[Not an Issue] Armor class bonus/penalty bug?

FAButzke

I've noticed something strange regarding shields and their bonuses to armor class.
Bucklers provide no AC bonus against piercing and missile damage, correct?
Small shields provide no AC bonus against missile damage, correct?
The Shield of Harmony should provide a +2 AC penalty to missile damage, correct?

Now I'm having a hard time explaning this:

Using the Shadow Dragon Scale (without any shields or any other AC enhancing items), my bonus to AC are as follow (reading the AC Modifiers ingame):

-1 Missile
-1 Piercing
-2 Slashing

Which makes sense, since the armor description states that I gain those bonuses. If I toss a small shield into the mix, it reads:

-1 Piercing
-2 Slashing

It seems I lost the -1 Missile protection from the armor. Which DOESN'T make sense.

If I toss a bucker it reads:

-2 Slashing.

I've lost now the Missile and the Piercing bonus from the armor.

If I use the Shield of Harmony, it reads:

+2 Missile
-1 Piercing
-2 Slashing.

Now, not only I've lost the missile bonus from the armor, but it introduced a penalty of +2 from the shield.

I don't know if this is intended or not, but even if it is intended, it's still odd. It seems like the game 'resets' the bonus in order to calculate the penalties applied when using shields. In this last example (of the Shield of Harmony) the correct readout should be: +1 Missile (Since the armor gives -1 and the shield gives +2)

Am I right or am I crazy here?

FAButzke

A sidenote: Using the Shield of Falling Stars, the bonus is calculated correctly:

-5 Missile
-1 Piercing
-2 Slashing

The shield gives +4 bonus AC to Missile, so -5 is correct here (-1 from the armor -4 from the shield)
So, it seems the problem is when penalties are introduced. Bonuses are calculated correctly.

kjeron

Your forgetting to look at your base AC amount, it should be increasing(decreasing) as well.
Small Shields add their AC bonus by giving a generic +1AC and a -1 Missile AC.
Buckler's add their AC bonus by giving a generic +1AC and a -1 Piercing/Missile AC.

Shield of Harmony is a small shield, and it is missing the line in its description stating that it provides no protection against missile AC.

BASE/MISSILE/PIERCE/SLASH/CRUSH
Shadow Dragon Scale is:
1/-1/-1/-2/-0

Adding a Small Shield:
-1/+1/-0/-0/-0
1/-1/-1/-2/-0
becomes:
0/-/-1/-2/-

Adding a Buckler:
-1/+1/+1/-0/-0
1/-1/-1/-2/-0
becomes:
0/-/-/-2/-

Adding the Shield of Harmony:
-3/+3/-0/-0/-0
1/-1/-1/-2/-0
becomes:
-2/+2/-1/-2/-

FAButzke

Thanks, so I was crazy. That makes more sense. So the shield does indeed "cancel" the armor bonus for sake of a lower (overall) base AC. For some reason, I thought that adding a shield should keep the armor bonus AS WELL as lowering your base AC. Turns out the small shield, not only does not protect against missiles, but gives you a penalty (cancelling the armor bonus) as well. I also thought the Shield of Harmony gave a +2 penalty not a +3 (even the wiki is wrong then).

As a sidenote, shouldn't the item descriptions for small shields and bucklers be more clear in that respect? I mean, they say that both give no protection, when, in fact, what they give is a penalty to missile and piercing AC respectively.

Thanks again. Do I have to rename the title to "not an issue" or a mod will take care of that?

TJ_Hooker

FAButzke said:

As a sidenote, shouldn't the item descriptions for small shields and bucklers be more clear in that respect? I mean, they say that both give no protection, when, in fact, what they give is a penalty to missile and piercing AC respectively.

They're not giving a penalty though. If you equip a small shield, your AC vs missiles will not become worse. It will be exactly the same as if you had no shield equipped, which is what you'd expect based on the item description.

FAButzke

You have a point there. My mistake and apologies for wasting everybody's time

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

FAButzke

You're right, of course. The sad part is that I should know this stuff. I've been playing BG since 2001... (sigh) =D

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

kjeron

You did still find an actual issue, if only a minor description error.
Shield of Harmony is missing its "No protection against missile attacks" line.
It's also missing from both versions of Shield of Reflection (SHLD24/A).

Jalily

I've added the missing line to the descriptions for those shields. Thanks.