Shield Bonus

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A shield bonus is added to a character's Armor Class (AC), and stacks with other kinds of bonuses to AC, but not with other shield bonuses.

As the name implies, the most common source of a shield bonus happens when a character wields a shield. However, some weapons grant a shield bonus (such as the Scizore, and the Glaive) when used (or not used) in a particular way. A few other methods exist to gain a shield bonus, as well, such as spells, feats, etc. In all cases, if multiple sources of shield bonuses are available to a character, only the highest available bonus is used.

If a shield is enchanted with an enhancement bonus, the enhancement bonus is tracked separately as a Shield Enhancement Bonus, but both bonuses are added together to get the total AC bonus provided by the shield. Thus, a +3 heavy steel shield, which has a base shield bonus to AC of 2, has a total shield bonus of 5 (adding the +3 enhancement bonus). The weapon is still described as a +3 shield (not a +5 shield), since enhancement bonuses can only go up to +9, and the cost of the enhancement bonus is based on the plus provided. It is also a descriptive indicator of the shield's magical power.