Shields 5e
A shield is made from wood or metal and is carried in one hand. Wielding a shield increases your Armor Class by 2. You can benefit from only one shield at a time.
Although a shield decreases the chance of getting hit by 10 % it is rarely used in Dungeons and Dragons 5e. Players usually want to deal damage instead of taking damage. They want to be the hero who slays the beast. Not the soldier that tanks its fire breath.
This is further underlined by the fact that there are only a few shields in the official rule set for Dungeons and Dragons 5e.
In this guide, we take a closer look at Shields 5e and show you everything you need to know about them. We also give you tips on making your shields more interesting for your players. Players will learn how to make the most of the shield they already use. Become a truly legendary tank for your adventuring party with this guide by dungeon-heaven.com.
Shields 5e: A general overview
First of all, we need to clarify that we are talking about the item and not about the spell Shield. This is also a great way for spellcasters to protect themselves. However, classic fighters like Paladins, Clerics, and Barbarians rely on a real shield made out of wood or steal. At the beginning of your campaign, your players should only have a standard shield.
A shield is made from wood or metal and is carried in one hand. Wielding a shield increases your Armor Class by 2. You can benefit from only one shield at a time. This is from the Dungeon Masters Guide.
Players don’t need proficiency to gain the + 2 AC from a shield they are wielding. This is especially good for classes like Barbarians, Clerics, Druids, Fighters, Paladins, and Rangers. Proficiency with a shield doesn’t give players any advantages on checks, but it also doesn’t give them disadvantages. Without proficiency, players still gain + 2 AC. However, adventurers suffer disadvantage on any ability check, saving throw, or attack roll that involves strength or dexterity. They also can’t cast spells without proficiency with shields.
As said above, your party members can only wield one shield at a time. Of course, players are allowed to hold two or more shields at the same time. The AC bonuses do not add up.
Imagine yourself playing a monster that fights against your adventurers. Your players don’t need to call for a block when they are carrying a shield. It increases the AC and that’s it. It is as easy as it sounds.
Our Top 3 shields in D&D 5e
Animated Shield
We start off with the Animated Shield. This awesome protection device is introduced in the Dungeon Master’s Guide.
This shield is the only one that we know of from the official D&D Ruleset, which allows its carrier to use both their hands to fight and still carry the shield. It requires attunement. Meaning that your player who wants to carry the shield will need to spend a short rest to form a bond with the Animated Shield to make the most out of its powers. It is a very rare magical item.
The player speaks a command word as a bonus action. This will bring the shield to life. The shield hovers in the air before its carrier and protects them. This way the party member has their hands free for other actions like casting spells. The shield gains a minute of protection. Given the fact that one round takes approximately 6 seconds, this should be more in most cases more than enough. The adventurer has 10 rounds of a + 2 AC bonus and both hands are free.
Shield of Missile Attraction
This shield also comes from the Dungeon Master’s Guide. It is the only shield in the official ruleset that comes with a ready-made curse baked in.
First of all, the shield grants resistance to damage from ranged weapon attacks while the player is holding the shield. This is actually extremely powerful. It denies damage coming from one damage source completely.
The Curse weakens the weapon a little bit. That’s why players are often afraid of attuning to this weapon. This shield is cursed. Attuning to it curses you until you are targeted by the Remove Curse spell or similar magic. Removing the shield fails to end the curse on you. Whenever a ranged weapon attack is made against a target within 10 feet of you, the curse causes you to become the target instead.
So whether the party member is holding the shield or not, any ranged weapon attack that targets someone within 10ft. of you targets the player instead.
Spellguard Shield
The spellguard shield is an awesome tool in a high-magic setting. D&D classes like Barbarians and Fighters tend to become a little bit weaker as the campaign progresses. Enemies are capable of casting spells and do have resistance against normal types of damage. This way non-spellcasters must find a new role in the campaign.
