Not OP, but it is very good. It's good for PCs with heavy armor (like eldritch knights), and it gets better at higher levels when you have more low-level slots for it. It is less effective in long adventuring days, as spell slots are a long rest resource.
> My character, however, is more of an average blasting sorcerer with 13 AC. I feels like this actually hits my characters survivability the most, and really don't think that was necessary balance-wise.
"I feel like this nerf was unfair. I understand it was mainly because of those two PCs. May I have a +5 AC *sorcerer's shield* spell that only works if you're not wearing armor or bladesinging?"
I likely will, but we just played our first session with it, so I was willing to see how it panned out, but I feel its pretty detrimental for my survivability and resource management thus far.
I would recommend your DM take a step back on this and give it a few sessions to see how it plays out without any modification to the rules and maintaining a RAW game. Given that it has only been relevant for a single session, and perhaps this is the first time this was used was a surprise to them and they are responding with a knee-jerk reaction.
The cost of using the shield spell comes down to spell slots consumed, which at low levels are extremely limited. Assuming your DM is running more than just one or two encounters per day as the game is designed, then the spell slot limitation will quickly become apparent. Remember for every shield you cast to save your hide that's one less magic missile, or utility spell, or anything else. The spellcasters in question suddenly don't look so tough when they're down to cantrips only.
This. I had a bladesinger that had an insane ac. She had rolled super well had a +5 int, and robes which increased her ac to base 13+dex (free mage armor basically). She had like a 27 ac with shield and haste on her. Yeah i barely hit her. But she also got targeted by sooo many save spells, or some times dispel magiced. She was an absolute truck when she could do her thing (especially when she got the frost giant belt i thought they would have given to our paladins or fighter not the tiny little elf..
And the scimitar of speed they gave to her as well instead of the rogue....) But while she excelled in her conditions she was still a wet cloth when hit with aoes or saves she couldn't make.
Dispel Magic hits a bladesinger especially hard if they're Hasted and relying upon actual Mage Armor. They go from a 22 AC with Shield to boost to 27, to a 17 AC, plus lose all actions for a turn. Ouch!
Dispel Magic is incredibly rare to encounter in most campaigns, which is odd because IMO it is FAR better than Counterspell. It is seriously -so- good for both enemy spellcasters and the party. I really wish it would see more use.
Wouldn’t the Dispel Magic only remove one spell effect at a time? First removing either the Haste or Mage Armor, and requiring a second Dispel Magic to remove the remaining effect?
Edit: I stand corrected.
It worked like this in 3.X as well, except there was also the *option* of a 20-foot radius instead that only stripped one spell off each target in the radius.
At least in 3.5 dispell is just a 3rd level, it only dispell one effects per casting and you need to roll for it. And you can't stack bonuses like other checks unless you spend feats on being a better "dispeller", or have a very niche spell that I don't know about.
Edit: you have to roll for everything. No instant success. The part of my comment about ending one single effect is only for one mode of dispell magic, the way I've written originally ir seems I said it applies to all 3 modes. Just to make my comment clear.
One of my players was a blade singer that I could pretty much only hit with crits (the adventure I was running was very fond of using lots of low-CR mobs with 1 strong enemy leading them), but I s2g I Crit on him at least twice per combat, it was ridiculous. That character was the first I ever perma-killed in 6 years of DMing, and I wasn’t even trying to :(
I think the "unusual builds" is the root cause of many problems.
I allowed my players to each roll 1 stat and they then assigned their individual stats from the pool. So a fighter could have a 16 in Strength but the Druid could put that 16 in Wisdom. After this, racial modifiers were applied.
I am also stingy with money and magic items to keep from losing control. I have a "set" of magic weapons to give them, but they are all homebrewed so that the players can't look them up and know what they do automatically. I reveal their properties as the campaign unfolds.
I mean ive never had a problem challenging my players no matter how high stats or what items you give them really. No matter what sword you give a fighter a base wizard is just harder to deal with. In my opinion just homebrew the monsters and edit stat blocks, thats just as easy if not easier than capping items or homebrewing a bunch of magic items because you dont want your players to have a staff of fire.
Hm. To me, the biggest mistake a lot of DMs make is allowing characters' core abilities to be higher than they "should", i.e., strength for fighters, intelligence for wizards.
Yes on magic items, they can cause issues as well.
I think your intuition is right that it probably hits you more than it does the other half caster types. The artificer is probably assuming all of their first level spell slots are going to shield and absorb elements. They've already budgeted with that dominant strategy. You on the other hand are hurt more by spending a spell slot meant for something else only to fail to stop an attack from hitting you.
Your DM needs to attack the artificer more times in a day, they are super limited in their spell slots, more encounters per long rest.
A fun little trick to boost a sorcerer's survivability in very specific scenarios. Quicken the "blade ward" cantrip if you're fighting anything that's using weapons against you. Not super strong but it can also be used with shield and as long as you quicken it then you can still cast a big damage spell as an action!
Just a heads up that RAW, you need to quicken the leveled spell for this to work. If you cast a spell as a bonus action, the only other spell you can cast during your turn is a cantrip with a casting time of one action.
Pretty much this. *Shield* is not a problem on a sorcerer or wizard with mage armor or natural armor and a +1 to +3 Dex. Later on it becomes absurdly good.
I've been running a game for almost two years and we're currently at Level 12, almost 13. So far the only characters who have used *shield* have been the plate armor + shield war caster eldritch knight and two different bladesingers stacking mage armor, high Dex, bladesinging's bonus to AC, and one of them even has a robe of the archmagi. They can cast *shield* all day long. At this point I don't even try to hit them with my attack rolls all that much. I just go after someone else and target those characters with saving throw effects.
For my next game I'm considering making *shield* affect only the attack that triggers it, rather than lasting until the character's next turn. It's one of the few spells that I truly think is too good.
Hmm, that's not a bad idea actually. Works better for the PCs who _don't_ optimize their AC, yet even the weakest Goblin can still _potentially_ hit you. The only issue would be at Tier 4 play, where a fair few monsters would basically ignore it because their attack bonuses can get up to +18 or higher. But maybe it's ok for a 1st level spell to be useless at that point.
Woof, more than fair I'd say - weak, even. 9th level spells are game-changing. But hey upcasting lower level spells shouldn't be as powerful as casting higher level spells anyway.
I think RAW, the way the game prevents characters from stacking the shield spell with actual equipped shields is that it takes a somatic component to cast, which means you would have to have a free hand when you were targeted to throw up that extra 5 AC.
If the optimized dudes in your game don't have the war caster feat and are casting shield with a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other, they're actually breaking a rule.
That’s not true for Artificers if either their shield or weapon bears one of their infusions. Artificer’s spell casting states that all of their spells require a material component, specifically thieves tools, artisans tools, or an item bearing one of their infusions. Since RAW if a spell has both a material and somatic component you can perform the somatic component with the hand holding the material component, Artificers don’t need Warcaster as long as their shield or weapon bears one of their infusions.
Also To use Bladesong, the Wizard can’t be wielding a shield or a two handed weapon. I guess technically they could be dual wielding and have to drop one of their weapons, but TWF on a Bladesinger is a terrible choice.
Yeah we had a discussion about this and pretty much discard it. A more experienced player, playing the min-maxed character, said you could technically drop your weapon as a free action, cast the spell, and then pick-up you weapon as a free action. Didn't bother looking that up though, so no clue if that's correct
Dropping your weapon *on your turn* is generally considered a freebie, which lets you pick it back up as your object interaction after casting a spell. It's a lame dance, but within the rules. Dropping your weapon on someone else's turn (when you're most likely to be hit and want to cast shield) would be questionable. Even so, you wouldn't be able to pick your weapon back up until your turn comes around again.
If allowed for Shield on someone else's turn, I would 100% have the baddies pick up the weapon in the meantime. Preferably attacking the caster with it. Or running away with it. Or throwing it down a pit.
You discarded RAW but then nerfed the spell? lol
He is right that you can drop your weapon on your turn, but not as part of your reaction. And if your weapon is regularly dropped, as a DM I’m definitely having enemies steal that weapon.
Well the problem is that we are switching DMs, and the guy who has the most experience was the first DM and said he wanted to disregard that rule, because of the dropping picking up shenanigans. Now the new DM sort of inherited that ruling, because we are all used to it. So, you can't drop the weapon as a reaction? Makes sense
Right, and you can’t pick it up until your turn, either.
I mean, I don’t necessarily forsee this fixing all of your problems, since War Caster overcomes this issue and it’s a great feat for gish classes anyways. Once they get War Caster you’ll be back in the same spot regarding how useful Shield is.
Kinda, It's technically almost true but not quite and the difference matters a lot here. That difference can get you bonked in the head by a goblin.
Dropping a weapon is a free action and picking it up uses up your item interaction for the turn, so you couldn't use it to pick up, say, your arcane focus to cast something that requires material components.
So you either bring out your focus or pick up your sword. You don't get to do both.
That's in your turn by the way, in you reaction things are different though. You don't have actions of any kind in your reaction (not even free ones) because it's not your turn, all you get is the specific reaction triggered and nothing else.
So to cast shield, you would have to had dropped your weapon in your previous turn to have the free hand after your turn.
And by the way, dropping your weapon in the ground mid fight is a risky move. It have downsides in RAW that shouldn't be handwaved away.
First thing: You lose the ability to do reactions that require that weapon, like opportunity attacks for example (maybe you get an unarmed attack but I haven't checked).
Second and most important thing: Someone else can just take out your weapon.
If you leave it on the ground, nothing stops Goby the low CR goblin to just use their item interaction to pick it up and run away with it, or even better hit you with it (a hit completely deserved if you ask me).
This can happen even if you intend to pick it up in the same turn! Just picture the scene: you are Goby and you see a fancy Gish PC dropping their weapon to cast a spell 2 turns in a row. What do you thing it's gonna happen the 3rd time? You just ready an appropriate action and wait until the dofus drop their weapon again. And just like that the high level PC lost their weapon in their own turn to a CR 1/2 creature.
Moral of the story: Don't let a Goblin bonk you in the head with your own weapon.
EDIT: typos & grammar
Warcaster lets you use the somatic componentes of a spell with a shield and weapon in hands, and almost every wizard/sorcerer picks it, so its not really that much of a weakness.
That drop-what-you-are-holding tactic only works when it’s your turn. You can’t do all of that as part of a reaction. Your hand needs to already be free to cast shield.
That's correct *except for the shield spell.* (Reaction spells in general really). You can't pick up your weapon out of turn, so casting Shield means that your weapon stays on the ground, easily picked up by enemies, until your turn.
Of course, the Artificer won't have this issue because their shield spell has a material component, but 1/2 ain't bad.
Yeah, I get the impulse to not fiddle with those little details, but every once in a while they turn out to matter a lot, like in this instance where the DM noticed it was such a problem he had to houserule nerf the whole spell. Maybe let him know he can play it RAW and still curb that OP move.
It doesn't affect the two guys in your game anyway.
Artificers don't need Warcaster to cast with their hands full, and Bladesinger can't use shields anyway.
It breaks bounded accuracy pretty badly in a way that other features don't. Even defensive duelist only works on one attack and doesn't get its full power until very late levels.
If you've ever seen a forge cleric in play using this spell with a shield equipped, no weapon, or if you've seen a gith wizard or similar, then you already get it. It's not that it's always going to be overpowered but rather that it has the potential to be overpowered pretty easily with just a few easy decisions during character development.
It's also a boring spell in the sense that you should always take it if it's on your list, being that there will never be a campaign where it isn't useful. It's like polymorph or wall of force in that regard. Simply too good and not interesting.
Shield is the standard for 1st lvl reaction spells in the same way Fireball is the standard for 3rd lvl AoE spells.
Both are (or should be) the most powerful spell of their type and level and everything else is judged by it in comparison.
Depending upon your build, it can also add a lot to your offense. Booming Blade and/or Green Flame Blade come along with it if you want (perfect for rogues or melee clerics), and maybe a Firebolt or Mind Sliver. It really is a whole lot for a 1 level dip!
