Counter argument: The short duration is an illusion. The ability to see what a roll is before casting shield and knowing whether or not shield will successfully block it creates an effective AC that goes beyond the duration of the spell.
Tasha's mind whip is the only spell I've banned from my table. The changes I've made to shield is its a bonus equal to your spellcasting modifier. Meaning it can go over 5 with spellcaster and lower with martials.
With my shield remake, AC would only increase by 3, but give them 5 temporary hit points. as long as these temporary hit points are there, and you retain concentration, it would still be up.
I would not ban it either. But I would do it differently. If mage armor mimics armor then shield should mimic a shield. Id prefer as +2 that can scale by upcasting and Its very simple indeed. (maybe a +3 at best) However I would also propose something different. Something closer to the fantasy trope of "shield" that we see in every show that includes magic. Shield couuld be a barrier with x amount of HP that just absorbs damage until it breaks. Very much like the abjuration wizards ward. And then we can also alter the abjuration wizard feature to get this spell for free and enhance it in some way. Ex being able to protect other allied creatures next to him as well. Again leanig into the fantasy trope.
What if you made the AC boost equal to the level you cast the spell at. Its intuitive. The question is should reaction spells cost higher spell slots? They bypass the one spell per turn rule by not being on your turn. Once your cantrips are better than first level spells you first level spell slots become exclusively reaction spell slots for most characters. If reaction spells focused on upcasting so they could utilize the full spectrum of spell slots it could be healthier for the game. Otherwise first level spell slots are way to valuable.
Late anwser, but multiple reasons. absorb elements only typically lasts for one attack of damage. Most melee statblocks focus more on multiple smaller hits than big hits, so unless you got crit, or are going down if you don't cast it, there is no point in casting it, since you could save your reaction for something more useful. Compare this to absorb elements. Elemental attack usually come from spells or abilities, which are typically big bursts of damage and usually involve saving throws to avoid the part damage (unless you have evasion). if you are gonna get damaged anyway, it is better to reduce it. it serves it's purpose, to reduce big burst damage. this theoretically physical reduction doesn't do that. Maybe if it lasts the whole round, but you run into other issues. even if you casts it, the issue is that damage is still getting through. for casters who have low ac, low hitpoints and have to concentrate on spells, the hits are gonna hinder you more. since even if you reduce the damage, the slowly and consistent damage is gonna widdle you down. and since the damage you reduce with multiple hits is smaller, more damage is gonna come through than with absorb elements since, you can avoid some of the effect with an saving throw allowing you to quarter the damage, which you can't do with attacks. combine that with con saves for the bigger spells that spellcasters typically and using concentration spells becomes way more difficult. since now more hits are getting through. Also many enemies have secondary forms of damage on melee attacks, like extra fire damage for certain fiends, or necrotic damage for certain undead creatures. some creatures replace their attacks with elemental stuff alltogether. even if the secondary effect is not a elemental damage, many creatures can still grapple, knock prone or affect creatures, and reducing the damage doesn't avoid these affects. if the attack miss you do avoid it, but not on reduction. for melee characters this less of an issue, since they typically either have high ac to avoid these effects, or in a case of a grapple, wanted to be in melee anyway. for casters, not so much... So yeah, good question, but there are reasons for it.
@@Crazor2000 I think my favorite fixes are to either treat it like mage armor and only get the AC bonus if you aren’t wearing armor or its bonus is only good against attacks from one target creature. Upcast to increase the number of targets it provides the AC bonus against. If a Wizard finds themselves surrounded by more than 2-3 creatures, they already messed up. Meanwhile the Eldritch Knight super tank won’t be quite so untouchable wading into a horde of monsters.