Here the Spellguard Shield comes in handy. This very rare protection device also requires attunement. It is the perfect item for battling against magic users.
Spellguard Shield provides advantage on saving throws against spells and magic effects. Every spell attack aimed at the player carrying the shield has disadvantage. Imagine playing a barbarian that is semi-resistance against spell-casters. Now the battlefield is definitely in your favor.
Make shields more interesting
Shields are often laughed at in Dungeons and Dragons 5e. They are considered to be boring and do not add real value. Players can’t really do anything with it. No real cool moves or blocks or attacks can be done with the shield. So here are a few tips for you Dungeon Masters to make shields more interesting for your adventuring party.
Tips for Dungeon Masters
Make shields more valuable. For example, a NPC could show up which recognizes the shield a party member is wearing. Let’s say they are carrying the animated shield. As the Rules as Written state, it is a very rare item. Why not treat it as such? NPCs with proficiency in History or Arcana probably could recognize the shield and talk to your party member about it. Maybe build in a background story. Your players build up an emotional bonding to their shield and they know that they have something of real worth in their possession.
Let your players use their shields. Monks have a skill called Unarmored Defense. This allows them, while they are wearing no armor, and not wielding a shield, to calculate their AC as 10 + their Dexterity modifier + their Wisdom modifier. Why not choose to make similar rules for wielding a shield? A player that wields a shield can calculate their AC in a similar way. When they decide to equip their shield in a battle, the AC is calculated as 10 + their Dexterity modifier + their strength modifier. If they don’t choose to equip their shield, they have their standard Armor Class.
Call their shield actions in an encounter. Imagine a creature attacking a party member. The hit just misses the party member. Without the shield, the creature would have hit the player. Tell this to your players. You could call it as follows: “As the sword rushes down to your head, you just barely manage to raise your shield and block the attack.” This way your players recognize that their shield did something of value and they will feel like the shield is something of value itself as it protected the player several times.
Shield variations
Round shield
Cost: 15 sp
Weight: 10 lbs
This large, circular shield is made from wood with a brass or iron boss at the center. While worn on one arm, this shield increases the wearer’s AC by 1. If the wearer is within 5ft of a friendly creature also wielding a shield, the shield increases the wearer’s AC by 2.
If the allied creature’s shield only grants them an AC bonus of 1, it becomes two. A creature can only benefit from one instance of this effect at a time.
Heater shield
Cost: 20 gp
Weight: 8 lbs
This medium-sized shield is forged from steel and often emblazoned with some form of heraldry or insignia. While worn on one arm, the shield increases the bearer’s AC by 2.
Buckler
Cost: 10 gp
Weight: 4 lbs
This small shield is favored by duelists who focus on the enemy in front of their face and nothing else. While worn on one hand, the Buckler increases the wearer’s AC by 1. When the wielder is within 5ft of a single hostile creature with no other allies or enemies nearby, upon being hit by a melee attack, they may use their bonus action to reduce the damage by 1d4 + their Dexterity modifier. Until the start of their next turn, all ranged attacks made against the wielder have advantage.
Pavise
Cost: 30 gp
Weight: 40 lbs
The Pavise is a 4-5ft tall, square shield used by archers for cover in the heat of battle. You must have a Strength of 12 to use this shield, which increases your AC by 2. On your turn, you may spend half of your movement allowance to embed the Pavise in the ground, where it now serves as half cover. Mobilizing the Pavise again requires you to spend half your movement.
Feats while using shields
Shield Master
As the name says Shield Master is the number one feat for wielding a shield in Dungeons and Dragons 5e. It is the best way to make a humble shield more dynamic. To use it players must take an attack action on their turn. Now they can use their bonus action to try to shove a creature within 5 feet of you with their shield. This allows your player to break a wall of enemies or protect allies from attackers.
Players add their shield’s bonus to any Dexterity saving throws they make against a spell or other harmful effects that target only them. This way even hitting them will get a lot more difficult for spellcasters. Another great way for a good late-game Fighter.