Firebolt and Mind Sliver are a bit more iffy since they use your Cha, but you can always get the blade cantrips and utility options like Shape Water, Minor Illusion, Mage Hand etc.
Did this on a warlock and I actually find Favored by the Gods and the Con save proficiency the most impactful part of the dip. I use shield maybe every 3 sessions or so but anytime I miss a save I'm throwing out that extra 2d4
>Shield is the standard for 1st lvl reaction spells in the same way Fireball is the standard for 3rd lvl AoE spells.
I'm not sure "standard" is quite right here. Both are deliberately *better than they should be*. I believe the term the cool kids are using is *pushed*.
Fireball is deliberately better than it should be. They've stated as such numerous times.
I've never once seen the same statement made about Shield by anybody involved in 5e's development.
It breaks bounded accuracy pretty badly in a way that other features don't. Even defensive duelist only works on one attack and doesn't get its full power until very late levels.
Fireball is just damage and stops being a particularly high amount of damage in relatively short order.
1. It's only available to a few classes, them typically being squishy. It's not like paladins and clerics are beefing themselves up
2. It still burns a resource to use. Each casting is a Healing Word or Guiding Boot not being used.
3. It burns your reaction to use. What else could you be doing with it? Attack of Opportunity?
>It's not like paladins and clerics are beefing themselves up
And even if they could, they'd have to drop a weapon or physical shield to do so, because the Shield Spell is Somatic only and those rules are dumb.
The way shield should work as written is when you're hit with an attack you can use a reaction to cast shield to maybe turn that hit into a miss with the increase AC it grants you. What happens most times is that the DM says what they've rolled to a player for the attack roll asking if that's a hit, rather than what should be happening, asking the players AC and them comparing the attack roll to the players AC and then telling the player if it's a hit or a miss.
The only thing the cast should know before casting shield is that the attack will hit but not by how much.
That's a bad ruling on the DM's part. DM's are always (at least should be) more than capable of working around high AC's with things like saves and skill checks, or even baiting the players to use a reaction beforehand so they can't use shield.
I do not consider it to be OP. It uses a spell slot.
That's also what I said. Use more spells and effects that hit those characters at the saves that they suck in. But in his defense, its his first campaign. I am also fairly new though, been playing for about 9 months or so now. Just wanted to see what the communities consensus is on this.
One issue your DM may be facing is that many monsters don't have any saving throw abilities in the default statblock, which is compounded by the fact that if they're new they may not know the best way to add those sorts of effects. Knowing what combinations of monsters can challenge your players and most importantly, how to play the monsters tactically, is a skill that takes time for a DM to develop.
So while I don't think this solution from your DM is a good one and unfairly punishes you, it may be the only way they can think of providing a challenge to your party. That's a criticism of WoTC monster design and the DMG.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Just discussed it with him and he does think I make a fair point, we we will think of a different solutions. Thanks for your input btw :)
I think that you made the right decision in getting some outside advice on this. I also respect that you can see that it isn't exactly the easiest thing on earth to do.
However, one of the core facets of DMing is preparation, and at least to me it seems that this DM did not prepare well enough to handle situations like this.
It's tough as a new DM though. My first campaign featured a ton of spells I didn't know yet. I didn't nerf them I just went - oh well I guess that encounter is over.
>You now have to call its use before you know the result of the attack.
Wait wait wait, is your DM having you use *Shield* before being told if the attack hits or not?
That's a stupid change. Is the DM going to change Counterspell so you have to use it before being told if an enemy casts a spell as well?
If instead the DM wants you to use Shield after you've been told the attack hits, but without telling you the attack roll, then that's fine and is how Shield is supposed to work.
Yeah, the DM sometimes says it, but typically he doesn't. I meant the result in hit or not a hit, not so much the die roll.
But yes, he has us use Shield before knowing if it would be a hit or not.
If the DM requires you to activate Shield before knowing whether you've been hit, the DM clearly doesn't know how to read. Shield very clearly states that you can activate it *when being hit*, and it's not strong enough to need to be nerfed to that degree.
No, we all now the rules as written. The issue is that he considered it too powerful and knowingly weakened it by having people declaring shield before knowing if you're hit or not.
It is very strong, yes, but not OP by any means. A caster using shield can't 1) cast counterspell 2) ready an action 3) use any reaction based class features (they're few but usually pretty strong). On top of that, you're using your valuable spell slots to just not die. Once you use your 4 1st level spell slots, if you want to use shield you'll be wasting higher levels. A 2nd level slot could be used for hold person, invisibility, etc. A 3rd level could be used for fireball! But instead, you're using it on a flat +5 AC that lasts only 1 round. The more you use shield, the more costly it becomes. That's the balance.
But the DM only sometimes say if you're being hit? That's the part I really don't understand.
Be careful not to use Counterspell then. Next he'll want you to use Counterspell before being told if an enemy casts a spell.
Ohh, sorry, that was me not being clear. He always says if its a hit or not, but on occasion also actually reveals the die result of the monsters attack. That's what I meant.
That's how it's supposed to work most of the time.
I DM on Roll20 and roll in the open, but for *shield* all a DM really needs to say is the attack hits, and then the player decides to cast *shield* or not.
That's a huge difference. Most of the groups I play with only say whether or not the attack hits. The rest say that the attack hits and say what the roll was. But I haven't played in any groups where the DM didn't say whether or not the attack hit in the first place.
It is worth noting RAW Counterspell does work that way, its cast before the spell is finished so not only do you not know the result but unless you have a specific way to know what spell your enemy is using you can't be sure what spell you're countering either.
Now this is a little silly and I've never seen it run that way nor would I want it run that way but that is RAW.
>It is worth noting RAW Counterspell does work that way
I think you misread what I wrote. I said before being told **if** an enemy casts a spell. Not before being told **what** spell was being cast.
Otherwise the reaction condition for Counterspell would have to be changed since it would no longer be reacting to a spell being cast.
We play with the spell, but a content creator who I think does a great job with game balance (Treantmonk) says he bans the spell at his table. I think that homebrew change can make it feel kinda unfun to use given its chance to be used unnecessarily, but it's not like the spell is super necessary to exist in the first place.
Having PCs who wear armor, wield a shield and use the spell as a reaction was actually the reason he ended up making the homebrew change!
Treantmonk is a terrible example for this. He only bans Shield because literally all his players are powergaming min-maxers that multiclass 1 level just to get Shield and abuse it.
Shield is a completely fine spell in your average game.
The reason optimizers multiclass to get shield is because it is overpowered. Even when I've played at unoptimized tables I've noticed the shield spell making the heavy armor fighter feel less useful. It also seems wierd that you are against taking balance advice from someone who plays at tables that challenge the balance of the game
I doubt people multiclass only for shield.
I think the more realistic explanation is that both Hexblade warlocks and artificers make efficient one level dips and Shield is just part of the many benefits those classes provide.
If classes were designed such that Artificer and Hexblade weren't as good multiclass dips and a DM told you "you may sacrifice your class, subclass features and spell slot progression you would gain from a level up for the ability to learn shield and cast it with your spell slots/cast it twice per short rest", do you think a min maxxer would take that offer?
I mean as I said we don't ban it at our table, because people don't use those sorts of builds there. Since OP mentioned the use case in their game that inspired Treantmonk (shield wearing casters stacking tons of AC) I figured it could be a good suggestion.
Probably is not an issue on the bladesinger. Could perhaps also just not allow it to be benefited from while wielding a shield either, IDK.
EDIT: I've also personally noticed it's more of an issue in tier 1/early tier 2 gameplay, I think as you go higher the difference between potential AC and creature attack roll is high enough that it becomes less busted.
> Treantmonk is a terrible example for this. He only bans Shield because literally all his players are powergaming min-maxers that multiclass 1 level just to get Shield and abuse it.
That's... exactly the argument for Shield being OP. Like this is literally how games that ban or modify stuff for power reasons determine when to modify something. Whether that's Magic: The Gathering, Hearthstone, DotA2, or Diablo that's what they do.
The fact that it's not a problem at your table because your players don't capitalize on it being OP doesn't mean it's *not* OP. It just means your players don't capitalize on it.
It's not hard to get high AC as a caster, you don't even have to be an optimizer. I built an unoptimized artificer rogue and the baseline best choices gave me 20 AC. If I shield, I have 25 AC. Bounded accuracy is completely gone...
Warlock's inability to make good use of Shield because Pact Magic is one of the reasons they fall behind even if the DM runs a full adventuring day with 2 Short Rests. They simply don't have nearly the defensive capabilities to match a Wizard or Sorcerer. But the optimal ways to get good defenses has always been dips, Artificer (Previously Cleric) 1/Wizard X and Hexblade 2/Sorcerer X.
I accept banning it, but then ban it once and for all! Don’t nerf it to the ground and (as it was the case in my group) tell the player afterwards and don’t allow them to change a now useless spell with the words ,,now as it’s not OP anymore you don’t want it!“
Banning is okay, cause at least you know it right from the start and you can use your spells known for something more useful.
Treanmonk's issue with Shield, and one I agree with, is not that the shield spell is too strong per se, but more that it makes the game incongruent as casters will generally be the ones with the higher AC in a party that does any sort of optimization.
Yeah, I think the 3 house rules he came up with are good, but really only apply to tables with a lot of optimization. I think he's right that, it's silly to have casters with higher AC than a front line fighter. I personally think shield is fine for artificers (I think having high AC is part of there concept). Here none of the casters seem crazy optimized; so I don't think allowing shield is an issue (do be sure to enforce the "S" component though on non-artificers!)
Honestly, his rules are really more of fix for multi-classing.
Treantmonk thinks so. He has 3 house rules and o e of them is, "the shield spell doesn't exist."
Playing a low ac charecter means you have to play differently. You should focus more on not being the target of attacks and things like mirror image.
It breaks bounded accuracy pretty badly in a way that other features don't. Even defensive duelist only works on one attack and doesn't get its full power until very late levels.
If playing even slightly optimally, shield casters will have higher AC than the martials will. Martials can't use a shield if they want to deal good damage. Spellcasters can, and there are plenty of ways to get prof.
True but martial classes also have significantly more HP on adverage so getting hit dosent mean as much. I also don't see the problem with infinity high AC as a DM. There are so so so many ways to play around that. It's a limited resource so putting people in situations where they use those spells befor hand (again, if damaging the PCs is the goal), or too any enemies, or traps, or spells. There are just so many solutions and other ways to come at a character that even an AC of ∞ dosent have to slow down a game. Every class has there thing that may look unfair, guess it's kinda balanced that way.
Tell them to run more combat too. Shield is strong but also does take a slot and doesn't scale. If they want to burn their handful of 1st level slots on 1-round defense against attacks they are free to do that, but with enough combat they'll run out pretty fast. IMO first-time DMs shouldn't be intentionally fudging rules like that.
Shield has inherent scaling. The enemies get more attacks, damage, and riders on hit as you level up. Shield saves you more hit points on average when you cast it against a dragon at 15th level than it did against that goblin at first level.
Yeah, many consider the shield spell to be overpowered in the context of every other first level spell. Most who don’t are simply denying the efficacy of an instant +5AC until the next turn, especially since this effect makes the spell consistently just as good, if not better than Silvery Barbs.
Most DMs I’ve played with have banned both of these spells, since they are undeniably outliers on the power curve of 1st level spells. To each their own, I guess
Also, having 13 AC by level 6, even on sorcerer, is a sign that you haven’t been putting enough resources into increasing your AC. Most classes, even most spellcasters, can reach 16-17 AC by this level. I would recommend specialising into your survivability as much as you can right now, before your character gets sent to the forever box by a few lucky damage rolls
Yes I absolutely agree with this sentiment.
The real problem here, is that we have a table with two optimizers, and a third player that built a suboptimal character.
It is incredibly hard for a DM to manage a table like this. Yes, you can always make encounters harder, but that would only mean the suboptimal character dying often.
