Swamp Slogger
Posts: 174
Joined: Saturday, 16th September 2017, 21:17
Bucklers and 2H weapons
On most creatures, wearing a buckler does NOT prevent you from also wielding a 2H weapon. The drawback is that you lose some of the defense (not all, just when you're attacking).
Now, DCSS mechanics don't precisely function like DnD, so just making this a thing wouldn't work (and it would tread on the toes of the Formicid). So, here are my thoughts:
1) Allow any medium-large (though not Big) race to wield a 2H with a buckler
2) When doing this, you lose XYZ SH, reduced by increasing your shield skill.
3) The encumbrance is treated like a medium shield instead of a buckler.
4) To get back your SH and reduce the encumbrance you have to train to shield skill 15.
The Formicid would retain the benefit of not having a penalty for this, as well as being able to use ANY shield with a 2H weapon. The reason I think this is viable is that it makes the choice between 2H and 1h+shield a bit more meaningful. No longer are you bound and tied to thinking, "Well, I want reflection but my piddly 5 SH with my 2H isn't going to reflect much, so I'd better go 1H with a shield so I can defend myself better," or vice-versa. Now you can weigh the options of doing straight 2H, putting 15 skills into shield (for a 3-rune this is a big choice...for 15 runes we all know that XP is a much more relative concept anyway) but having less defense, or going for full shields+1H and sacrificing damage.
Thoughts?