And, if they are subjected to an effect that allows them to make a Dexterity saving throw to take only half damage. If they pass their saving throw, they can use their reaction to instead take no damage at all.
Moderately Armored
This feat is a great tool to wield a shield even when the player isn’t proficient with them. The party member needs to be proficient with light armor. The Moderately Armored Feat gives them the ability to use a shield without incurring any penalties like those described above.
Shields per Level
In the Dungeon Master’s Guide are only three magic shields. Other books like Xanathar’s Guide to Everything extend this list. However, this shows one more time that shields have a very low standing in D&D 5e. If you are planning a campaign, where shields are used, here is a list of which shields are great for each level.
Low Level (1-5)
Shield of Expression
Source: Xanathar’s Guide to Everything
Armor (shield), common
The front of this shield is shaped in the likeness of a face. While bearing the shield, you can use a bonus action to alter the face’s expression.
Sentinel Shield
Source: Dungeon Master’s Guide
Armor (shield), uncommon
While holding this shield, you have advantage on initiative rolls and Wisdom (Perception) checks. The shield is emblazoned with the symbol of an eye.
Battering Shield
Source: Explorer’s Guide to Wildemount
Armor (shield), rare (requires attunement)
While holding this iron tower shield, you gain a +1 bonus to AC. This bonus is in addition to the shield’s normal bonus to AC.
Additionally, the shield has 3 charges, and it regains 1d3 expended charges daily at dawn. If you are holding the shield and push a creature within your reach at least 5 feet away, you can expend 1 charge to push that creature an additional 10 feet, knock it prone, or both.
Shield +1
Source: Dungeon Master’s Guide
Armor (shield), uncommon (+1)
While holding this shield, you have a bonus to AC determined by the shield’s rarity. This bonus is in addition to the shield’s normal bonus to AC.
Mid-Level Shields (6-12)
Animated Shield
Source: Dungeon Master’s Guide
Armor (shield), very rare (requires attunement)
While holding this shield, you can speak its command word as a bonus action to cause it to animate. The shield leaps into the air and hovers in your space to protect you as if you were wielding it, leaving your hands free. The shield remains animated for 1 minute, until you use a bonus action to end this effect, or until you are incapacitated or die, at which point the shield falls to the ground or into your hand if you have one free.
Arrow Catching Shield
Source: Dungeon Master’s Guide
Armor (shield), rare (requires attunement)
You gain a +2 bonus to AC against ranged attacks while you wield this shield. This bonus is in addition to the shield’s normal bonus to AC. In addition, whenever an attacker makes a ranged attack against a target within 5 feet of you, you can use your reaction to become the target of the attack instead.
Shield of Missile Attraction
Source: Dungeon Master’s Guide
Armor (shield), rare (requires attunement)
While holding this shield, you have resistance to damage from ranged weapon attacks.
Curse. This shield is cursed. Attuning to it curses you until you are targeted by the Remove Curse spell or similar magic. Removing the shield fails to end the curse on you. Whenever a ranged weapon attack is made against a target within 10 feet of you, the curse causes you to become the target instead.
Shield of Far Sight
Source: Volo’s Guide to Monsters
Armor (shield), rare
A mind flayer skilled at crafting magic items creates a shield of far sight by harvesting an eye from an intelligent humanoid and magically implanting it on the outer surface of a nonmagical shield. The shield becomes a magic item once the eye is implanted, whereupon the mind flayer can give the shield to a thrall or hang it on a wall in its lair. As long as the shield is on the same plane of existence as its creator, the mind flayer can see through the shield’s eye, which has darkvision out to a range of 60 feet. While peering through this magical eye, the mind flayer can use its Mind Blast action as though it were standing behind the shield.
If a shield of far sight is destroyed, the mind flayer that created it is blinded for 2d12 hours.