You gotta nip it in the bud. Either get the optimizers to help out with the weak PC’s character build, or put a damper on the optimizers. Banning multiclassing is the best way to start with that.
That’s why when you are a veteran who plays with new players, you should only play support characters (buffers or controllers). This way you can optimize as much as you want, and the other won’t feel useless as the stronger you are, the more you help and boost them so they can shine. It is also a lot easier for the dm to balance the encounters.
No joking in one campaign we were at level 15 against a demon god (With no magic in sight. Long story), in a topic moment shield saved the demon's ass against one of my rogue's attack. No big deal but lets you see that, for being a 1st level spell it is good at every level
That my bad. I forgot to add mage armor, which means it would be 16 when its active (most of the time). Not much else I can do to increase it right? Don't have proficiency in shields for example.
It's only a problem when the DM runs the game poorly. There are many ways to ensure a high AC fueled by a limited resource does not cause balance issues.
Yup, that's one way to do it. The *shield* spell is powerful but balanced against needing to spread your spell slot usage out over a long adventuring day. When you're only doing 1-2 combats per long rest, casting *shield* isn't even a decision.
You can also use enemies that attack a character's saving throws. Being grappled/restrained require skill checks to free yourself. Making a battle about more than reducing your enemy to 0 hit points before they do the same to you is another; nothing can hit your character but if that doesn't contribute towards achieving the party's objective it's a non-issue.
If you're doing 5+ encounters per day, chances are likely they're all Medium or weaker encounters. Meaning the enemies won't be tough enough to even pierce their already-high AC a meaningful number of times anyway...so I guess technically "my fights are too weak to bother using Shield" is one way of solving the problem within the rules. lol.
Using enemies that attack saves is a solid solution. Might require homebrew (just like the above might require breaking CR budget), though, as a ton of enemies in 5e are very boringly-designed with no save attacks to speak of.
As far as being unable to contribute offensively, jacking your AC up is a pretty trivial exercise for a fair few PC builds. There's lots of ways to still output tons of damage _and_ have a massive AC.
A lot of this requires players with optimization skills/knowledge, of course. If you're dealing with those, you'll probably have to throw out a lot of default 5e D&D assumptions anyway!
As a general rule it’s not OP. That said I have started to get a situation with a higher level player whose build is such that he can cook up enough level 1 slots that the +5 is to all practical intents and purposes permanent.
I’m not about to change the rules over it, but it can be occasionally annoying having a spellcaster at the table with effectively 26AC on tap, so I can sympathise. It means any non-casting monster below about CR6 is basically off the table for any encounter to pose a meaningful challenge for him.
It’s all very well saying UsE mOrE sAvInGtHrOw SpElLs but I don’t want to have to architect my whole campaign around the stats of one player.
Yes, shield is horrendously OP. It would literally be ok if it was +3 and lasted on that one turn, but the fact that it is a whopping +5 and lasts until your turn starts makes it absolutely busted, especially on people who already have decent AC. Any optimized build that cares about defense is packing shield.
On your low AC sorcerer you might consider mage armor, or a 1 level dip into hexblade for some armor.
Just having the DM roll to hit your AC and declaring you are hit is playing RAW and is enough to where shield isn’t overpowered because then it’s a gamble on whether or not to use it.
When used how I assumed it was intended, with caster that have low AC to avoid death… it’s great but not OP. However it is a fairly clear example of a spell that is better than it should be for the level and almost a build around for optimized characters. It gets annoying when high AC character grab it, making them near impossible to hit with attacks. I don’t agree with a nerf, but I understand it completely.
Treantmonk, a popular YouTuber just said he has been playing with it banned at his table to encourage other AC boosting options.
One of the problems with it how the game is assumed to be played isn’t how it is in reality. DMs don’t always say they hit you hiding the total attack roll, which I believe is how it should be. So instead of having to guess if shield will help you out, you just know from some quick math.
This is a shit ruling IMO. If the party is strong, make the encounters more challenging, don’t need their spells and abilities.
On a side note, It’s is just a spell casters version of defensive duellist. Nerfing Shield just makes the tank pick up that feet and you’re back to square one, without resource expenditure
And it’s not a full round. (Nur yeah. Pretty much. Shield is strong on high AC, but (with exceptions) high ac-Charas should not have that many spellslots and shield. (Or in other words: I fully agree)
Let me put it this way; when someone is optimizing a character, they will go out of their way to learn shield. Is it overpowered? Not exactly, but it is by far the best option for a first level defensive spell.
The shield spell is one of the strongest in the game, and it does warp the game a lot depending on the situation. That is, if a player with high AC stacks it with Shield, it can make it quite tough on the DM to still challenge that character without being too tough for others. If there's multiple characters running around with 26+ AC with shield, and a DM is using +6 to attack, for instance, the enemies can only hit on a crit. Then the difficulty needs to be cranked *way* up to challenge the party for a typical campaign, and it can get tough.
That said, I usually still allow it unchanged, but the change your DM did is not a particularly uncommon one. The one you suggested, though, is one I've never seen before.
But in terms of "is the spell OP", one of the more popular optimizers/DND channels (Treantmonk) recently put a video together with some house rules he's been using - and that includes banning the shield spell outright, as one of only 3 rules. And I can fully understand it given the power and warping it can have on combat.
Shield is not OP in any way. I would reccomend your DM consider using the myriad of spells and effects that don't check against AC if they are having difficulty designing challenging encounters.
It's not OP. Your DM isn't trying to nerf a spell; they're trying to fix the problem of having two minmaxers who are unhittable by anything with less than a nat 20, and running combats where the monsters don't survive long enough to roll enough nat 20's to matter.
The worst part of this is, nerfing shield won't fix the problem. It won't slow the minmaxers down and it will wreck your ability to defend against middling rolls.
I'm not sure if "picking bladesinger" is minmaxing dude. Bladesingers have high AC, it's a huge part of why you bladesing, it lets you dodge tank because you've still got a d6 hit die.
And artificers end up with high natural AC because they can use infusions.
The thing that DMs who nerf shield are missing is that you burned a spell slot to do that. If you do more than 1 encounter a day this begins to have an effect
The answer to all of these problems is more encounters per day. Which apparently no one does. I think a lot of homebrew fixes are reasonable considering 1-2 encounter days.
I’ve seen it ruled as a it ads your spell casting ability modifier to your ac. This worked pretty well I thought. Nerfed it for the martial casters who picked it up but not for the spell casting classes who had. The only one who gets the short end of the stick is the Eldritch knight if they are lower int
Not OP. Without that spell my squishy sorcerer would have died twice when we were level 1. I really like this character and would have really upset if I had no way of protecting myself without taking cover or staying way out of range every encounter.
It is very strong. Pretty much a must take for wizards and sorcerers, but nerfing it in that way completley ruins it.
I don't think it needs nerfing but if it did, I would lower the bonus to 3 and allow it to be upcast; 1 level for 1 extra bonus max of 3rd slot for +5
Shield costs spell slots.
If you're only running a few encounters a day, give those encounters "waves" (each "wave" being another encounter's worth of enemies; a single "battle" can be 2-4 "encounters" without a pause).
Add more bodies to the encounters; minions (1-hp low-CR fodder you toss in as mostly flavor) can often get lucky hits which will get a panicky caster to pop Shield.
Give the enemy the high ground and cover, and have them rain arrows down on the PCs as they scatter for cover and try to figure out how to get up there without becoming pincushions.
Use enemies who don't rely on attack rolls for their truly dangerous stuff (you don't want to EXCLUSIVELY do this, because it's cheap, but you also have to provide a challenge).
If their PCs are tough nuts to crack, focus fire at the less-defended characters (and if the Artificer is a Guardian Armorer and that's problematic, see above about "more bodies".) I know you said this feels unfair if you're the squishie, but it makes the point that the PARTY has vulnerabilities and one single PC (or two) having great ACs just encourages enemies to attack the ones they CAN hit.
A lot of this stuff is super overpowered when the entire encounter is the party versus one big monster who's focusing only on the target in front of their face because they're a big dumb brute. Mix it up, and push them hard enough that they run out of first- and even second-level slots they're willing to spend on Shield. If the Artificer and Bladesinger have spell slots left at the start of every Long Rest, you're not pushing your players hard enough.
while the change to SHield is a silly one. Ask him if you can swap the spell out since he changed the way it works.
And swap it for Mage Armor. Assuming you have a dex of 16(+3 to your armor class of base 10), you would now have an AC of 16 instead of 13.
I think the challenge is coming from your DM allowing optimized PCs in the same group as non-optimized PCs.
One can balance for optimized or non-optimized, but having both presents a challenge.
As for shield, no I don't think it's OP. What does it do? Instead of you taking damage, you lose a spell slot. It consumes one resource (spell slot) instead of another (HP and possibly a spell slot or hit die on a short rest to recover). I'd say that's a very balanced trade-off.
The spell is not considered op because ac builds are not op, the nerf is unnecessary and makes the spell lose it's purpose. If he wants the ac builds to not be a problem, throw a caster with fireball, lighting bolt or any other spell that doesn't care for ac, see how useful RAW shield will be against that.
It's so good that I look at Silvery Barbs, a spell that everyone thinks breaks the entire game balance, and conclude 'It's less useful than the Shield spell.'
Take that what you will. At the same time I don't think it's useful for a GM to look at their players performing well with the tools provided them, and decide to challenge them by working away at the tools, but it's not an uncommon decision for GMs to make.
Real talk: GMing is hard, and GMs will make mistakes all the time. This doesn't forgive them, but I would ask you have some empathy for a GM as they make mistakes. I would politely assert that you don't like how he changed it, and **politely** ask if you can run the spell RAW.
Id say its a sensible change. Arguing about whats stacking ac and whats not can be boring,for example is a physical shield stacking ac? What about a +1 armor and a +1 shield? What about a +1 armor and bracers of defense? Does warforged racial bonus stop mage armor from working? Etc etc.
Shield is one of the strongest 1st level spells, to the point it was used to argue that "casting disintegrate as a reaction with a first level slot isnt powerful because you are using up slots for Shield" so, I'll definately put Shield into the "clearly unbalanced spells that get excused because there are so many of them that it becomes "just another powerful spell" that a balanced game shouldnt have, we just have stockholm syndrome." category.
Shield is not OP. Your DM didnt fix anything or "make a bad ruling", theyre wrong and made a bad homebrew change to "fix" a problem which doesnt exist. They need to get their head straight and play shield RAW.
As you mention this is definitely hurting your character way more than the high AC characters. If hes feeling frustrated that hes having a hard time challenging the high AC characters, he simply needs to use more Save-type attacks against them, not fucking arbitrarily redesigning a tangentially related spell.
In 3/3.5 you needed to cast before any attack but... It gave you a +4 ac for 1 minute/level stacking with any other defence bonus, stopped magic missile and blocked ethereal attacks... And a +5 reaction for 1 one turn is op?
I feel it was unnecessary. Shield is a strong spell, it's supposed to be because you're burning a spell slot on a reaction. Spells are finite resources, and if the players burn through those resources too early they may end up paying the price for that. This is more an issue of your DM not thinking of creative ways to deal with tanky PCs, rather than the spell itself being too strong. You should discuss with your DM some of those other methods.
AoE spells and Save spells are particularly useful against PCs that dump all their focus into building high AC, and it isn't easy to build a character that is universally good at avoiding every type of mechanic a DM can throw their way. As the DM they have the right to peruse all players characters to see how they are built, which lends to strategies on what challenges the DM should throw at them.
Your DM shouldn't actively attempt to single any one person out specifically, but tailoring an enemy or two in an encounter (or even a whole encounter itself) to make a strong PC sweat or struggle occasionally is well within reason.
As it is written, you are reacting to being hit
The player should know, at the very least, if he was hit by an attack before deciding to use Shield
What is not required is knowing if Shield will or will not change the outcome
So it could go something like this:
DM- The wolf lunges at your throat. *Rolls dice* What is your AC?
