Shield question (in General)

The 10% DX penalty for a shield + one-handed weapon + bow...does that apply only during ranged rounds or is the penalty there for the whole combat?

it applies during all rounds of combat and even out of combat (it displays on your character page also :) )

Bah, when is a normal buckler or shield ever worth it? The -10% hurts offense and defense while the AC only boosts defense.

HP also boosts only defense. When is training HP ever worth it? ;)

Just see AC as a HP bonus. You'll need to train less HP because of your AC. That saved exp can be trained into DX, and compensate for the DX penalty. If your AC is high enough, then this trade off is well worth it.

If 100 ac is still blocking approx 20% damage then any extra ac is always worth it as your character reaches higher levels. Especially now that we have Tattoos - no body armour or cloaks remember when they're equipped. I think the trade off of 10% to dx is worth it. You can always train your dx higher than you need it.

Johnny: you can't directly compare that 20% to the 10% DX penalty.

That 20% damage blocked means you've boosted your HP by 25% by using that 100AC of armor. 25% HP bonus with a 10% DX bonus is well worth it in most strategies indeed. But you'll should also compare it with the same set of armor without the shield. Let's just guess that that shield contributes 25AC. Then the remaining armor (75AC) will block roughly 15% damage. HP bonus is then 17.6%, with a 0% DX penalty. So you'll need to compare the following 2 scenarios:
25% HP bonus, 10% DX penalty
vs
17.6% HP bonus, 0% DX penalty, lots of cash saved from not buying shield

Of course, the higher the AC gets, the greater the HP bonus gets. As the DX penalties is a constant, you'll see that at some point a shield is worth it.

How do you calculate that 'HP bonus' ? Well, for example at 200AC you'll block 42% damage (on average). That means that your minion only receives 58% from the original damage. If that original damage is 10,000 over a total damage, then a naked minion would need 10,001 HP at least, to survive. A minion with that armor would only need 5,801 HP to survive. So his 5.8k HP is worth as much as 10k HP when unequipped. His HP bonus is then 10,000/5,800=72%.

Nicely explained although a bit too much maths at this time of the morning! =).

I guess the question to ask is are you playing a defensive game or offensive? Do you enable your char to potentially dish out more damage with his weapons or by lasting longer in a fight? I think the importance of AC in higher levels will continue in CB2 as it was in CB1. Todd and Spydah attributed a lot of Spid's success to the massive amount of AC he had and you have to ask if a tank with 300+ ac faced up against a similarly sized tank and jig who would last longer?

And there's another trade off that will occur more and more often, do you choose full body armour or equip a tattoo? Is a familiar acting as 'meatshield armour' better or worse than equipping an adam and cloak?

Where in the world are you getting a 10% penalty? With a two-handed weapon, kite shield, and bow I have an overall dex penalty of 7%, with one handed weapon + shield+ bow it's only 3%. Unless the type of bow has something to do with the penalty?(the only one I have to test with is my compound)

It depends on the shield.

ah...bartjan, is there a table for that?

I was testing with a Mithril Shield + Katana and got a 10% DX penalty. At 15 AC, I didn't think the AC was worth 10% DX. I forged it up to 30 AC and that might be worth it, I'll test it out to see.

It's n times the base penalty of that shield, with n being 8 for xbow and 4 for bow I believe. I forgot what n was for 2handed melee weapons.