@@avengingblowfish9653 those are better solutions, but i feel their not quite perfect, granted i don't think they are bad, and implementing them would be fine, but they do have slight issues. the armour one makes it work for most stuff, but it does kinda make it weaker for subclasses that get it as a subclass spell, for example, artilerist and battlesmiths artificers for example, since now either you have to ignore the medium armour you typically use (since they don't have mage armour), or have a spell that doesn't work in the subclass. i do think this is a better solution, but it does screw up a few subclasses. I think the solution for these guys would be a replacement spell, but that depends on dm. The upcast one is quite good, but it runs into two small issues. boss monsters and ranged combatants. if you go up against one big boss instead of smaller creatures it still has the same issues, since now you have an untouchable combantant the boss can't hit. There is also the issue of range, you can be far away as possible, but if you have ranged combatants, you can't always avoid being hit by multiple enemies (provided you don't have cover), especially if you can't tell how many enemies are gonna try to hit you on a turn, so upcasting it would always be a gamble. granted this depends also on dm. Still i do like these solutions, and depending on your game, implementing them would be mostly fine.
ok so you mentioned that Fighter doesnt normally get access to the Shield spell and you kinda forgot about a little something called Eldritch Knight Fighter. pretty much the only pure class that can abuse Shield with heavy armor without using feats or multiclassing. since they get Abjuration and Evocation spells it's almost like WotC *wants* them to take Shield and/or Magic Missile together. could also take Absorb Elements on one too but that's beside the point.
Key word being "normally," which does not account for subclasses. I am aware lots of classes can gain access to the spell via subclasses (Hello, Battle Smith Artificer and Hexblade Warlock), but subclasses are exceptions to the norm and should be considered special cases. And yes, the Eldritch Knight plays well into being a magically augmented tank. I hope we see revisions for it in 2024 though, as the subclasses deserves a bit more love.
Does "base AC" represent minimum AC or is it treated as "naked" AC that would normally be 10 before Dex modifier (meaning it could give a 14 Dex Wizard an AC of 21)?
Base AC is treated as naked AC. However, note that it doesn't include the DEX modifier, like heavy armor traditionally lacks. In this regard the spell is functioning the same as Mage Armor, armor, Unarmored Defense, or any other racial/class feature that changes that value, stacking only with bonuses and not other Base AC calculations (as is the official rule). So, additional benefits like Shield of Faith, shields, magic items, etc, would still effect your AC on top of this version of Shield. For some examples: an unarmored wizard with 14 DEX would have 19 AC with this spell. An unarmored wizard with a Cloak of Protection would have 20 AC with this spell. A paladin in plate armor would have 19 AC with this spell. A tortle with its natural armor would have 19 AC with this spell, but could still boost it to 23 AC by using its Shell Defense. Hope that explains it well. :)
@@deathbyd4 ok. My comment was about multiclassing and how it's the main culprit of abuse. Personally I believe shield is fine as it is but when multiclassing is introduced, that's where it becomes "op" as with most things involving that rule. It's also quite scary how many people don't realise it's an optional rule and honestly, I think it should've been put in the dmg with the other optional rules that usually go unnoticed.
nope here why: you said yourself that the basic wizard/sorcerer commun usage was fine: So the average optimized wizard/sorcerer will have a 14 dex (so+2) (not sure where you got your 12 Dex wizard... probably dead in a ditch after the firt goblin ambush in the first campaign) so mage armor give him 13+dex= 15. With Shield it goes up to AC 20. So you nerfed the basic sorcerer/wizard that you considered was fine. Now as the wizard/sorcerer level up, he could technically find some elven chain shirt: a rare magical armor (so found during tier 2 adventure so level 5 to 11) that give proficiency to it's wearer, so perfect for spell caster. Bringing the wizard/sorcerer to so a chain shirt is 13+dex(max2) the elven chain shirt is a +1 chain shirt so 13+1+dex(max2) so 16 AC +shield goes up to 21. Which is a nice progression for the wizard/sorcerer and a bit later. the wizard/sorcerer might find a robe of the archmagi: a legendary item (so found during tier 4 adventures so level 17+) giving our mage 15+dex so 17 +shield = 22 AC which is still a decent progression for the character So because paladin grabs a feat to get ludicrous armor (at the cost of less divine smite) you want to nerf the