Crafter Level ; Crafting Proficiency Rank ; Crafting Feat
Formula Price
Tools You have an appropriate set of tools and, in many cases, a workshop; Crafting Materials You must supply raw materials worth
Extra Requirements
Shields
RULE
A shield can increase your character’s defense beyond the protection their armor provides. Your character must be wielding a shield in one hand to make use of it, and it grants its bonus to AC only if they use an action to Raise a Shield. This action grants the shield’s bonus to AC as a circumstance bonus until their next turn starts. A shield’s Speed penalty applies whenever your character is holding the shield, whether they have raised it or not.
Raise a Shield is the action most commonly used with shields. Most shields must be held in one hand, so you can't hold anything with that hand or Raise a Shield, and you lose its benefits if that hand is no longer free. A buckler, however, doesn’t take up your hand, so you can Raise a Shield with a buckler if the hand is free (or, at the GM’s discretion, if it’s holding a simple, lightweight object that's not a weapon).
When you have a tower shield raised, you can use the Take Cover action (page 471) to increase the circumstance bonus to AC to +4. This lasts until the shield is no longer raised, or until any of the normal conditions that end Take Cover, whichever comes first. If you would normally provide lesser cover against an attack, having your tower shield raised provides standard cover against it (and other creatures can Take Cover as normal using the cover from your shield).
If you have access to the Shield Block reaction (from your class or from a feat), you can use it while Raising your Shield to reduce the damage you take by an amount equal to the shield’s Hardness. Both you and the shield then take any remaining damage.
Shield Statistics
Shields have statistics that follow the same rules as armor: Price, Speed Penalty, and Bulk. See page 274 for the rules for those statistics. Their other statistics are described here.
| 1Gaining a shield’s circumstance bonus to AC requires using the Raise a Shield action. | ||||||
| 2Getting the higher bonus for a tower shield requires using the Take Cover action while the shield is raised. | ||||||
| Shield | Price | AC Bonus1 | Speed Penalty | Bulk | Hardness | HP (BT) |
| CKlarTV | 3 gp | +1 | — | 1 | 3 | 10 (5) |
| CCaster’s targeTV | 2 gp | +1 | — | 1 | 3 | 12 (6) |
| CDart shieldTV | 8 gp | +1 | — | 1 | 3 | 12 (6) |
| CRazor discTV | 5 gp | +1 | — | 1 | 4 | 16 (8) |
| CHeavy rondacheTV | 4 gp | +1 | — | 1 | 5 | 24 (12) |
| CBuckler | 1 gp | +1 | — | L | 3 | 6 (3) |
| CGauntlet bucklerTV | 5 gp | +1 | — | 1 | 3 | 6 (3) |
| CWooden shield | 1 gp | +2 | — | 1 | 3 | 12 (6) |
| rReforging shieldAA-04 | 6,000 gp | +2 | — | 1 | 15 | 120 (60) |
| CMeteor shieldTV | 4 gp | +2 | — | 1 | 4 | 16 (8) |
| CHarnessed shieldTV | 5 gp | +2 | –5 ft. | 2 | 5 | 20 (10) |
| CHide shieldTV | 2 gp | +2 | — | 1 | 4 | 20 (10) |
| CSalvo shieldTV | 6 gp | +2 | — | 1 | 4 | 20 (10) |
| CSteel shield | 2 gp | +2 | — | 1 | 5 | 20 (10) |
| CSwordstealer shieldTV | 6 gp | +2 | — | 1 | 4 | 20 (10) |
| CTower shield | 10 gp | +2/+42 | –5 ft. | 4 | 5 | 20 (10) |
| CFortress shieldTV | 20 gp | +3/+42 | –10 ft. | 5 | 6 | 24 (12) |
AC Bonus
A shield grants a circumstance bonus to AC, but only when the shield is raised. This requires using the Raise a Shield action, found on page 472.
Hardness
Whenever a shield takes damage, the amount of damage it takes is reduced by this amount. This number is particularly relevant for shields because of the Shield Block feat (page 266). The rules for Hardness appear on page 272.
HP (BT)
This column lists the shield’s Hit Points (HP) and Broken Threshold (BT). These measure how much damage the shield can take before it’s destroyed (its total HP) and how much it can take before being broken and unusable (its BT). These matter primarily for the Shield Block reaction.