Large shield + 1 description...

Wanderon

I was about to grab a Large shield +1 for Monty to replace his generic large shield but when I read the description it says +2 AC +1 vs missle while the generic description is +1 AC +2 missle - really?

What causes the sheild to become magically enhanced for AC yet lose missle protection?

I had no idea this was the case - my whole purpose of giving him a large shield is for the missle protection so I should pay almost 3000g to lose half of it in return for +1 AC?

Madhax

I've never noticed this specifically, but if I had to guess...

A vanilla large shield should be providing +1 to AC from everything, except a +2 AC against missiles. A +1 enchanted large shield should be providing +2 AC from everything, but either still simply providing +2 AC against missiles, or going up to a total of +3 AC against missiles. Either way, you aren't losing missile defense.

I'm not sure if you're reading the description of the actual item or the impact the items have on your character sheet, because your description of a vanilla large shield doesn't match what I'm looking at on an online item list at the moment. But it seems to be that you're either paying solely for a melee defense boost or are in fact gaining +1 AC overall and misinterpreting it as a negative. Either way, you should be fine.

ajwz

Large shield get a bonus +1ac vs missile weapons to distinguish them from medium shield

So for regular shields:
Small shield = +1 to AC, but +0 to AC vs Missiles
Medium Shield = +1 to AC and +1 to AC vs Missiles
Large shield = +1 to AC and +2 to AC vs Missiles

atcDave

As the others said Wanderon, the description just isn't as clear as it ought to be. The large shield provides extra protection against missiles.

Oxford_Guy

Wanderon said:

I was about to grab a Large shield +1 for Monty to replace his generic large shield but when I read the description it says +2 AC +1 vs missle while the generic description is +1 AC +2 missle - really?

What causes the sheild to become magically enhanced for AC yet lose missle protection?

I had no idea this was the case - my whole purpose of giving him a large shield is for the missle protection so I should pay almost 3000g to lose half of it in return for +1 AC?

I might be just a description bug (there are others)- if you look on your character sheet, what armour class modifiers for missile does it state when not wearing an other armour? That should tell you what's actually happening.

Jalily

It's an inconsistency in how the descriptions were written. In the generic description, the +1 AC vs. all weapons and the +1 AC vs. missiles is added together for the vs. missiles stat, but in the enchanted version, they're not.

Which do people prefer?

ajwz said:

Large shield get a bonus +1ac vs missile weapons to distinguish them from medium shield

So for regular shields:
Small shield = +1 to AC, but +0 to AC vs Missiles
Medium Shield = +1 to AC and +1 to AC vs Missiles
Large shield = +1 to AC and +2 to AC vs Missiles

Nitpick: Medium shields don't give bonus AC vs. missiles.

ajwz

It wasn't supposed to suggest it gave bonus AC vs missiles, just regular +1AC to everything (including missiles)

Dee

@Jalily
Based on the wording, it makes most sense if it's a replacement.

i.e. "Armor Class: +1, +2 vs. missile attacks"

The +1 Large Shield should read:
"Armor Class: +2, +3 vs. missile attacks"

In the same way, a +1 buckler would read:
"Armor class: +2, +1 vs. missile attacks"

This follows the convention of magic weapons as well; the Bastard sword +1, +3 versus shapeshifters behaves as a +3 weapon against shapeshifters, which is clear from the description. If it were additive, the result would be +4, which isn't the case.

Aristillius

But even "Armor class: +2, +3 vs missle attacks" can be confusing. It may only be me who is stupid, but until recently I thought that added up, to a total of +5 ac vs missles (and not entirely unrealistic either considering a large shield must be very useful vs missles in real life).

Better might be:
Armor class: +2
Armor class vs missles: +3

Wanderon

Ok let me see if I can be more clear - I am comparing a normal large shield to a +1 large shield (not a medium shield or a small shield)

In game description of large shield reads equipped abilities: Armor class + 1, +2 vs missle attacks

In game description of large shield +1 reads Statistics: Armor class +2 , +1 vs missle attacks

Equipping them shows the regular AC adjusted as expected but missle attack adjustment is -1 for both so I really don't understand why the descriptions would read differently for the missle attacks (since they are in fact the same).

Gallowglass

@Wanderon: you're looking at the wrong stat. The missile attack adjustment is the adjustment (to your THAC0) when YOU make a missile attack, it's not related to defense against missiles. The relevant defensive stat is the Armour Class Modifier for Missile.

@Jalily, @Aosaw: you could make the descriptions wholly explicit by using a couple of extra words in each description instead of the inevitably-ambiguous comma. For example, "Armor Class: +2 bonus with extra +1 vs missile attacks" for a Large Shield +1 would surely remove all confusion.