wizard/sorcerer progression that YOU DEEMED proper??? Shield is FINE. Leave it alone, any paladin using a full plate+3 (21), shield+3 (+5), ring of protection+3 (attunement) a cloak of protection +3(attunement) and a defender sword+3(attunement) to pump his base AC to 32, then take a feat to grab magic initiate to grab shield to pump his AC to 37, at the cost of not taking a feat that increase his damage (an optimized for damage paladin will need 2 feat to bring his 16 strenght to 20, polearm master, great weapon master and that last feat probably to bring his Charisma or Constitution higher (depending what he priotirize) Sure he could take magic initiate for shield, and have a lower Charisma/Constitution. but then he still have to choose between gaining shield at level 19, or delaying his damage setup to level 19 Sure he could multiclass Hexblade to grab shield from the Hexblade extended spell list, or multiclass sorcerer for more spell slot, but multiclassing does come at a cost (mainly less HP, and missing out on other paladin goodies like improved divine smite, or even on his aura of protection And even if you find this perfectly fine and worth it, casting the shield spell still cost him a spell slot, that he won't be able to convert into divine smite for more damage, that is 2d8 (3d8 Vsfiend) less damage so he can bring 32 up to 37 AC... And no matter how many sorcerer/bard level you take, you only have 4 level 1 spell slot, and upcasting shield as a level 2 spell... hurt, especially the paladin that 3d8 (4d8VsFiend) less damage, and no matter how many sorcerer/bard level you took you are limited to only 3 level 2 spell, and upcasting shield to level 3 is starting to be ridiculus, costing 4d8 (5d8Vsfiend) less damage, and still restricted to only 3 level 3 spell slot. Yes Warlock bypass that by giving you 1or2 spell slot (depending on the number of dip you took) per short rest added to your basic slot per day, but you slowed down your paladin spell slot progression... just for the sake of talking let's just assume 4 hexblade level to gain pact weapon and be able to weild that polearm with your charisma and not loosse one of those precious feat to bring your charisma up to 20 + polearm master + great weapon fighter So yes shield is a powerfull spell. but it doesn't need a nerf, it's fine as his, if a non wizard/sorcerer want to take it, it's going to cost him a large opportunity cost (a feat, divine smite etc...)
ok so you do realize Cloak and Ring of Protection only give +1 to AC each right? your Paladin AC calc is just straight wrong to begin with. with a legendary tier armor, a very rare tier shield, both Protection items, and a legendary tier sword you get 31 base AC. frankly if a DM allowed you to have 2 Legendary tier items they deserve to be powergamed on like this set-up clearly is designed for. shame on you.
Firstly, allow me to repeat what I said in the video: I don't have an issue with the Shield spell and my suggested change was just for those who did. Secondly, (and this is largely just to put a large chunk of what you've said into perspective) a character with 32 AC (let alone 37) must be CRIT to be attacked by a CR 20 monster. Heck, a CR 30 monster still has less than a 50% chance to land an attack against you, and that's considered a monster with a power level around 50% greater than a max leveled character. I'm going to put this as politely as I can for you: what you are describing makes you sound like you play D&D with aliens from another planet. This kind of D&D not only isn't common, but D&D isn't even balanced with it in mind.
No. If you have Mage Armor and just say Dec 20, then you are rocking a 18 AC. Shield as written should give you 23 so you ARE nerfing the hell out of the spell. Secondly, more realistic, say you have Dex 14, then even then your AC would 15 and Shield would make it 20, but again your idea is just a big nerf. What people keep doing is making a mountain out of a mole hill. It costs a spell slot. It lasts for 1 rnd. Guys, its NOT an issue. AC does NOTHING about SAVE effects. This REALLY isnt a problem and banning it or nerfing is unnecessary. The PT of feats and multiclassing is to build on weaknesses and give more options and allow your character to be more powerful...stop with the watering down BS. sheesh.....
Counter argument: The short duration is an illusion. The ability to see what a roll is before casting shield and knowing whether or not shield will successfully block it creates an effective AC that goes beyond the duration of the spell.
Tasha's mind whip is the only spell I've banned from my table.
The changes I've made to shield is its a bonus equal to your spellcasting modifier.
Meaning it can go over 5 with spellcaster and lower with martials.
That's a really good idea
With my shield remake, AC would only increase by 3, but give them 5 temporary hit points. as long as these temporary hit points are there, and you retain concentration, it would still be up.
