Gunderland Pike-and-Shield Fighting

[Hythian]

I didn't find this in the faq, so I may have to wait for an official errata.

The feat states they can use a large shield with a pike at +2 instead of the normal +3 a large shield gives.

The equipment section however lists the large shield as being +4.

So does the feat give +2 instead of +4 ( a loss of two points of bonus but useable with a pike )?

Or did they later edit the shield up so the feat should give +3 instead of +4 ( a loss of one point of bonus )?

Or is it really supposed to be +2 instead of +3 ( which makes the least sense as that would mean no difference in bonus between a large shield and a targe, except that the large shield would be worse in every other sense )

 

[argo]

AFAIK there is no official errata on this yet.

My answer is that a large shield provides a +4 parry bonus normally (doesn't make sense otherwise, as you pointed out) and that the feat allows you to have a +2 bonus when fighting with pike and shield as described (because a +2 seems balanced to me). I think that the refrence to a large shield giving +3 in the feat text is either another typo or another case of a leftover playtest rule making it into the final cut (there are other obvious cases of this in the text).

Hope that helps.

 

[Orkin]

I have always imagined the Bossonian pikemen to have no shields, like the famous Swiss pikemen...