The patch has caused my shield weight to leap from 19.2 lbs (standard weight for a tower sheild) to 45 lbs.

Same here

I support heavier Tower Shields. More diversity in shield use is good.

Me to TOwershields should weigh more so stop complaining.

From the BioWare patch notes:

- Fixed issue with Item Weights being wrong for extremely heavy items (such as the Tower Shield).

Classically speaking, a Tower Shield was simply a 6-7 foot wall of wood that one would carry around to give cover to archers. They were never meant as something to replace Large Shields... It is too bad, however, that you cannot give cover to someone else by using these. Like... a concealment bonus for a selected target to represent you standing their covering them while they shoot a volley of arrows.

Could this even be scripted? An on use ability that lasts until you move that grants a concealment bonus to one other person?

I could see this as being potentially exploitable though... as someone could technically run up and use said ability on a frontliner and then not move for the remainder of combat. I guess it would require some care.... perhaps it wouldn't work if the character didn't have a ranged weapon equipped.?

AScottBay From the BioWare patch notes:

- Fixed issue with Item Weights being wrong for extremely heavy items (such as the Tower Shield).

This is not a bug. It is, in fact, a fix.

I just think it's odd that they took 7 years to implement this 'fix'. Changes the entire way the game is played, going all the way back to my very first character that I created when I first got the game.

It may be that Tower Shields have always weighed 45 lbs, but for some strange reason the weight calculations were bugged and it was reported as 19.5. In any case, BioWare employees have often admitted to having no idea how a particular feature in NWN worked. They just vaguely remembered coding something related to it.

Amazing new feature.