Legitimately a good alteration to a very good spell
The discord link doesnt work anymore. I'd be glad to dm for you if you could reach out.
Just discovered your channel I it is very good! Please, continue making videos
I'd recommend looking at his community post on RUclips to see why he likely won't more more in the future
I would not ban it either. But I would do it differently.
If mage armor mimics armor then shield should mimic a shield. Id prefer as +2 that can scale by upcasting and Its very simple indeed. (maybe a +3 at best)
However I would also propose something different.
Something closer to the fantasy trope of "shield" that we see in every show that includes magic.
Shield couuld be a barrier with x amount of HP that just absorbs damage until it breaks.
Very much like the abjuration wizards ward.
And then we can also alter the abjuration wizard feature to get this spell for free and enhance it in some way. Ex being able to protect other allied creatures next to him as well. Again leanig into the fantasy trope.
What if you made the AC boost equal to the level you cast the spell at. Its intuitive. The question is should reaction spells cost higher spell slots? They bypass the one spell per turn rule by not being on your turn. Once your cantrips are better than first level spells you first level spell slots become exclusively reaction spell slots for most characters. If reaction spells focused on upcasting so they could utilize the full spectrum of spell slots it could be healthier for the game. Otherwise first level spell slots are way to valuable.
Why not just make the Shield spell like the Absorb Elements spell, but for bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage?
Late anwser, but multiple reasons. absorb elements only typically lasts for one attack of damage. Most melee statblocks focus more on multiple smaller hits than big hits, so unless you got crit, or are going down if you don't cast it, there is no point in casting it, since you could save your reaction for something more useful. Compare this to absorb elements. Elemental attack usually come from spells or abilities, which are typically big bursts of damage and usually involve saving throws to avoid the part damage (unless you have evasion). if you are gonna get damaged anyway, it is better to reduce it. it serves it's purpose, to reduce big burst damage. this theoretically physical reduction doesn't do that.
Maybe if it lasts the whole round, but you run into other issues. even if you casts it, the issue is that damage is still getting through. for casters who have low ac, low hitpoints and have to concentrate on spells, the hits are gonna hinder you more. since even if you reduce the damage, the slowly and consistent damage is gonna widdle you down. and since the damage you reduce with multiple hits is smaller, more damage is gonna come through than with absorb elements since, you can avoid some of the effect with an saving throw allowing you to quarter the damage, which you can't do with attacks. combine that with con saves for the bigger spells that spellcasters typically and using concentration spells becomes way more difficult. since now more hits are getting through.
Also many enemies have secondary forms of damage on melee attacks, like extra fire damage for certain fiends, or necrotic damage for certain undead creatures. some creatures replace their attacks with elemental stuff alltogether. even if the secondary effect is not a elemental damage, many creatures can still grapple, knock prone or affect creatures, and reducing the damage doesn't avoid these affects. if the attack miss you do avoid it, but not on reduction. for melee characters this less of an issue, since they typically either have high ac to avoid these effects, or in a case of a grapple, wanted to be in melee anyway. for casters, not so much...
So yeah, good question, but there are reasons for it.
@@Crazor2000 I think my favorite fixes are to either treat it like mage armor and only get the AC bonus if you aren’t wearing armor or its bonus is only good against attacks from one target creature. Upcast to increase the number of targets it provides the AC bonus against.
If a Wizard finds themselves surrounded by more than 2-3 creatures, they already messed up.
Meanwhile the Eldritch Knight super tank won’t be quite so untouchable wading into a horde of monsters.
@@avengingblowfish9653 those are better solutions, but i feel their not quite perfect, granted i don't think they are bad, and implementing them would be fine, but they do have slight issues.
the armour one makes it work for most stuff, but it does kinda make it weaker for subclasses that get it as a subclass spell, for example, artilerist and battlesmiths artificers for example, since now either you have to ignore the medium armour you typically use (since they don't have mage armour), or have a spell that doesn't work in the subclass. i do think this is a better solution, but it does screw up a few subclasses. I think the solution for these guys would be a replacement spell, but that depends on dm.