Dee

The -1 for missiles is above and beyond what you get for other weapons. The +1 shield should be listed as "+2, +3 vs missiles".

There aren't really any extra words needed--magic weapons use the same convention, so as long as it's consistent there shouldn't be any confusion.

Gallowglass

@Aosaw: the comma isn't ambiguous for those of us who are familiar with the notational conventions used in BG, but new players don't necessarily know the convention, and can therefore be confused about the effect of both shields and weapons. Now that we old-timers are being joined by a whole new generation of players, it may be a good time to re-consider whether it should remain necessary for new players to learn such notational conventions when instead it'd be possible to spell it out more clearly. No?

atcDave

Simply inserting the words "extra" "Bonus" and/or "penalty" as appropriate might make things more clear.

Dee

Eh.

Fourteen years ago I was twelve, and I figured it out pretty quickly. Players are smart.

ajwz

Revised list:
Small shields are quite good
Medium shields are good
Large shields are very good

atcDave

Aosaw said:

Eh.

Fourteen years ago I was twelve, and I figured it out pretty quickly. Players are smart.

Not every player is equally committed to the finer points. I've been running AD&D for 30 years and find adding the extra verbiage cuts down on a lot of questions.

Wanderon

Gallowglass said:

@Wanderon: you're looking at the wrong stat. The missile attack adjustment is the adjustment (to your THAC0) when YOU make a missile attack, it's not related to defense against missiles. The relevant defensive stat is the Armour Class Modifier for Missile.

No I'm looking at the armor class modifier on the character sheet screen and the missle is -1 for both the regular and the +1 shield in spite of the fact that the descriptions list them as +2 and +1 respectively which might lead someone to believe they are in fact different and that one is half of the other especially if they had not actually purchased the sheild yet and were thus relying entirely on said descriptions to make the decision whether or not to spend a big chunk of change on it.

Of course I was already in my 50's when I started playing this game 14 years ago so maybe I'm just not up with this "new math" where +2 and +1 mean the same thing.

When I saw the differences in the descriptions I thought perhaps something had been changed in EE and/or that the definition of the +1 shield was incorrect since I had always been pretty certain a +1 shield was better than a normal shield and I certainly think thats a piss poor way to write the two descriptions if they are meant to be understood by anyone who did not start off life as a D&D nerd.

Of course item descriptions and other in game definitions are for the most part just tossed out there any old which way anyway since you really only need them until you know how the item works so why bother to take the time to craft them well enough to make them concise and unambiguous to begin with just copy and paste something from an old D&D manual and call it good. /rant

Gallowglass

Wanderon said:

No I'm looking at the armor class modifier on the character sheet screen ...

Ah, I see. You'd referred to it as "missile attack adjustment", so that misled me to think you were looking at the missile attack adjustment ... but my bad, no offense intended.

Thinking about it, what you're seeing sounds correct. Both the Large Shield and the Large Shield +1 should give an armor class modifier (bonus) of 1. The difference is that the Large Shield +1 gives an armor class which is also 1 better than the plain Large Shield, so the bonus of 1 vs missile is being applied to a better armor class. Example: if you're standing naked and have a base AC of 10 and AC modifier vs missile of 0, then picking up a Large Shield will give you an AC of 9 and a modifier vs missile of -1 so that your AC is 8 vs missiles, whereas picking up a Large Shield +1 will give you an AC of 8 and modifier vs missile of (another) -1 so that your AC is 7 vs missiles. So yes, either way, the modifier vs missiles is a bonus of -1, but -1 from a better starting point in the latter case.

Wanderon

@gallowglass what happens does indeed look and act correctly when you look at your character sheet and see what is actually happens when equipping the two shields - I have no issue with that and prior to reading that silly description expected the two shields to act in some manner similar to what they do -

My issue is the manner in which the two descriptions portray their numbers differently.

I don't have every number that every item uses memorized - hell at my age it's a coin toss as to whether or not I have my phone number memorized

I do know large shields offer missle protection and I was trying to decide whether or not the shield +1 was going to offer enough additional overall protection to make it worth dropping 3000g on it for Monty in my current no reload run by comparing the descriptions of the +1 shield in the store vs the regular one he was using to see exactly how much better it was.

Comparing the two descriptions it certainly appeared that the +1 shield was dropping the missle protection from 2 to 1.

If a regular large shield shows +1 AC and +2 missle protection in the description then why wouldn't the +1 shield show +2 AC and +3 missle protection instead of +2 AC and +1 missle protection?... this ain't rocket science... just a coversion of simple math to simple english using the same type of formula instead of different ones.

Dee

It's a discrepancy, to be sure. @Jalily, can you look at this? There's likely some other shields with similar discrepancies.