Rehabilitating the Shield Bash

First off, if you're American: GO VOTE! I'll wait for you. I'll be right here. Back? Ok.

Shield bashing in 2e is lame. Even with the Combat and Tactics rules, this is what you get:

Shield Type	Size	Speed	Reach	Damage	Knockdown
Small	S	Fa (2)	1	1d3	d6
Medium	M	Av (6)	1	1d4	d8
Large	L	Sl (8)	1	1d6	d10

That doesn't look too impressive, does it? Your small shield is as useful as a knife—not very. The knockdown on the shields is fairly good considering, but there's still little reason to use your medium shield as a punch ever unless you happen to have two ranks in TWF or your dexterity bonus completely negates the off-hand penalty.

What the hell would make shields useful as weapons? Well, after taking a look at a video from the Mosgard Museum in which viking shield-fighting is explained, I got some ideas.

With that in mind, anyone struck by a blow from a shield must save vs. paralyzation (at a +2, 0, -2 bonus/penalty for small/medium/large shields) or lose their next attack as they flinch and overbalance. Characters hit with a shield-punch also lose any dexterity bonus to their AC if they fail this save until the beginning of next round, making a follow-up blow from a sword a much more certain thing.

I think that brings some dignity to shield-punching and more accurately represents why you would ever want to do it. I have yet to use the rule in play, for I thought of it just this morning in the shower, but I am changing all shield-punching in the 10th Age to run along these lines until I determine its a bad idea.

Note: this maneuver is still more useful for higher level characters -- both because it will land more successfully and because it serves to break up a high level foe's attack pattern.