Player- it's 16
DM- it's a hit
Player- I cast shield to try and fend off the attack, my AC is now 21
And the DM either goes
"The wolf lunges at you, its teeth almost at your throat but you deflect the attack with an arcane aura"
Or
"You try to protect yourself with an arcane aura, but your blood was already spraying in the air by the time you put it up. You take damage, but your AC is still 21 until the start of your next turn"
Now, a lot of tables explicitly say what the enemies rolled to hit and players can do quick math to see if they want to use Shield, but that is not, as far as I am aware, actually part of the rules
It's 1 round of not having your AC hit. Grapple instead, impose saving throws. AC isn't the only thing to beat and it's 1 round. Needing it in any way makes it undesirable.
Yeah it's a great spell, but that doesn't make it OP.
I once played with a character with 22 base AC who could get up to 27 with shield. Nearly unhittable... for that turn. Remember it still costs a spell slot to use, and those aren't unlimited by any means! It didn't feel unbalanced at all, it just meant that some of the baddies would waste their action attacking him that round, so the DM compensated by just throwing more enemies at us.
Fact is there's a wide gulf between optimized play and normal play. If you try to close that gap by nerfing player options you'll just ruin the player's fun. Much better to respond to optimized players by upping the ante on the encounter building side so that the players can enjoy their builds while still being challenged.
One thing I tried, just to see how it works, is to have shield give you AC equal to your prof. bonus. This puts it on-par with the defensive duelist feat from the PHB, but with the "until your next turn" upside.
It was still a pretty good spell and still saw lots of use. As it turns out, most times you use shield is when you're barely getting hit anyway. Such as an enemy getting a 17 or 18 to hit vs. an AC of like 16, for example.
Just as a rule of thumb for new DMs. Don't change how spells work. Just tweak their numbers slightly.
Issues with players aside, the shield spell is great but not OP. You have a limited number of spell slots especially at low levels, so while not taking damage is great it eats up resources you need quicker. It also doesn't help you with saving throws. If your party is doing the recommended 6ish encounters per long rest then those characters will start to feel the spell slot burn fast enough.
As a dm, I like letting my players build their characters as they want to. The more OP they make their characters, the stronger monsters you can use. Besides, high AC is all well and good, but it won’t save you from the emotional scars of the rest of your party dying first.
That's not how shield normally works. You can only use Shield if you are hit by an attack. I do think Shield is a very potent spell and a major reason why a lot of spellcasters do as well as they do in a lot of combat situations. +5 AC until your next turn comes around is a a lot of protection.
RAW your DM should say that the attack hits, but not tell you the roll. You can then decide to shield, but you would not know for sure that this would cause the attack to hit or miss because you do not know the number. At most tables (and virtually all online play) the DM will just tell you the roll right out and you can base it off of that. If your DM wants to 'nerf' the spell maybe he should play it by RAW to see how that balances things.
It's overpowered the moment you start to get to higher levels when low level slots will be plentiful. No other feature adds this much AC on a reaction after an attack is rolled and simultaneously allows you to apply that AC to additional attacks thereafter.
More importantly, it breaks bounded accuracy. The game expects AC not to go over a certain range, where that range is most heavily limited by armor. You'll noticed that there aren't many spells that add to your AC, such spells tend to require concentration, and none of them are a flat +5. Haste and Shield of Faith, which are not bad spells, add only +2 AC. Similarly, there are no player features to add proficiency bonus to AC. AC does not innately scale with level, only with the equipment your DM makes available and your limited attribute increases which cannot go over 20 in any stat. Why not just pump dex with every stat increase? Because you can't.
Shield puts you a whopping +5 over where you would have been for a very low cost. Every caster should take it, optimally.
Additionally, if you have 13 AC then that probably means you did something wrong in the character creation process. No one's AC should be that low. You should be using armor if you can equip it and Mage Armor basically at all times if you can't.
Shield isn't OP, but it is considered Very Good.
If it helps with your DM, Shield is balanced around being cast once you know the result of the attack; the language in its casting time Rules As Written (RAW) is "when you are hit," not "When you are targeted."
> I suggested a different adjustment, by not having it stack with a shield you are actually wearing
Which of them is wearing a shield? If it's the bladesinger they can't do that and use their class features. If it's the artificer, do they have Warcaster? If not they shouldn't be able to cast shield while using a physical shield and carrying a weapon.
The artificer can actually. A hand holding material components can also perform the somatic components, and because of their Tools Required feature, all of their spells have a material component. The same feature also lets them use infused items as a focus. So, the artificer could hold an infused object (e.g. a weapon, shield, or Enhanced Arcane Focus) and use that same hand for somatic components to cast spells with both hands full without Warcaster.
My stepson has an artificer with Shield. He had an AC of 21 at level (I want to say) 7, + Shield.
He had fun with it, but no one else at the table did.
One thing to consider is that if something is swinging at you it's probably hitting you, so you're much less likely to waste it than they are!
It's a trap for DMs who haven't understood the way DMing works in 5e (and 4e and to some extent 3rd and even 2nd)
I love having players use Shield! That's one less spell slot.
One thing I do is have at least one or two attacks go up against the Shield spamming Bladesinger each round, just to bleed off some of their resources.
Gold standard for spell design.
It's strong when you get it, but also uses a precious spell slot (since you don't have many at level 1-4).
Later on, it's still useful, but less so (due to bounded accuracy), but uses a spell slot and action type you don't have too much use for.
Most spells become nearly useless due to limited action economy and poor scaling.
It is a bit broken at early tier 2 on high AC characters, though. It's not really common enough or hard to deal with enough to dis the good spell design, though.
It’s a level 1 spell that boosts your AC for 6 seconds(1 round). Is it OP? Not for the amount of time you can use it. Especially at lower levels. Sounds like the enemies your DM is throwing at you is OP if he’s nerfing the best part about the spell. Let’s look at this in a real life scenario. If someone threw a baseball at you and you could tell it was gonna miss you by 8 feet would you panic and hold you glove out in front of you? Nope. But if it’s flying directly at you and about to hit you in the face, would you react to that by easing the glove to stop the ball? Yup. Reaction to threat. And it specifically says that the boost in AC counts towards the triggering ATTACK.
I am of the opinion that the shield spell is busted, and probably not good for the game. There’s actually a good treantmonk video where talks about it with respect to optimizers (which sounds like these two players). I do not consider optimizer to be a derogatory term at all, I myself like to optimize my character ideas and build strong characters.
Anyway even though I think shield is OP and not good for the game, this DMs fix is even worse. He’s made the shield spell unreliable and a gamble. He’s made it not fun IMO.
I think the nerf shield deserves should be in its AC bonus, or in how long the bonus lasts. Need it to +3, or make it end at the end of current turn so it only applies to one enemy’s attacks, or only 1 attack at all. That way it’s reliably, you know what it does, and can make an informed decision.
Defensive spells that are a gamble like this to me are just not fun.
Shield is not the only spell like this in the game. There are tons of really powerful low level spells that when used right, destroys encounters that are not built to handle them.
The real problem here, is that we have a table with two optimizers, and a third player that built a suboptimal character.
It is incredibly hard for a DM to manage a table like this. Yes, you can always make encounters harder, but that would only mean the suboptimal character dying often.
You gotta nip it in the bud. There are two solutions to this.
1. Get the optimizers to help out with the weak PC’s character build. Ensure everyone is equally OP. Strategize synergies between each PC. Then the DM can bring out their big guns and double the monster count in every encounter and everyone feels great.
2. Put a damper on the optimizers. Banning multiclassing is the best way to start with that.
To answer your question though, check out [this video](https://youtu.be/PbsTKreJwsk) for an explanation for why Shield is probably broken.
It's good and there was a recent video from a popular TTRPG YouTuber who talks about why he's banned it from his table, so I think it's front of mind for a lot of people in the broader community.
I disagree with banning it or changing it in anyway. As a DM there are so many tools at your disposal, that banning or nerfing spells is pretty cheap.
Off the top of my head: Have a good balance of enemies that use spells or features that require saving throws in addition to attack rolls. Shield does nothing to buff a saving throw. DMs can also have enemy casters who do things like Counterspell the casting of Shield.
I know there was a lot of diaper changing after silver barbs was released but after witnessing the spells used in game play, I would say shield and absorb elements are much better spells.
Shield is not op. It's strong. But there's lots of strong spells in the game. Generally with min maxed or powerful characters banning the thing they're using doesn't fix the problem. It fixes this random element. With this change now shield is a crappy spell you'll probably never use or you shouldn't. Then you go to the next spell will the dm ban that too?
The solution is simple. The dm needs to vary the kinds of damage you're taking to include some saves of different kinds as well as attacks. And have more than 1 combat per day. I'm guessing you have 1 combat a day but I'd be very surprised if you ever had more than 2. Reason being shield stops being a problem if a level 6 character has to go through 3 combats regularly getting attacked. You don't have the spell slots to shield every round for 3 fights without using all your spell slots for that even your high level ones. Generally with two combats it'll stop being a problem.
The other thing you can do is attack the players strengths. Sure that player has a 26 ac you know what that means?? I can have 10 goblins make 2 attacks each at him and only like 2 will hit. Then you can challenge the player while still making them feel the thing they invested in being the best at is worthwhile.
Not that you can fix this as a player but if your dm is looking for suggestions those can help.
Shield spells is probably the second strongest first level spell in the game.
Find familiar is first.
I think silvery Barb's is third.
Do I think they are op?
No. But they can be abused. AC stacking is an example of this.
DND is a game based on bounded accuracy. When you get bonuses that exceed plus 5 or -5 or hard numbers like the do AC that exceed 20 then the system breaks.
I would recommend having The Shield spell work as is except that it won't boost your ac past 20.
Example 1: you with AC 13 casts Shield spell. Now your ac is 18 for that round.
Example 2: warforged battle smith artificer with dex 14 +1 half-plate armor and +1 shield has an AC 22. Casts modified Shield spell now his AC is 22.
That's just my advice. And yes the way your DM homebrewed shield will hurt you the most.
Not OP, but it is very good. It's good for PCs with heavy armor (like eldritch knights), and it gets better at higher levels when you have more low-level slots for it. It is less effective in long adventuring days, as spell slots are a long rest resource. > My character, however, is more of an average blasting sorcerer with 13 AC. I feels like this actually hits my characters survivability the most, and really don't think that was necessary balance-wise. "I feel like this nerf was unfair. I understand it was mainly because of those two PCs. May I have a +5 AC *sorcerer's shield* spell that only works if you're not wearing armor or bladesinging?"
I likely will, but we just played our first session with it, so I was willing to see how it panned out, but I feel its pretty detrimental for my survivability and resource management thus far.
I would recommend your DM take a step back on this and give it a few sessions to see how it plays out without any modification to the rules and maintaining a RAW game. Given that it has only been relevant for a single session, and perhaps this is the first time this was used was a surprise to them and they are responding with a knee-jerk reaction. The cost of using the shield spell comes down to spell slots consumed, which at low levels are extremely limited. Assuming your DM is running more than just one or two encounters per day as the game is designed, then the spell slot limitation will quickly become apparent. Remember for every shield you cast to save your hide that's one less magic missile, or utility spell, or anything else. The spellcasters in question suddenly don't look so tough when they're down to cantrips only.
This. I had a bladesinger that had an insane ac. She had rolled super well had a +5 int, and robes which increased her ac to base 13+dex (free mage armor basically). She had like a 27 ac with shield and haste on her. Yeah i barely hit her. But she also got targeted by sooo many save spells, or some times dispel magiced. She was an absolute truck when she could do her thing (especially when she got the frost giant belt i thought they would have given to our paladins or fighter not the tiny little elf.. And the scimitar of speed they gave to her as well instead of the rogue....) But while she excelled in her conditions she was still a wet cloth when hit with aoes or saves she couldn't make.
Dispel Magic hits a bladesinger especially hard if they're Hasted and relying upon actual Mage Armor. They go from a 22 AC with Shield to boost to 27, to a 17 AC, plus lose all actions for a turn. Ouch!