The upcast one is quite good, but it runs into two small issues. boss monsters and ranged combatants. if you go up against one big boss instead of smaller creatures it still has the same issues, since now you have an untouchable combantant the boss can't hit. There is also the issue of range, you can be far away as possible, but if you have ranged combatants, you can't always avoid being hit by multiple enemies (provided you don't have cover), especially if you can't tell how many enemies are gonna try to hit you on a turn, so upcasting it would always be a gamble. granted this depends also on dm.
Still i do like these solutions, and depending on your game, implementing them would be mostly fine.
ok so you mentioned that Fighter doesnt normally get access to the Shield spell and you kinda forgot about a little something called Eldritch Knight Fighter. pretty much the only pure class that can abuse Shield with heavy armor without using feats or multiclassing.
since they get Abjuration and Evocation spells it's almost like WotC *wants* them to take Shield and/or Magic Missile together. could also take Absorb Elements on one too but that's beside the point.
Key word being "normally," which does not account for subclasses. I am aware lots of classes can gain access to the spell via subclasses (Hello, Battle Smith Artificer and Hexblade Warlock), but subclasses are exceptions to the norm and should be considered special cases.
And yes, the Eldritch Knight plays well into being a magically augmented tank. I hope we see revisions for it in 2024 though, as the subclasses deserves a bit more love.
Not sure I would ban this or any other spells
Remember the bad guys can do this too
I wonder how to do Susanoo (naruto) in dnd
Its a lot simpler than that. Just make it so that you can't be wearing armor to get the bonus and make the bonus go up per spell slot to a max of +3
Does "base AC" represent minimum AC or is it treated as "naked" AC that would normally be 10 before Dex modifier (meaning it could give a 14 Dex Wizard an AC of 21)?
Base AC is treated as naked AC. However, note that it doesn't include the DEX modifier, like heavy armor traditionally lacks. In this regard the spell is functioning the same as Mage Armor, armor, Unarmored Defense, or any other racial/class feature that changes that value, stacking only with bonuses and not other Base AC calculations (as is the official rule). So, additional benefits like Shield of Faith, shields, magic items, etc, would still effect your AC on top of this version of Shield.
For some examples: an unarmored wizard with 14 DEX would have 19 AC with this spell. An unarmored wizard with a Cloak of Protection would have 20 AC with this spell. A paladin in plate armor would have 19 AC with this spell. A tortle with its natural armor would have 19 AC with this spell, but could still boost it to 23 AC by using its Shell Defense.
Hope that explains it well. :)
Personally, I would change it so that the bonus to AC is the spell slot level
Your mistake was allowing multiclassing which is an optional rule. Multiclassing is breaks everything.
A kind reminder to what I said in the video: I don't have an issue with the Shield spell and the proposed change was for those who do.
@@deathbyd4 ok. My comment was about multiclassing and how it's the main culprit of abuse. Personally I believe shield is fine as it is but when multiclassing is introduced, that's where it becomes "op" as with most things involving that rule. It's also quite scary how many people don't realise it's an optional rule and honestly, I think it should've been put in the dmg with the other optional rules that usually go unnoticed.
nope here why:
you said yourself that the basic wizard/sorcerer commun usage was fine:
So the average optimized wizard/sorcerer will have a 14 dex (so+2) (not sure where you got your 12 Dex wizard... probably dead in a ditch after the firt goblin ambush in the first campaign) so mage armor give him 13+dex= 15. With Shield it goes up to AC 20.
So you nerfed the basic sorcerer/wizard that you considered was fine.
Now as the wizard/sorcerer level up, he could technically find some elven chain shirt: a rare magical armor (so found during tier 2 adventure so level 5 to 11) that give proficiency to it's wearer, so perfect for spell caster. Bringing the wizard/sorcerer to so a chain shirt is 13+dex(max2) the elven chain shirt is a +1 chain shirt so 13+1+dex(max2) so 16 AC +shield goes up to 21. Which is a nice progression for the wizard/sorcerer
and a bit later. the wizard/sorcerer might find a robe of the archmagi: a legendary item (so found during tier 4 adventures so level 17+) giving our mage 15+dex so 17 +shield = 22 AC which is still a decent progression for the character
So because paladin grabs a feat to get ludicrous armor (at the cost of less divine smite) you want to nerf the wizard/sorcerer progression that YOU DEEMED proper???
