Shield Math

Some recent posts about the great shield debates have me thinking again. Historically shields became less useful as plate armour began to be worn. So I thought, "Is this replicated in the D&D rules?" Lets look at the math. If we compare the rating of different armours to the the fixed bonus for the shield. We get a ratio or percentage of protection of the armours'.

If you have leather gives a bonus of 2 points and a shield which gives 1 point
the ratio of bonuses is 1 to 2 or 50% so the shield is 50% as good as the armour


Now for Chain mail , bonus 4 points and 1 for the shield is a ratio of 1/4
or 25% as good as the armour


And finally Plate , bonus of 6 and the shield's 1 point for ratio of only 1/6

or about 17% as good as the armour.

So you can see that shields account for a smaller and smaller percentage of the total protection as you wear better armour classes.

Yeah, the system's fine. Nothing to worry about here, move along citizen.