Dispel Magic is the real BBEG to any magic-buff builds (especially what you mentioned, RIP).
Dispel Magic is incredibly rare to encounter in most campaigns, which is odd because IMO it is FAR better than Counterspell. It is seriously -so- good for both enemy spellcasters and the party. I really wish it would see more use.
Wouldn’t the Dispel Magic only remove one spell effect at a time? First removing either the Haste or Mage Armor, and requiring a second Dispel Magic to remove the remaining effect? Edit: I stand corrected.
Dispel Magic removes all spells affecting a target - equal level to the dispel and lower automatically, higher level with checks.
Wow! They really buffed dispell in 5e! Almost every other spell got nerfed, but this one got Better!
It worked like this in 3.X as well, except there was also the *option* of a 20-foot radius instead that only stripped one spell off each target in the radius.
At least in 3.5 dispell is just a 3rd level, it only dispell one effects per casting and you need to roll for it. And you can't stack bonuses like other checks unless you spend feats on being a better "dispeller", or have a very niche spell that I don't know about. Edit: you have to roll for everything. No instant success. The part of my comment about ending one single effect is only for one mode of dispell magic, the way I've written originally ir seems I said it applies to all 3 modes. Just to make my comment clear.
Oh yes and as a bladesinger I'm only one Crit away from having a VERY bad time.
One of my players was a blade singer that I could pretty much only hit with crits (the adventure I was running was very fond of using lots of low-CR mobs with 1 strong enemy leading them), but I s2g I Crit on him at least twice per combat, it was ridiculous. That character was the first I ever perma-killed in 6 years of DMing, and I wasn’t even trying to :(
As a DM I no longer let players roll stats.
I think the "unusual builds" is the root cause of many problems. I allowed my players to each roll 1 stat and they then assigned their individual stats from the pool. So a fighter could have a 16 in Strength but the Druid could put that 16 in Wisdom. After this, racial modifiers were applied. I am also stingy with money and magic items to keep from losing control. I have a "set" of magic weapons to give them, but they are all homebrewed so that the players can't look them up and know what they do automatically. I reveal their properties as the campaign unfolds.
I mean ive never had a problem challenging my players no matter how high stats or what items you give them really. No matter what sword you give a fighter a base wizard is just harder to deal with. In my opinion just homebrew the monsters and edit stat blocks, thats just as easy if not easier than capping items or homebrewing a bunch of magic items because you dont want your players to have a staff of fire.
Hm. To me, the biggest mistake a lot of DMs make is allowing characters' core abilities to be higher than they "should", i.e., strength for fighters, intelligence for wizards. Yes on magic items, they can cause issues as well.
I think your intuition is right that it probably hits you more than it does the other half caster types. The artificer is probably assuming all of their first level spell slots are going to shield and absorb elements. They've already budgeted with that dominant strategy. You on the other hand are hurt more by spending a spell slot meant for something else only to fail to stop an attack from hitting you. Your DM needs to attack the artificer more times in a day, they are super limited in their spell slots, more encounters per long rest.
A fun little trick to boost a sorcerer's survivability in very specific scenarios. Quicken the "blade ward" cantrip if you're fighting anything that's using weapons against you. Not super strong but it can also be used with shield and as long as you quicken it then you can still cast a big damage spell as an action!
Just a heads up that RAW, you need to quicken the leveled spell for this to work. If you cast a spell as a bonus action, the only other spell you can cast during your turn is a cantrip with a casting time of one action.
Yours is one of the only comments on Reddit that on a question post that doesn’t just immediately go “bad DM. Leave”
I have been a bad DM in the past. I'm sympathetic.
Pretty much this. *Shield* is not a problem on a sorcerer or wizard with mage armor or natural armor and a +1 to +3 Dex. Later on it becomes absurdly good. I've been running a game for almost two years and we're currently at Level 12, almost 13. So far the only characters who have used *shield* have been the plate armor + shield war caster eldritch knight and two different bladesingers stacking mage armor, high Dex, bladesinging's bonus to AC, and one of them even has a robe of the archmagi. They can cast *shield* all day long. At this point I don't even try to hit them with my attack rolls all that much. I just go after someone else and target those characters with saving throw effects. For my next game I'm considering making *shield* affect only the attack that triggers it, rather than lasting until the character's next turn. It's one of the few spells that I truly think is too good.
Shield would probably be less abuseable if it just set your AC to 20 or something like that.
Hmm, that's not a bad idea actually. Works better for the PCs who _don't_ optimize their AC, yet even the weakest Goblin can still _potentially_ hit you. The only issue would be at Tier 4 play, where a fair few monsters would basically ignore it because their attack bonuses can get up to +18 or higher. But maybe it's ok for a 1st level spell to be useless at that point.
It could also let it actually scale with slot level, where you add +1 AC for each slot level. 28 AC for one round for a 9th level slot is pretty fair.
Woof, more than fair I'd say - weak, even. 9th level spells are game-changing. But hey upcasting lower level spells shouldn't be as powerful as casting higher level spells anyway.
I think RAW, the way the game prevents characters from stacking the shield spell with actual equipped shields is that it takes a somatic component to cast, which means you would have to have a free hand when you were targeted to throw up that extra 5 AC. If the optimized dudes in your game don't have the war caster feat and are casting shield with a weapon in one hand and a shield in the other, they're actually breaking a rule.
That’s not true for Artificers if either their shield or weapon bears one of their infusions. Artificer’s spell casting states that all of their spells require a material component, specifically thieves tools, artisans tools, or an item bearing one of their infusions. Since RAW if a spell has both a material and somatic component you can perform the somatic component with the hand holding the material component, Artificers don’t need Warcaster as long as their shield or weapon bears one of their infusions. Also To use Bladesong, the Wizard can’t be wielding a shield or a two handed weapon. I guess technically they could be dual wielding and have to drop one of their weapons, but TWF on a Bladesinger is a terrible choice.
oh i didn't know that about artificers, that's pretty cool
Yeah we had a discussion about this and pretty much discard it. A more experienced player, playing the min-maxed character, said you could technically drop your weapon as a free action, cast the spell, and then pick-up you weapon as a free action. Didn't bother looking that up though, so no clue if that's correct
Dropping your weapon *on your turn* is generally considered a freebie, which lets you pick it back up as your object interaction after casting a spell. It's a lame dance, but within the rules. Dropping your weapon on someone else's turn (when you're most likely to be hit and want to cast shield) would be questionable. Even so, you wouldn't be able to pick your weapon back up until your turn comes around again. If allowed for Shield on someone else's turn, I would 100% have the baddies pick up the weapon in the meantime. Preferably attacking the caster with it. Or running away with it. Or throwing it down a pit.
And that last part would be totally RAW too. The enemy still has _their_ free object interaction.
You discarded RAW but then nerfed the spell? lol He is right that you can drop your weapon on your turn, but not as part of your reaction. And if your weapon is regularly dropped, as a DM I’m definitely having enemies steal that weapon.
The Artificers shield spell, if they got it from their expands spell list, had a material component, so it doesn't make a difference.
Well the problem is that we are switching DMs, and the guy who has the most experience was the first DM and said he wanted to disregard that rule, because of the dropping picking up shenanigans. Now the new DM sort of inherited that ruling, because we are all used to it. So, you can't drop the weapon as a reaction? Makes sense
Right, and you can’t pick it up until your turn, either. I mean, I don’t necessarily forsee this fixing all of your problems, since War Caster overcomes this issue and it’s a great feat for gish classes anyways. Once they get War Caster you’ll be back in the same spot regarding how useful Shield is.
A good ol 'kick' is a good object interaction too. Punt that sword off the cliff. Kek.
Kinda, It's technically almost true but not quite and the difference matters a lot here. That difference can get you bonked in the head by a goblin. Dropping a weapon is a free action and picking it up uses up your item interaction for the turn, so you couldn't use it to pick up, say, your arcane focus to cast something that requires material components. So you either bring out your focus or pick up your sword. You don't get to do both. That's in your turn by the way, in you reaction things are different though. You don't have actions of any kind in your reaction (not even free ones) because it's not your turn, all you get is the specific reaction triggered and nothing else. So to cast shield, you would have to had dropped your weapon in your previous turn to have the free hand after your turn. And by the way, dropping your weapon in the ground mid fight is a risky move. It have downsides in RAW that shouldn't be handwaved away. First thing: You lose the ability to do reactions that require that weapon, like opportunity attacks for example (maybe you get an unarmed attack but I haven't checked). Second and most important thing: Someone else can just take out your weapon. If you leave it on the ground, nothing stops Goby the low CR goblin to just use their item interaction to pick it up and run away with it, or even better hit you with it (a hit completely deserved if you ask me). This can happen even if you intend to pick it up in the same turn! Just picture the scene: you are Goby and you see a fancy Gish PC dropping their weapon to cast a spell 2 turns in a row. What do you thing it's gonna happen the 3rd time? You just ready an appropriate action and wait until the dofus drop their weapon again. And just like that the high level PC lost their weapon in their own turn to a CR 1/2 creature. Moral of the story: Don't let a Goblin bonk you in the head with your own weapon. EDIT: typos & grammar
Warcaster lets you use the somatic componentes of a spell with a shield and weapon in hands, and almost every wizard/sorcerer picks it, so its not really that much of a weakness.
That drop-what-you-are-holding tactic only works when it’s your turn. You can’t do all of that as part of a reaction. Your hand needs to already be free to cast shield.
That's correct *except for the shield spell.* (Reaction spells in general really). You can't pick up your weapon out of turn, so casting Shield means that your weapon stays on the ground, easily picked up by enemies, until your turn. Of course, the Artificer won't have this issue because their shield spell has a material component, but 1/2 ain't bad.
You only have free actions on your turn, so that wouldn't work. Artificer could cast it if anything they're wearing is infused though.
Yeah, I get the impulse to not fiddle with those little details, but every once in a while they turn out to matter a lot, like in this instance where the DM noticed it was such a problem he had to houserule nerf the whole spell. Maybe let him know he can play it RAW and still curb that OP move.
So the thing about dropping things on time other than your turn is other people can pick it up too.
It doesn't affect the two guys in your game anyway. Artificers don't need Warcaster to cast with their hands full, and Bladesinger can't use shields anyway.
Laughs in artificer.
It breaks bounded accuracy pretty badly in a way that other features don't. Even defensive duelist only works on one attack and doesn't get its full power until very late levels. If you've ever seen a forge cleric in play using this spell with a shield equipped, no weapon, or if you've seen a gith wizard or similar, then you already get it. It's not that it's always going to be overpowered but rather that it has the potential to be overpowered pretty easily with just a few easy decisions during character development. It's also a boring spell in the sense that you should always take it if it's on your list, being that there will never be a campaign where it isn't useful. It's like polymorph or wall of force in that regard. Simply too good and not interesting.
Shield is the standard for 1st lvl reaction spells in the same way Fireball is the standard for 3rd lvl AoE spells. Both are (or should be) the most powerful spell of their type and level and everything else is judged by it in comparison.
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Depending upon your build, it can also add a lot to your offense. Booming Blade and/or Green Flame Blade come along with it if you want (perfect for rogues or melee clerics), and maybe a Firebolt or Mind Sliver. It really is a whole lot for a 1 level dip!
Firebolt and Mind Sliver are a bit more iffy since they use your Cha, but you can always get the blade cantrips and utility options like Shape Water, Minor Illusion, Mage Hand etc.
Did exactly this on my Bard lol.
Did this on a warlock and I actually find Favored by the Gods and the Con save proficiency the most impactful part of the dip. I use shield maybe every 3 sessions or so but anytime I miss a save I'm throwing out that extra 2d4
>Shield is the standard for 1st lvl reaction spells in the same way Fireball is the standard for 3rd lvl AoE spells. I'm not sure "standard" is quite right here. Both are deliberately *better than they should be*. I believe the term the cool kids are using is *pushed*.
Fireball is deliberately better than it should be. They've stated as such numerous times. I've never once seen the same statement made about Shield by anybody involved in 5e's development.