Shield is FINE. Leave it alone,
any paladin using a full plate+3 (21), shield+3 (+5), ring of protection+3 (attunement) a cloak of protection +3(attunement) and a defender sword+3(attunement) to pump his base AC to 32, then take a feat to grab magic initiate to grab shield to pump his AC to 37, at the cost of not taking a feat that increase his damage (an optimized for damage paladin will need 2 feat to bring his 16 strenght to 20, polearm master, great weapon master and that last feat probably to bring his Charisma or Constitution higher (depending what he priotirize)
Sure he could take magic initiate for shield, and have a lower Charisma/Constitution. but then he still have to choose between gaining shield at level 19, or delaying his damage setup to level 19
Sure he could multiclass Hexblade to grab shield from the Hexblade extended spell list, or multiclass sorcerer for more spell slot, but multiclassing does come at a cost (mainly less HP, and missing out on other paladin goodies like improved divine smite, or even on his aura of protection
And even if you find this perfectly fine and worth it, casting the shield spell still cost him a spell slot, that he won't be able to convert into divine smite for more damage, that is 2d8 (3d8 Vsfiend) less damage so he can bring 32 up to 37 AC...
And no matter how many sorcerer/bard level you take, you only have 4 level 1 spell slot, and upcasting shield as a level 2 spell... hurt, especially the paladin that 3d8 (4d8VsFiend) less damage, and no matter how many sorcerer/bard level you took you are limited to only 3 level 2 spell, and upcasting shield to level 3 is starting to be ridiculus, costing 4d8 (5d8Vsfiend) less damage, and still restricted to only 3 level 3 spell slot.
Yes Warlock bypass that by giving you 1or2 spell slot (depending on the number of dip you took) per short rest added to your basic slot per day, but you slowed down your paladin spell slot progression... just for the sake of talking let's just assume 4 hexblade level to gain pact weapon and be able to weild that polearm with your charisma and not loosse one of those precious feat to bring your charisma up to 20 + polearm master + great weapon fighter
So yes shield is a powerfull spell. but it doesn't need a nerf, it's fine as his, if a non wizard/sorcerer want to take it, it's going to cost him a large opportunity cost (a feat, divine smite etc...)
ok so you do realize Cloak and Ring of Protection only give +1 to AC each right? your Paladin AC calc is just straight wrong to begin with. with a legendary tier armor, a very rare tier shield, both Protection items, and a legendary tier sword you get 31 base AC. frankly if a DM allowed you to have 2 Legendary tier items they deserve to be powergamed on like this set-up clearly is designed for. shame on you.
Firstly, allow me to repeat what I said in the video: I don't have an issue with the Shield spell and my suggested change was just for those who did.
Secondly, (and this is largely just to put a large chunk of what you've said into perspective) a character with 32 AC (let alone 37) must be CRIT to be attacked by a CR 20 monster. Heck, a CR 30 monster still has less than a 50% chance to land an attack against you, and that's considered a monster with a power level around 50% greater than a max leveled character.
I'm going to put this as politely as I can for you: what you are describing makes you sound like you play D&D with aliens from another planet. This kind of D&D not only isn't common, but D&D isn't even balanced with it in mind.
No. If you have Mage Armor and just say Dec 20, then you are rocking a 18 AC. Shield as written should give you 23 so you ARE nerfing the hell out of the spell. Secondly, more realistic, say you have Dex 14, then even then your AC would 15 and Shield would make it 20, but again your idea is just a big nerf.
What people keep doing is making a mountain out of a mole hill. It costs a spell slot. It lasts for 1 rnd. Guys, its NOT an issue. AC does NOTHING about SAVE effects. This REALLY isnt a problem and banning it or nerfing is unnecessary. The PT of feats and multiclassing is to build on weaknesses and give more options and allow your character to be more powerful...stop with the watering down BS. sheesh.....