Shield Dwarf Wizard

[Mathias Giovanni]

Anyone try this and how does it feel? Thought it looked like a fun combo to give a bit more survivability at low level and a darn nice wizard beard.

[Straph]

It's a great chance to get a wizard in medium armor, but I have a feeling there aren't going to be many wizard friendly medium armors in the game. Normally the Shield Dwarf gets a +2 STR and +2 Con which is an appeal when playing melee focused builds as a dwarf.

Sadly when dealing with your only bonus is an armor proficiency light and medium it's unlikely to be all that different. You're essentially replacing mage armor with armor, so it's mostly just thematic. It might be better with say warlock, as they would then be able to use medium armor instead of light.

It all comes down to did the devs code in specific armors for this situation. Looking at the last minute change to make the attributes universal, I highly doubt this would be any good long term as you'll be giving up robes that are specific to each wizard spell school. Though I could be wrong, but from my standpoint shield dwarf is the worst subrace in the game. As it's only benefit is light and medium armor.

As far as this being useful for classes, you're looking at bard, sorc, warlock, and wizard. Monk doesn't get armor either but their abilities require no armor so that is pointless. Most medium armor messes with stealth so you'd never wanna use it with rogues. Bard and warlock get light armor, so it's a minor upgrade.

This change makes me realize how little the devs planned for the attribute change and how it would affect the subraces that have a benefit that is covered by 10/12 of the classes.