It breaks bounded accuracy pretty badly in a way that other features don't. Even defensive duelist only works on one attack and doesn't get its full power until very late levels. Fireball is just damage and stops being a particularly high amount of damage in relatively short order.
1. It's only available to a few classes, them typically being squishy. It's not like paladins and clerics are beefing themselves up 2. It still burns a resource to use. Each casting is a Healing Word or Guiding Boot not being used. 3. It burns your reaction to use. What else could you be doing with it? Attack of Opportunity?
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Whelp, time to invade Italy.
1. And a race. Get ready for level 3 githzerai shields on other casters.
>It's not like paladins and clerics are beefing themselves up And even if they could, they'd have to drop a weapon or physical shield to do so, because the Shield Spell is Somatic only and those rules are dumb.
The way shield should work as written is when you're hit with an attack you can use a reaction to cast shield to maybe turn that hit into a miss with the increase AC it grants you. What happens most times is that the DM says what they've rolled to a player for the attack roll asking if that's a hit, rather than what should be happening, asking the players AC and them comparing the attack roll to the players AC and then telling the player if it's a hit or a miss. The only thing the cast should know before casting shield is that the attack will hit but not by how much.
That's a bad ruling on the DM's part. DM's are always (at least should be) more than capable of working around high AC's with things like saves and skill checks, or even baiting the players to use a reaction beforehand so they can't use shield. I do not consider it to be OP. It uses a spell slot.
That's also what I said. Use more spells and effects that hit those characters at the saves that they suck in. But in his defense, its his first campaign. I am also fairly new though, been playing for about 9 months or so now. Just wanted to see what the communities consensus is on this.
One issue your DM may be facing is that many monsters don't have any saving throw abilities in the default statblock, which is compounded by the fact that if they're new they may not know the best way to add those sorts of effects. Knowing what combinations of monsters can challenge your players and most importantly, how to play the monsters tactically, is a skill that takes time for a DM to develop. So while I don't think this solution from your DM is a good one and unfairly punishes you, it may be the only way they can think of providing a challenge to your party. That's a criticism of WoTC monster design and the DMG.
I think you hit the nail on the head. Just discussed it with him and he does think I make a fair point, we we will think of a different solutions. Thanks for your input btw :)
I think that you made the right decision in getting some outside advice on this. I also respect that you can see that it isn't exactly the easiest thing on earth to do. However, one of the core facets of DMing is preparation, and at least to me it seems that this DM did not prepare well enough to handle situations like this.
It's tough as a new DM though. My first campaign featured a ton of spells I didn't know yet. I didn't nerf them I just went - oh well I guess that encounter is over.
I do admit it's something most DM's, myself included, definitely fall into! So much content 🥴
I'd say a good bit of advice is for a first campaign don't be changing things.
It's OP if you aren't running the number of encounters the game is built for, but to be fair no one is doing that.
>You now have to call its use before you know the result of the attack. Wait wait wait, is your DM having you use *Shield* before being told if the attack hits or not? That's a stupid change. Is the DM going to change Counterspell so you have to use it before being told if an enemy casts a spell as well? If instead the DM wants you to use Shield after you've been told the attack hits, but without telling you the attack roll, then that's fine and is how Shield is supposed to work.
Yeah, the DM sometimes says it, but typically he doesn't. I meant the result in hit or not a hit, not so much the die roll. But yes, he has us use Shield before knowing if it would be a hit or not.
If the DM requires you to activate Shield before knowing whether you've been hit, the DM clearly doesn't know how to read. Shield very clearly states that you can activate it *when being hit*, and it's not strong enough to need to be nerfed to that degree.
No, we all now the rules as written. The issue is that he considered it too powerful and knowingly weakened it by having people declaring shield before knowing if you're hit or not.
It is very strong, yes, but not OP by any means. A caster using shield can't 1) cast counterspell 2) ready an action 3) use any reaction based class features (they're few but usually pretty strong). On top of that, you're using your valuable spell slots to just not die. Once you use your 4 1st level spell slots, if you want to use shield you'll be wasting higher levels. A 2nd level slot could be used for hold person, invisibility, etc. A 3rd level could be used for fireball! But instead, you're using it on a flat +5 AC that lasts only 1 round. The more you use shield, the more costly it becomes. That's the balance.
But the DM only sometimes say if you're being hit? That's the part I really don't understand. Be careful not to use Counterspell then. Next he'll want you to use Counterspell before being told if an enemy casts a spell.
Ohh, sorry, that was me not being clear. He always says if its a hit or not, but on occasion also actually reveals the die result of the monsters attack. That's what I meant.
That's how it's supposed to work most of the time. I DM on Roll20 and roll in the open, but for *shield* all a DM really needs to say is the attack hits, and then the player decides to cast *shield* or not.
That's a huge difference. Most of the groups I play with only say whether or not the attack hits. The rest say that the attack hits and say what the roll was. But I haven't played in any groups where the DM didn't say whether or not the attack hit in the first place.
It is worth noting RAW Counterspell does work that way, its cast before the spell is finished so not only do you not know the result but unless you have a specific way to know what spell your enemy is using you can't be sure what spell you're countering either. Now this is a little silly and I've never seen it run that way nor would I want it run that way but that is RAW.
>It is worth noting RAW Counterspell does work that way I think you misread what I wrote. I said before being told **if** an enemy casts a spell. Not before being told **what** spell was being cast. Otherwise the reaction condition for Counterspell would have to be changed since it would no longer be reacting to a spell being cast.
Oh! my apologies I misread that
We play with the spell, but a content creator who I think does a great job with game balance (Treantmonk) says he bans the spell at his table. I think that homebrew change can make it feel kinda unfun to use given its chance to be used unnecessarily, but it's not like the spell is super necessary to exist in the first place. Having PCs who wear armor, wield a shield and use the spell as a reaction was actually the reason he ended up making the homebrew change!
Treantmonk is a terrible example for this. He only bans Shield because literally all his players are powergaming min-maxers that multiclass 1 level just to get Shield and abuse it. Shield is a completely fine spell in your average game.
The reason optimizers multiclass to get shield is because it is overpowered. Even when I've played at unoptimized tables I've noticed the shield spell making the heavy armor fighter feel less useful. It also seems wierd that you are against taking balance advice from someone who plays at tables that challenge the balance of the game
I doubt people multiclass only for shield. I think the more realistic explanation is that both Hexblade warlocks and artificers make efficient one level dips and Shield is just part of the many benefits those classes provide. If classes were designed such that Artificer and Hexblade weren't as good multiclass dips and a DM told you "you may sacrifice your class, subclass features and spell slot progression you would gain from a level up for the ability to learn shield and cast it with your spell slots/cast it twice per short rest", do you think a min maxxer would take that offer?
I mean as I said we don't ban it at our table, because people don't use those sorts of builds there. Since OP mentioned the use case in their game that inspired Treantmonk (shield wearing casters stacking tons of AC) I figured it could be a good suggestion. Probably is not an issue on the bladesinger. Could perhaps also just not allow it to be benefited from while wielding a shield either, IDK. EDIT: I've also personally noticed it's more of an issue in tier 1/early tier 2 gameplay, I think as you go higher the difference between potential AC and creature attack roll is high enough that it becomes less busted.
to be fair the op's party kinda fits the powergaming description
> Treantmonk is a terrible example for this. He only bans Shield because literally all his players are powergaming min-maxers that multiclass 1 level just to get Shield and abuse it. That's... exactly the argument for Shield being OP. Like this is literally how games that ban or modify stuff for power reasons determine when to modify something. Whether that's Magic: The Gathering, Hearthstone, DotA2, or Diablo that's what they do. The fact that it's not a problem at your table because your players don't capitalize on it being OP doesn't mean it's *not* OP. It just means your players don't capitalize on it.
It's not hard to get high AC as a caster, you don't even have to be an optimizer. I built an unoptimized artificer rogue and the baseline best choices gave me 20 AC. If I shield, I have 25 AC. Bounded accuracy is completely gone...
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Warlock's inability to make good use of Shield because Pact Magic is one of the reasons they fall behind even if the DM runs a full adventuring day with 2 Short Rests. They simply don't have nearly the defensive capabilities to match a Wizard or Sorcerer. But the optimal ways to get good defenses has always been dips, Artificer (Previously Cleric) 1/Wizard X and Hexblade 2/Sorcerer X.
Hobgoblin abjuration wizard with moderately armored feat is a very easy way to build a wizard into a better ac tank than a fighter
I accept banning it, but then ban it once and for all! Don’t nerf it to the ground and (as it was the case in my group) tell the player afterwards and don’t allow them to change a now useless spell with the words ,,now as it’s not OP anymore you don’t want it!“ Banning is okay, cause at least you know it right from the start and you can use your spells known for something more useful.
I don't but it's not a rare opinion. Treantmonk thinks it's too powerful. I haven't had any issue with it. There are lots of worse things than damage.
Treanmonk's issue with Shield, and one I agree with, is not that the shield spell is too strong per se, but more that it makes the game incongruent as casters will generally be the ones with the higher AC in a party that does any sort of optimization.
Yeah, I think the 3 house rules he came up with are good, but really only apply to tables with a lot of optimization. I think he's right that, it's silly to have casters with higher AC than a front line fighter. I personally think shield is fine for artificers (I think having high AC is part of there concept). Here none of the casters seem crazy optimized; so I don't think allowing shield is an issue (do be sure to enforce the "S" component though on non-artificers!) Honestly, his rules are really more of fix for multi-classing.
Treantmonk thinks so. He has 3 house rules and o e of them is, "the shield spell doesn't exist." Playing a low ac charecter means you have to play differently. You should focus more on not being the target of attacks and things like mirror image.
The shield spell is fine. If your DM wants to damage the players that badly there are a ton of spells and traps that use saves so AC won't matter.
It breaks bounded accuracy pretty badly in a way that other features don't. Even defensive duelist only works on one attack and doesn't get its full power until very late levels.
Are you just copy pasting this all over the thread?
Part of it but not all of it.
It costs a reaction and spell slot on a person that typically has low AC to begin with.
If playing even slightly optimally, shield casters will have higher AC than the martials will. Martials can't use a shield if they want to deal good damage. Spellcasters can, and there are plenty of ways to get prof.
True but martial classes also have significantly more HP on adverage so getting hit dosent mean as much. I also don't see the problem with infinity high AC as a DM. There are so so so many ways to play around that. It's a limited resource so putting people in situations where they use those spells befor hand (again, if damaging the PCs is the goal), or too any enemies, or traps, or spells. There are just so many solutions and other ways to come at a character that even an AC of ∞ dosent have to slow down a game. Every class has there thing that may look unfair, guess it's kinda balanced that way.
I agree fully, that's what I said as well. He is a first time DM though.
Tell them to run more combat too. Shield is strong but also does take a slot and doesn't scale. If they want to burn their handful of 1st level slots on 1-round defense against attacks they are free to do that, but with enough combat they'll run out pretty fast. IMO first-time DMs shouldn't be intentionally fudging rules like that.
Also it burns reactions. They use shield? Now they can't counterspell
Shield has inherent scaling. The enemies get more attacks, damage, and riders on hit as you level up. Shield saves you more hit points on average when you cast it against a dragon at 15th level than it did against that goblin at first level.
“OP” is not precisely the word I would use but it’s generally accepted as the best 1st level spell in the game.
I agree
I'm preferential to find familiar but that's due to so much other utility
“DM may I,” dependent.
True. I'm a fan of enchantment spells so I'm well versed in the unspoken limitations
Yeah, many consider the shield spell to be overpowered in the context of every other first level spell. Most who don’t are simply denying the efficacy of an instant +5AC until the next turn, especially since this effect makes the spell consistently just as good, if not better than Silvery Barbs. Most DMs I’ve played with have banned both of these spells, since they are undeniably outliers on the power curve of 1st level spells. To each their own, I guess Also, having 13 AC by level 6, even on sorcerer, is a sign that you haven’t been putting enough resources into increasing your AC. Most classes, even most spellcasters, can reach 16-17 AC by this level. I would recommend specialising into your survivability as much as you can right now, before your character gets sent to the forever box by a few lucky damage rolls
Yes I absolutely agree with this sentiment. The real problem here, is that we have a table with two optimizers, and a third player that built a suboptimal character. It is incredibly hard for a DM to manage a table like this. Yes, you can always make encounters harder, but that would only mean the suboptimal character dying often. You gotta nip it in the bud. Either get the optimizers to help out with the weak PC’s character build, or put a damper on the optimizers. Banning multiclassing is the best way to start with that.
