Does a shield's addition to my armor value count for the purposes of encumbrance?

Body 2 hacker hoping to hide behind a shield without encumbrance

They count. And give you a -1 penalty on top of the encumbrance.

But use them, nevertheless. Minimum 2 shields ofc

Alternatively get yourself a PMV (those little personal cars that can go just about anywhere a wheelchair can, which should be most places), with some concealed armor and passenger protection or a rigger cocoon, so you have a safe place for your meatbody while accompanying your companions and providing matrix support.

Reminds me of a D&D character build I designed that used two tower shields. "What's that? They can be used as full cover, same as a wall? DEAL. *plonk*"
Followed by tricks like shield bashing and handy haversacks for quick item retrieval.

I don't think you actually CAN shield bash with a tower shield in D&D.... but dual wielding heavy shields is kind of popular, and two handed power attacking with a heavy spiked shield of bashing is downright deadly. Bonus points if you can get that wizard buff that boosts it's size category another 3 higher, so you're smacking things for like 16d6 damage before considering any weapon enchantments, or your own stats and abilities.

I don't recall the exact details any more, but I was pretty sure I/it/he could. If I still have the sheet, it'd be on a computer at home.

If you're talking 3rd edition, tower shields specifically could NOT be used for shield bashing.

Heavy shields were popular as weapons because they had more option to increase their effective "size", and therefore the damage they did, than any other melee weapon in the game.

Hmm. I can't remember. Are there taser shields in Shadowrun?




-k

3.5, not 3.0. It may have been a feat from a splat book, or a heavy shield. I can't find that character.

Yup

Are there? cool. Where?

SR3.

In the SR4A core book. But it is cheaper to equipe a basic riot shield with Shock Frills

3.5 got rid of some of the facing rules for tower shields but you still could not shield bash with them.

Heavy shield is most likely, tower shields got almost no feat or class support in any of the books.




Nifty. I'll have to equip some riot cop NPCs it seems.




-k

Fixed that for you.


Yes, SR4A, the Taser Shield.