Sunstone gems, and a whole lot of gold, and you get a +2 buckler with negative plane protection and the ability to cast false dawn twice a day.) Since it's a useful item for the negative plane protection alone, I'm considering keeping it, and if I can get a bonus to missile weapons to boot, all the better.

 

You still get the ranged AC bonus from sword and shield style when using a buckler.

 

Yes, both apply actually. Your +2 buckler will give you -3AC, but will provide no protection against piercing or missile weapons, meaning +3AC penalty against those weapons in the AC Modifiers area. However, you can balance that with the Sword and Shield proficiency and a -2AC bonus against missle weapons, leaving you with a +3AC penalty against piercing weapons and only a +1AC penalty against missile weapons. But, it won't apply if you're using a missile weapon (for example, throwing Firetooth); it only applies if you have a melee weapon equipped at the time. Sorry, but them's the breaks.

 

Then what's the point of taking a sword a shield proficiency if you use bucklers? Of course I'm going to THROW Firetooth a lot more often then I'm going to use it in melee. Hell, Valygar is in the party - he's the only one who's going to be backstabbing anyone. And Geez, Fel, when did you fly by me in post count?

 

Might be helpful for those classes who you want to tank but can only use bucklers (Cernd, maybe?), but in your case I wouldn't bother.

Judging by the difference, I'd say about three weeks ago.

 

It's actually very useful because you can use the smaller shields. Basically all of which have the better bonuses besides AC. But they do not give you any added protection against missile weapons. With sword and Shield style you can now counteract this and make the smaller shields much more useful to yourself by giving you either a -2 or a -4 missile adjustment bonus depending on the number of dots you can/do put into it. Making you harder to hit with ranged weapons.

Or you could always just use it with a large shield and with a couple of the right ones get truely impressive defense against ranged weapons.