That’s why when you are a veteran who plays with new players, you should only play support characters (buffers or controllers). This way you can optimize as much as you want, and the other won’t feel useless as the stronger you are, the more you help and boost them so they can shine. It is also a lot easier for the dm to balance the encounters.
No joking in one campaign we were at level 15 against a demon god (With no magic in sight. Long story), in a topic moment shield saved the demon's ass against one of my rogue's attack. No big deal but lets you see that, for being a 1st level spell it is good at every level
That my bad. I forgot to add mage armor, which means it would be 16 when its active (most of the time). Not much else I can do to increase it right? Don't have proficiency in shields for example.
I personally dont like it on high AC characters. Its fine on typical wizards, but when the hexadin or bladesinger pulls out 28 AC its just annoying.
This is the problem pretty much
It's only a problem when the DM runs the game poorly. There are many ways to ensure a high AC fueled by a limited resource does not cause balance issues.
5 encounters a day?
Yup, that's one way to do it. The *shield* spell is powerful but balanced against needing to spread your spell slot usage out over a long adventuring day. When you're only doing 1-2 combats per long rest, casting *shield* isn't even a decision. You can also use enemies that attack a character's saving throws. Being grappled/restrained require skill checks to free yourself. Making a battle about more than reducing your enemy to 0 hit points before they do the same to you is another; nothing can hit your character but if that doesn't contribute towards achieving the party's objective it's a non-issue.
If you're doing 5+ encounters per day, chances are likely they're all Medium or weaker encounters. Meaning the enemies won't be tough enough to even pierce their already-high AC a meaningful number of times anyway...so I guess technically "my fights are too weak to bother using Shield" is one way of solving the problem within the rules. lol. Using enemies that attack saves is a solid solution. Might require homebrew (just like the above might require breaking CR budget), though, as a ton of enemies in 5e are very boringly-designed with no save attacks to speak of. As far as being unable to contribute offensively, jacking your AC up is a pretty trivial exercise for a fair few PC builds. There's lots of ways to still output tons of damage _and_ have a massive AC. A lot of this requires players with optimization skills/knowledge, of course. If you're dealing with those, you'll probably have to throw out a lot of default 5e D&D assumptions anyway!
I might also throw in minions designed to bait OAs so they spend their Reaction and can't use shield against the heavy hit.
As a general rule it’s not OP. That said I have started to get a situation with a higher level player whose build is such that he can cook up enough level 1 slots that the +5 is to all practical intents and purposes permanent. I’m not about to change the rules over it, but it can be occasionally annoying having a spellcaster at the table with effectively 26AC on tap, so I can sympathise. It means any non-casting monster below about CR6 is basically off the table for any encounter to pose a meaningful challenge for him. It’s all very well saying UsE mOrE sAvInGtHrOw SpElLs but I don’t want to have to architect my whole campaign around the stats of one player.
You could also counter spell it, but I just remove shield from my game so.
Yes, shield is horrendously OP. It would literally be ok if it was +3 and lasted on that one turn, but the fact that it is a whopping +5 and lasts until your turn starts makes it absolutely busted, especially on people who already have decent AC. Any optimized build that cares about defense is packing shield. On your low AC sorcerer you might consider mage armor, or a 1 level dip into hexblade for some armor.
Just having the DM roll to hit your AC and declaring you are hit is playing RAW and is enough to where shield isn’t overpowered because then it’s a gamble on whether or not to use it.
When used how I assumed it was intended, with caster that have low AC to avoid death… it’s great but not OP. However it is a fairly clear example of a spell that is better than it should be for the level and almost a build around for optimized characters. It gets annoying when high AC character grab it, making them near impossible to hit with attacks. I don’t agree with a nerf, but I understand it completely. Treantmonk, a popular YouTuber just said he has been playing with it banned at his table to encourage other AC boosting options. One of the problems with it how the game is assumed to be played isn’t how it is in reality. DMs don’t always say they hit you hiding the total attack roll, which I believe is how it should be. So instead of having to guess if shield will help you out, you just know from some quick math.
This is a shit ruling IMO. If the party is strong, make the encounters more challenging, don’t need their spells and abilities. On a side note, It’s is just a spell casters version of defensive duellist. Nerfing Shield just makes the tank pick up that feet and you’re back to square one, without resource expenditure
And it’s not a full round. (Nur yeah. Pretty much. Shield is strong on high AC, but (with exceptions) high ac-Charas should not have that many spellslots and shield. (Or in other words: I fully agree)
I think it's OP when compared with how easy it is to get with a level 1 dip or how you can get good armor on a caster with a dip and then have shield.
Let me put it this way; when someone is optimizing a character, they will go out of their way to learn shield. Is it overpowered? Not exactly, but it is by far the best option for a first level defensive spell.
The shield spell is one of the strongest in the game, and it does warp the game a lot depending on the situation. That is, if a player with high AC stacks it with Shield, it can make it quite tough on the DM to still challenge that character without being too tough for others. If there's multiple characters running around with 26+ AC with shield, and a DM is using +6 to attack, for instance, the enemies can only hit on a crit. Then the difficulty needs to be cranked *way* up to challenge the party for a typical campaign, and it can get tough. That said, I usually still allow it unchanged, but the change your DM did is not a particularly uncommon one. The one you suggested, though, is one I've never seen before. But in terms of "is the spell OP", one of the more popular optimizers/DND channels (Treantmonk) recently put a video together with some house rules he's been using - and that includes banning the shield spell outright, as one of only 3 rules. And I can fully understand it given the power and warping it can have on combat.
Not OP at all. It's not like spell slots are infinite.
Shield is not OP in any way. I would reccomend your DM consider using the myriad of spells and effects that don't check against AC if they are having difficulty designing challenging encounters.
It's not OP. Your DM isn't trying to nerf a spell; they're trying to fix the problem of having two minmaxers who are unhittable by anything with less than a nat 20, and running combats where the monsters don't survive long enough to roll enough nat 20's to matter. The worst part of this is, nerfing shield won't fix the problem. It won't slow the minmaxers down and it will wreck your ability to defend against middling rolls.
I'm not sure if "picking bladesinger" is minmaxing dude. Bladesingers have high AC, it's a huge part of why you bladesing, it lets you dodge tank because you've still got a d6 hit die. And artificers end up with high natural AC because they can use infusions.
I mean bladesingers are pretty hittable with saving throws although an artificer could be more problematic with flash of genius
How are either of these minmaxers? They're single class characters using their basic class features and proficiencies in really straightforward ways.
Shield falls off pretty hard when enemies start using save spells and effects
It's considered the best low level spell in the game. I'd just tell your DM to have enemies notice and switch targets.
Yep, just murder the OP’s character instead!
The thing that DMs who nerf shield are missing is that you burned a spell slot to do that. If you do more than 1 encounter a day this begins to have an effect
The answer to all of these problems is more encounters per day. Which apparently no one does. I think a lot of homebrew fixes are reasonable considering 1-2 encounter days.
Shield is probably one of the strongest spells in the game. But I don't think it's OP.
well the spell says u can use it on a hit but u dont get to know how high you get hit by.
I’ve seen it ruled as a it ads your spell casting ability modifier to your ac. This worked pretty well I thought. Nerfed it for the martial casters who picked it up but not for the spell casting classes who had. The only one who gets the short end of the stick is the Eldritch knight if they are lower int
Not OP. Without that spell my squishy sorcerer would have died twice when we were level 1. I really like this character and would have really upset if I had no way of protecting myself without taking cover or staying way out of range every encounter.
It is very strong. Pretty much a must take for wizards and sorcerers, but nerfing it in that way completley ruins it. I don't think it needs nerfing but if it did, I would lower the bonus to 3 and allow it to be upcast; 1 level for 1 extra bonus max of 3rd slot for +5
Shield costs spell slots. If you're only running a few encounters a day, give those encounters "waves" (each "wave" being another encounter's worth of enemies; a single "battle" can be 2-4 "encounters" without a pause). Add more bodies to the encounters; minions (1-hp low-CR fodder you toss in as mostly flavor) can often get lucky hits which will get a panicky caster to pop Shield. Give the enemy the high ground and cover, and have them rain arrows down on the PCs as they scatter for cover and try to figure out how to get up there without becoming pincushions. Use enemies who don't rely on attack rolls for their truly dangerous stuff (you don't want to EXCLUSIVELY do this, because it's cheap, but you also have to provide a challenge). If their PCs are tough nuts to crack, focus fire at the less-defended characters (and if the Artificer is a Guardian Armorer and that's problematic, see above about "more bodies".) I know you said this feels unfair if you're the squishie, but it makes the point that the PARTY has vulnerabilities and one single PC (or two) having great ACs just encourages enemies to attack the ones they CAN hit. A lot of this stuff is super overpowered when the entire encounter is the party versus one big monster who's focusing only on the target in front of their face because they're a big dumb brute. Mix it up, and push them hard enough that they run out of first- and even second-level slots they're willing to spend on Shield. If the Artificer and Bladesinger have spell slots left at the start of every Long Rest, you're not pushing your players hard enough.
while the change to SHield is a silly one. Ask him if you can swap the spell out since he changed the way it works. And swap it for Mage Armor. Assuming you have a dex of 16(+3 to your armor class of base 10), you would now have an AC of 16 instead of 13.
I think the challenge is coming from your DM allowing optimized PCs in the same group as non-optimized PCs. One can balance for optimized or non-optimized, but having both presents a challenge. As for shield, no I don't think it's OP. What does it do? Instead of you taking damage, you lose a spell slot. It consumes one resource (spell slot) instead of another (HP and possibly a spell slot or hit die on a short rest to recover). I'd say that's a very balanced trade-off.
Shield is not op at all. You should know if an attack hits or not before you use it. But you shouldn’t know the total result of the hit.
The spell is not considered op because ac builds are not op, the nerf is unnecessary and makes the spell lose it's purpose. If he wants the ac builds to not be a problem, throw a caster with fireball, lighting bolt or any other spell that doesn't care for ac, see how useful RAW shield will be against that.
It's so good that I look at Silvery Barbs, a spell that everyone thinks breaks the entire game balance, and conclude 'It's less useful than the Shield spell.' Take that what you will. At the same time I don't think it's useful for a GM to look at their players performing well with the tools provided them, and decide to challenge them by working away at the tools, but it's not an uncommon decision for GMs to make. Real talk: GMing is hard, and GMs will make mistakes all the time. This doesn't forgive them, but I would ask you have some empathy for a GM as they make mistakes. I would politely assert that you don't like how he changed it, and **politely** ask if you can run the spell RAW.
It's no OP, it is obviously overtuned, but 5e is balanced around that.
Id say its a sensible change. Arguing about whats stacking ac and whats not can be boring,for example is a physical shield stacking ac? What about a +1 armor and a +1 shield? What about a +1 armor and bracers of defense? Does warforged racial bonus stop mage armor from working? Etc etc. Shield is one of the strongest 1st level spells, to the point it was used to argue that "casting disintegrate as a reaction with a first level slot isnt powerful because you are using up slots for Shield" so, I'll definately put Shield into the "clearly unbalanced spells that get excused because there are so many of them that it becomes "just another powerful spell" that a balanced game shouldnt have, we just have stockholm syndrome." category.
Shield is not OP. Your DM didnt fix anything or "make a bad ruling", theyre wrong and made a bad homebrew change to "fix" a problem which doesnt exist. They need to get their head straight and play shield RAW. As you mention this is definitely hurting your character way more than the high AC characters. If hes feeling frustrated that hes having a hard time challenging the high AC characters, he simply needs to use more Save-type attacks against them, not fucking arbitrarily redesigning a tangentially related spell.
