My only issue is with shield parry, which appears to be the "fix" for parry being the go to for tanking with shields becoming obsolete. My problem with it is that it doesnt fix the issue for strength based fighters, rather it just adds even more power and viability to the dex parry build. I'd much rather have it be renamed to Mighty Shield or something along those lines and have a str requirement and perhaps remove any relation to the parry skill, instead being a +1 to AC for wielding a shield, with there being greater versions of it as you progress to add more as you level. Essentially the skill focus feats that you'd use on parry would be used on these instead.
I'm not sure how shields are becoming obsolete. I don't even get why Shield Parry is even being considered, since the idea behind Parry giving AC was to give it a reason to exist and even out some playstyles that become horribly disadvantaged in a low-magic setting, honestly.
Consider:
-A shield is +1 to +3 AC off the bat.
-Then Magic Vestmented or Varnished to +4 or +5
-Has
other properties (skills, DR, etc) on top of that.
And we're going to add +5
MORE AC on top of all this? Have we been taking crazy pills? Can someone please explain to me how this isn't insane? Even if it was classed "Shield AC" and Magic Vestment/Varnishes didn't stack, it defeats the reason Parry was made useful, to begin with. Playstyles that are severely disadvantaged due to lowered magic/stats are no longer buoyed by Parry, but back to where they were at square one. Now
everyone has +5 AC.
Honestly imo, it should look like this...
-If you use a shield, you get no parry benefit. Having the nifty effects of the shield itself is your benefit. (Magic Vestment/Varnish is your AC benefit.)
-If you dual-wield, you get half parry benefit. Having multiple off-hand attacks to increase your DPS is your benefit. (You have the Two-weapon Defense line of feats as an AC benefit.) +1 AC/10 Parry seems balanced for having the extra DPS of off-hand.
-If you use a 2H weapon, you should get some parry benefit. This is because getting a few more damage from Strength is a rather weak bonus in a very low magic setting with no hope of gaining +12 strength. (I'd say +1 AC per 10 modified Parry is fine. +1 AC/5 Parry is too much.)
-Other playstyles get full +1 AC/5 Parry.
I just don't understand the idea of it. It seems too powerful to me, esp given everybody and their dog would have it and now Parry went from "balancing some playstyles out that lose out in low-magic settings" to "free +5 AC for every playstyle and build in the game."
In that case, why even do it? You've not balanced playstyles that suffered from being in a low-magic setting, just raised the AC bar across the board for everyone - which means the game is right back where it started.
Please explain to me why we need shields to have +11 to +13 AC?