Bring back the ...

[Udenbur]

Tower shield? Everyone is walking around with the very common +1 large shield, effectively destroying reason and purpose of locating some  tower shield. It seems that the shields have absolutely no place in our setting, being on par with the large shields stat wise, and more than twice the weight that almost no one can afford to lug around. Some easy fixes I came up with to stimulate diversity:

- Lower the weight of a tower shield
- Create tower shields that are superior to large shields
- Get rid of the commondrop +1 large shield

[Random_White_Guy]

Yes.

[Drakill Tannan]

Place some +1 towershields out there IMO.

[Howlando]

I don't like towershields and despise their ubiquitous use on other servers. What you see as a problem I see as an asset. They are huge and clunky shields that I see appropriate only for certain kinds of very defensively oriented PCs (for example, a dwarven defender or helmite walking castle). Some good tower shields certainly exist as part of the standard ambient loot and even better custom tower shields do exist, but in general I vastly prefer the large shield to be the more common shield of choice.

Common +1 towershields will obviously not happen without going through and giving all the monsters +1 AB. And wouldn't anyway because I think the equipment AC balance is currently properly oriented towards PvP.

[Random_White_Guy]

+1 towershield is indeed not something I'd like to see.

It does add a lot of flavor to a PC to see people who do have such when it fits their character however. I've seen...maybe two very nice ones lately floating around PC merchants, and only about 3 PCs who use them.

[Drakill Tannan]

Why not? I think a defensive oriented PC that uses a towershield should be able to have higher defence than a PC with a large shield. I'm not saying they should be as common as +1 large shields, but there should be some as part of ambient loot.

[Howlando]

The Suggestion forum is not the Debate forum. Having ambient +1 towers around will result in virtually all medium-sized PCs that can find them choosing to use them. This bothers my sense of aesthetics and therefore won't happen.

I've made +1 towers as custom loot in the past when it suited the concept.

[Fingersmith]

I think that Tower Shields really serve a completely different purpose in PnP to what they are here in NWN. In NWN, Tower Shields have 1 less AC than in PnP, but they're portable. If the issue is with what purpose a tower shield serves realistically, why not change all of them to be more like PnP? Add an attack penalty while wielding them, but give them all +1 AC, and allow for a defensive-stance type deal where you gain 50% concealment from ranged attacks if you're not moving or fighting (taking cover behind your shield).

The Suggestion forum is not the Debate forum.

What is?

[The Boom King]

I rather dislike Tower shields because they look preposterous. They're huge. Like, over half the size of a human. That's for sieges, fellas.

[The Old Hack]

I think the worst tower shield nightmare I ever experienced was on my old server where one player insisted on playing a monk with tower shield. One level fighter, rest monk, and then tower shield and unarmed attack. On the forums he defended himself with, "It has a basis in RL." When challenged with what this basis was, he replied, "Captain America."

[Underbard]

It would be nice to see the weight of a tower shield dropped a little.  They are great for certain concepts, but not many want to carry that much extra weight.  The weight, as it is now, seem to be a bit much of a penalty for a little bit of flavor.

[Garem]

I think the worst tower shield nightmare I ever experienced was on my old server where one player insisted on playing a monk with tower shield. One level fighter, rest monk, and then tower shield and unarmed attack. On the forums he defended himself with, "It has a basis in RL." When challenged with what this basis was, he replied, "Captain America."

Thank you for my next concept.

Back on point-- what on earth does the server gain by going back to Tower shields? The way I see it, large shields just got 4.4 lbs. lighter (since Tower Shields used to be 19.4, now they are around 45 I think).

Tower shields in NWN are nothing like they are in PnP, anyways-- heavy, specialized shields used only for special military/tactical reasons. It might be neat to have them for something like that for the server, but it's probably not worth the time to change it.

[Semli]

"It has a basis in RL." When challenged with what this basis was, he replied, "Captain America."

Epic.

[VanillaPudding]

Howland pretty much locked down my opinion on this as well. I have seen tower shields used for concepts supporting it and seen them rewarded for it as well. The +1 large shield supply is, at it's core, a balance issue and has done quite well for a long time. If you want to play a full plate / tower shield user then do it and do it well and you'll be rewared, as with any other concept / item that fits well.

[DollarPhil]

Perhaps add add more (non-AC) defensive bonuses to towershields. Even the lightweight drops aren't that good. If most of them had +2 Discipline or Concentration as standard, it would reward their use by Immovable Object style PCs. or returning the old Arrow Guard with 1/day Entropic Shield as a Tower Shield.