Shield +2
Source: Dungeon Master’s Guide
Armor (shield), rare (+2)
While holding this shield, you have a bonus to AC determined by the shield’s rarity. This bonus is in addition to the shield’s normal bonus to AC.
High-Level Shields (13-20)
Shield of the Hidden Lord
Source: Baldur’s Gate – Descent into Avernus
Armor (shield), legendary (requires attunement)
The Shield of the Hidden Lord is of celestial origin and serves as a prison for the pit fiend Gargauth, whose mortal followers revere it as a god. Over time, Gargauth’s evil has warped the shield’s appearance, so that its celestial motif and designs have become twisted into a fiendish face that subtly moves in disturbing ways.
While holding this shield, you gain a +2 bonus to AC and resistance to fire damage.
Sentience. The Shield of the Hidden Lord is sentient as long as it imprisons Gargauth. While sentient, the shield has the following properties:
- The shield has an Intelligence of 22, a Wisdom of 18, and a Charisma of 24, as well as hearing and truesight out to a range of 120 feet.
- The shield can speak, read, and understand Common and Infernal, and it can communicate telepathically with any creature it can sense within 120 feet of it. Its voice is a deep, hollow whisper.
- The shield has 3 charges. You can use an action to expend 1 charge to cast Fireball or 2 charges to cast Wall of Fire from the shield (save DC 21 for each). The wall of fire spell lasts for 1 minute (no concentration required). The shield regains all expended charges daily at dawn.
- Anytime during your turn, the shield can choose to radiate an aura of dread for 1 minute. (This is not a power of the shield that you control.) Any creature hostile to you that starts its turn within 20 feet of the shield must make a DC 18 Wisdom saving throw. On a failed save, the creature is frightened until the start of its next turn. On a successful save, the creature is immune to this power of the shield for the next 24 hours. Once the shield uses this power, it can’t use it again until the next dawn.
Gargauth’s Personality. Gargauth desperately seeks freedom but can’t escape on its own. The pit fiend won’t reveal its true nature, referring to itself only as the Hidden Lord. It drops hints and subtle suggestions that it is an angel trapped in an unholy prison. If released from the shield, the pit fiend honors the terms of whatever bargain it struck to facilitate its escape.
While trapped in the shield, Gargauth carefully steers the shield’s current owner toward committing acts of cruelty and domination, hoping to condemn the individual’s soul to the Nine Hells. Conflict occurs if the shield’s owner does anything that would make it more difficult for Gargauth to escape its prison, such as leaving the shield in a place where others are unlikely to find it.
Gargauth doesn’t know how to escape from the shield. The pit fiend believes (incorrectly) that it can break free of the shield if it’s brought to the Nine Hells, for it’s convinced that the shield’s powers are weaker there.
Freeing Gargauth. Casting Dispel Evil and Good on the shield has a 1 percent chance of freeing the pit fiend, or automatically succeeds if the spell is cast by a solar, a planetar, or an archdevil. A god can release the pit fiend by touching the shield and speaking Gargauth’s name. When released, Gargauth appears in a random, unoccupied space as close to the shield as possible.
Pariah’s Shield
Source: Guildmaster’s Guide to Ravnica
Armor (shield), rare (requires attunement)
Soldiers of the Boros Legion consider it an honor to bear this shield, even knowing that it might be the last honor they receive. The front of the shield is sculpted to depict a grieving human face.
You gain a +1 bonus to AC for every two allies within 5 feet of you (up to a maximum of +3) while you wield this shield. This bonus is in addition to the shield’s normal bonus to AC.
When a creature you can see within 5 feet of you takes damage, you can use your reaction to take that damage, instead of the creature taking it. When you do so, the damage type changes to force.
Shield +3
Source: Dungeon Master’s Guide
Armor (shield), very rare (+3)
While holding this shield, you have a bonus to AC determined by the shield’s rarity. This bonus is in addition to the shield’s normal bonus to AC.
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