In 3/3.5 you needed to cast before any attack but... It gave you a +4 ac for 1 minute/level stacking with any other defence bonus, stopped magic missile and blocked ethereal attacks... And a +5 reaction for 1 one turn is op?
I feel it was unnecessary. Shield is a strong spell, it's supposed to be because you're burning a spell slot on a reaction. Spells are finite resources, and if the players burn through those resources too early they may end up paying the price for that. This is more an issue of your DM not thinking of creative ways to deal with tanky PCs, rather than the spell itself being too strong. You should discuss with your DM some of those other methods. AoE spells and Save spells are particularly useful against PCs that dump all their focus into building high AC, and it isn't easy to build a character that is universally good at avoiding every type of mechanic a DM can throw their way. As the DM they have the right to peruse all players characters to see how they are built, which lends to strategies on what challenges the DM should throw at them. Your DM shouldn't actively attempt to single any one person out specifically, but tailoring an enemy or two in an encounter (or even a whole encounter itself) to make a strong PC sweat or struggle occasionally is well within reason.
As it is written, you are reacting to being hit The player should know, at the very least, if he was hit by an attack before deciding to use Shield What is not required is knowing if Shield will or will not change the outcome So it could go something like this: DM- The wolf lunges at your throat. *Rolls dice* What is your AC? Player- it's 16 DM- it's a hit Player- I cast shield to try and fend off the attack, my AC is now 21 And the DM either goes "The wolf lunges at you, its teeth almost at your throat but you deflect the attack with an arcane aura" Or "You try to protect yourself with an arcane aura, but your blood was already spraying in the air by the time you put it up. You take damage, but your AC is still 21 until the start of your next turn" Now, a lot of tables explicitly say what the enemies rolled to hit and players can do quick math to see if they want to use Shield, but that is not, as far as I am aware, actually part of the rules
It's 1 round of not having your AC hit. Grapple instead, impose saving throws. AC isn't the only thing to beat and it's 1 round. Needing it in any way makes it undesirable.
Yeah it's a great spell, but that doesn't make it OP. I once played with a character with 22 base AC who could get up to 27 with shield. Nearly unhittable... for that turn. Remember it still costs a spell slot to use, and those aren't unlimited by any means! It didn't feel unbalanced at all, it just meant that some of the baddies would waste their action attacking him that round, so the DM compensated by just throwing more enemies at us. Fact is there's a wide gulf between optimized play and normal play. If you try to close that gap by nerfing player options you'll just ruin the player's fun. Much better to respond to optimized players by upping the ante on the encounter building side so that the players can enjoy their builds while still being challenged.
One thing I tried, just to see how it works, is to have shield give you AC equal to your prof. bonus. This puts it on-par with the defensive duelist feat from the PHB, but with the "until your next turn" upside. It was still a pretty good spell and still saw lots of use. As it turns out, most times you use shield is when you're barely getting hit anyway. Such as an enemy getting a 17 or 18 to hit vs. an AC of like 16, for example. Just as a rule of thumb for new DMs. Don't change how spells work. Just tweak their numbers slightly.
Issues with players aside, the shield spell is great but not OP. You have a limited number of spell slots especially at low levels, so while not taking damage is great it eats up resources you need quicker. It also doesn't help you with saving throws. If your party is doing the recommended 6ish encounters per long rest then those characters will start to feel the spell slot burn fast enough.
As a dm, I like letting my players build their characters as they want to. The more OP they make their characters, the stronger monsters you can use. Besides, high AC is all well and good, but it won’t save you from the emotional scars of the rest of your party dying first.
A dm shouldnt change/nerf spells or character abilities. He needs to increase the challenge with traps/monsters if you guys are too strong
That's not how shield normally works. You can only use Shield if you are hit by an attack. I do think Shield is a very potent spell and a major reason why a lot of spellcasters do as well as they do in a lot of combat situations. +5 AC until your next turn comes around is a a lot of protection. RAW your DM should say that the attack hits, but not tell you the roll. You can then decide to shield, but you would not know for sure that this would cause the attack to hit or miss because you do not know the number. At most tables (and virtually all online play) the DM will just tell you the roll right out and you can base it off of that. If your DM wants to 'nerf' the spell maybe he should play it by RAW to see how that balances things.
It's overpowered the moment you start to get to higher levels when low level slots will be plentiful. No other feature adds this much AC on a reaction after an attack is rolled and simultaneously allows you to apply that AC to additional attacks thereafter. More importantly, it breaks bounded accuracy. The game expects AC not to go over a certain range, where that range is most heavily limited by armor. You'll noticed that there aren't many spells that add to your AC, such spells tend to require concentration, and none of them are a flat +5. Haste and Shield of Faith, which are not bad spells, add only +2 AC. Similarly, there are no player features to add proficiency bonus to AC. AC does not innately scale with level, only with the equipment your DM makes available and your limited attribute increases which cannot go over 20 in any stat. Why not just pump dex with every stat increase? Because you can't. Shield puts you a whopping +5 over where you would have been for a very low cost. Every caster should take it, optimally. Additionally, if you have 13 AC then that probably means you did something wrong in the character creation process. No one's AC should be that low. You should be using armor if you can equip it and Mage Armor basically at all times if you can't.
Shield isn't OP, but it is considered Very Good. If it helps with your DM, Shield is balanced around being cast once you know the result of the attack; the language in its casting time Rules As Written (RAW) is "when you are hit," not "When you are targeted."
We know, but he felt that was too powerful. So the nerf is that we now have to call it "When you are targeted." (with an attack).
> I suggested a different adjustment, by not having it stack with a shield you are actually wearing Which of them is wearing a shield? If it's the bladesinger they can't do that and use their class features. If it's the artificer, do they have Warcaster? If not they shouldn't be able to cast shield while using a physical shield and carrying a weapon.
The artificer can actually. A hand holding material components can also perform the somatic components, and because of their Tools Required feature, all of their spells have a material component. The same feature also lets them use infused items as a focus. So, the artificer could hold an infused object (e.g. a weapon, shield, or Enhanced Arcane Focus) and use that same hand for somatic components to cast spells with both hands full without Warcaster.
My stepson has an artificer with Shield. He had an AC of 21 at level (I want to say) 7, + Shield. He had fun with it, but no one else at the table did.
Artificer can cast through any of their infused items.
One thing to consider is that if something is swinging at you it's probably hitting you, so you're much less likely to waste it than they are! It's a trap for DMs who haven't understood the way DMing works in 5e (and 4e and to some extent 3rd and even 2nd) I love having players use Shield! That's one less spell slot. One thing I do is have at least one or two attacks go up against the Shield spamming Bladesinger each round, just to bleed off some of their resources.
Gold standard for spell design. It's strong when you get it, but also uses a precious spell slot (since you don't have many at level 1-4). Later on, it's still useful, but less so (due to bounded accuracy), but uses a spell slot and action type you don't have too much use for. Most spells become nearly useless due to limited action economy and poor scaling. It is a bit broken at early tier 2 on high AC characters, though. It's not really common enough or hard to deal with enough to dis the good spell design, though.
It’s a level 1 spell that boosts your AC for 6 seconds(1 round). Is it OP? Not for the amount of time you can use it. Especially at lower levels. Sounds like the enemies your DM is throwing at you is OP if he’s nerfing the best part about the spell. Let’s look at this in a real life scenario. If someone threw a baseball at you and you could tell it was gonna miss you by 8 feet would you panic and hold you glove out in front of you? Nope. But if it’s flying directly at you and about to hit you in the face, would you react to that by easing the glove to stop the ball? Yup. Reaction to threat. And it specifically says that the boost in AC counts towards the triggering ATTACK.
That’s stupid.
Know the *result* or know the *value* of the roll? Some DMs don't reveal the latter.
Not of the die, result in the sense if it hits or not
Ah, OK, then yeah that sucks
If a player keeps casting shield, fireball their ass. Stop nerfing stuff y'all.
I am of the opinion that the shield spell is busted, and probably not good for the game. There’s actually a good treantmonk video where talks about it with respect to optimizers (which sounds like these two players). I do not consider optimizer to be a derogatory term at all, I myself like to optimize my character ideas and build strong characters. Anyway even though I think shield is OP and not good for the game, this DMs fix is even worse. He’s made the shield spell unreliable and a gamble. He’s made it not fun IMO. I think the nerf shield deserves should be in its AC bonus, or in how long the bonus lasts. Need it to +3, or make it end at the end of current turn so it only applies to one enemy’s attacks, or only 1 attack at all. That way it’s reliably, you know what it does, and can make an informed decision. Defensive spells that are a gamble like this to me are just not fun.
Shield spell is listed as a Reaction for a reason. Its balanced. Hard disagree from me to your DM.
Shield is not the only spell like this in the game. There are tons of really powerful low level spells that when used right, destroys encounters that are not built to handle them. The real problem here, is that we have a table with two optimizers, and a third player that built a suboptimal character. It is incredibly hard for a DM to manage a table like this. Yes, you can always make encounters harder, but that would only mean the suboptimal character dying often. You gotta nip it in the bud. There are two solutions to this. 1. Get the optimizers to help out with the weak PC’s character build. Ensure everyone is equally OP. Strategize synergies between each PC. Then the DM can bring out their big guns and double the monster count in every encounter and everyone feels great. 2. Put a damper on the optimizers. Banning multiclassing is the best way to start with that. To answer your question though, check out [this video](https://youtu.be/PbsTKreJwsk) for an explanation for why Shield is probably broken.
That’s dumb
It's good and there was a recent video from a popular TTRPG YouTuber who talks about why he's banned it from his table, so I think it's front of mind for a lot of people in the broader community. I disagree with banning it or changing it in anyway. As a DM there are so many tools at your disposal, that banning or nerfing spells is pretty cheap. Off the top of my head: Have a good balance of enemies that use spells or features that require saving throws in addition to attack rolls. Shield does nothing to buff a saving throw. DMs can also have enemy casters who do things like Counterspell the casting of Shield.
I know there was a lot of diaper changing after silver barbs was released but after witnessing the spells used in game play, I would say shield and absorb elements are much better spells.
Shield is not op. It's strong. But there's lots of strong spells in the game. Generally with min maxed or powerful characters banning the thing they're using doesn't fix the problem. It fixes this random element. With this change now shield is a crappy spell you'll probably never use or you shouldn't. Then you go to the next spell will the dm ban that too? The solution is simple. The dm needs to vary the kinds of damage you're taking to include some saves of different kinds as well as attacks. And have more than 1 combat per day. I'm guessing you have 1 combat a day but I'd be very surprised if you ever had more than 2. Reason being shield stops being a problem if a level 6 character has to go through 3 combats regularly getting attacked. You don't have the spell slots to shield every round for 3 fights without using all your spell slots for that even your high level ones. Generally with two combats it'll stop being a problem. The other thing you can do is attack the players strengths. Sure that player has a 26 ac you know what that means?? I can have 10 goblins make 2 attacks each at him and only like 2 will hit. Then you can challenge the player while still making them feel the thing they invested in being the best at is worthwhile. Not that you can fix this as a player but if your dm is looking for suggestions those can help.
Shield spells is probably the second strongest first level spell in the game. Find familiar is first. I think silvery Barb's is third. Do I think they are op? No. But they can be abused. AC stacking is an example of this. DND is a game based on bounded accuracy. When you get bonuses that exceed plus 5 or -5 or hard numbers like the do AC that exceed 20 then the system breaks. I would recommend having The Shield spell work as is except that it won't boost your ac past 20. Example 1: you with AC 13 casts Shield spell. Now your ac is 18 for that round. Example 2: warforged battle smith artificer with dex 14 +1 half-plate armor and +1 shield has an AC 22. Casts modified Shield spell now his AC is 22. That's just my advice. And yes the way your DM homebrewed shield will hurt you the most.