Shield Usage skill

Shield usage skill is used in determining the effectiveness of an arm-worn or held shield in blocking attacks.

Shield Usage

To use a shield set your Stance to use shield and hold a shield in your left hand. Alternately shields may be worn on the arm. To wear a shield on your arm Adjust <shield>. At fourth cirlce primary guilds may arm wear large sized shields on the arm, armor secondary may arm wear medium sized shields at fourth circle, small shields may be arm worn by anyone.

Note: An arm worn shield's protection may be capped based on size. Small shields protection caps at good protection, medium at great, and large shields at impressive.

Training Strategies

Before about 50 ranks, shield is not a terribly effective defense. However, shield coupled with evasion is the most effective means of defending against ranged attacks. At low ranks in skill small unhindering shields are your best bet. Target shields from the goblins west of the Crossing make a good starter shield. You will be unable to effectively use larger shields higher protection values until your ranks in Shield usage increase.

At 50 ranks you gain the ability to load ranged weapons while wearing a shield. An arm worn shield will penalize shots fired by a longbow, short bow, or composite bow. Arm worn shields will not protect you while holding a loaded longbow, short bow, or composite bow.

As skill approaches 100 ranks, moving to medium sized shields will begin to pay off. Larger shields are generally more hindering but with more skill in shield you will improve defense at an increased rate to the shields maximum appraised protection. Shield defense will increase at a slower rate after the maximum appraised protection has been reached.

Arm-worn Shield Notes

The adjust verb changes any shield to be arm-worn. Adjusting it again will revert it to shoulder worn.

The size of shield you can wear on arm is based on your skill-set:

• Armor Primary - Can wear large shields (tower, kite, etc.)
• Armor Secondary - Can wear medium shields (oval, buckler, etc.)
• Armor Tertiary - Can wear small shields (targe, target, etc.)

There is a 4th circle requirement to arm-wearing a medium or large shield, to exclude a commoner from wearing medium shields.

Clerics can arm-wear an infused Shield of Light shield that is medium in size, an exception to the size rule above.

Different classes of ranged weapons interact differntly with arm-worn shields:

• Slings are not affected in any way.
• Light Thrown and Heavy Thrown weapons are not affected in any way.
• Crossbows can not be loaded with an arm-worn shield until reaching 50 ranks of shield.
• Stick bows receive both a loading penalty and an accuracy penalty when used with an arm-worn shield

The exceptions to the stick bow penalty are as follows:

• A Paladin wearing a medium or small shield.
• A Barbarian wearing a small shield.
• A Ranger wearing a small shield with See the Wind active.