| Shield Wall | |
|---|---|
| |
| Details | |
Prerequisites |
Shield Proficiency |
Effect(s) |
Whenever you are wielding a shield and are adjacent to an ally wielding a shield who also has this feat, the AC bonus from your shield increases, depending on the shield wielded by your ally.
If your ally is wielding a buckler or a light shield, your shield bonus increases by +1. If your ally is wielding a heavy shield or a tower shield, your shield bonus increases by +2. You keep these bonuses even if your ally loses his shield bonus due to making a shield bash attack. |
Shield Wall is a teamwork feat in Owlcat Pathfinder Games.
Effects
Whenever you are wielding a shield and are adjacent to an ally wielding a shield who also has this feat, the AC bonus from your shield increases, depending on the shield wielded by your ally.
If your ally is wielding a buckler or a light shield, your shield bonus increases by +1.
If your ally is wielding a heavy shield or a tower shield, your shield bonus increases by +2.
You keep these bonuses even if your ally loses his shield bonus due to making a shield bash attack.
Strategy
This is a decent feat to take when you want to improve the "tankiness" of your frontline. Other defensive feats (Armor Focus, Shield Focus, Dodge) all increase your AC by +1, while Shield Wall can increase it by +2. The game doesn't really require you to place your characters physically adjacent to each other (like in adjacent squares on the encounter map) to gain the benefits of the feat. Most of the time, you'll be fine with characters just being close to each other (teamwork feats require team members to be within 15 feet of each other to work).
Players tend to ignore shields completely because wielding a shield, generally, decreases a weapon's damage, requires proficiency, and increases carried weight, among other things. Instead, they rely on magic (like the Shield spell) and other defensive abilities (Combat Expertise, the Crane Style feat line) for protection. Feats like Shield Bash and Shield Wall allow you to build a very effective shield-bearing party.
Two of your companions (Valerie and Harrim) are built to use shields by default, so this feat can easily improve their AC early on, when it's important.