The Tavern

It has been pointed out numerous times that for a primary spellcaster, using a buckler is pretty much a no-brainer because a small (insignificant?) investment of skill points can completely negate the spellcasting penalty and give some useful protection.

It has been suggested that to fix this, shields should be changed so that it is impossible to completely remove the penalty.

I'm just throwing out an alternative suggestion: make magical staves 2-handed for all species. (ie not just reduce the damage like with quarterstaff/lajatang, you would actually have to wield the staff 2-handed to gain any of the magical powers.)

This would give spellcasters a choice of going with the buckler and a normal 1-handed weapon for the added defence but losing the option of using and quickly swapping between staves of conjurations/energy/channeling etc, or on the other hand using a staff but losing the shield.

I...support this, actually. Elemental staves are generally competitive with lajatangs for late-game damage output; it would make a lot of sense to give them similar restrictions. A choice between shields and the utility of staves sounds like a good idea to me.

One slight alternative: make elemental staves 1.5 handed and give the "1.5-hander with a shield" condition a spell success malus. Let shield or shield+weapon skill mitigate that malus.

Because, y'know, the spell success formula isn't complex enough yet.

But in any case, this doesn't seem to be a "spellcasters only" thing. As things are: if you're wielding a 1-handed weapon or going unarmed, you probably want at least the smallest shield you can wear, and to make the modest Shields investment. This is true for everyone, not just with elemental staff-wielders.

Also: lajatangs aren't totally comparable -- to get good elemental staff damage, you want to train staves, your spell school, and evocations, instead of just training staves. And you still want a backup plan for resistant monsters -- who are also (probably) resistant to your main spell school.

With melee you have to decide between shield and high damage output (except UC, I guess). You can't wield best weapons with a shield, period, no matter what and how much you train. So, a choice between more powerful magic and a shield seems like a reasonable suggestion. As for training your spellschool and evocations, you're not training it specifically for melee damage from staves? And you only need to train 7-10 Evocations, if I'm not mistaken, which is a good idea for most characters anyway.

I like this idea. Spriggans already cannot wear a stave and a shield at once, and it is an interesting decision there too.

This. Shall. Not. Pass.