The biggest problem with reality vs DDPathfinderetc is that the writers of those games usually don ' t have a lot of real experience with the stuff they ' re writing about . Now part of the problem that Pathfinder inherited from DD is the concept that a failed attack is a miss . In reality there really should be differing levels of success when you ' re attacked , for example if the attack bypasses 10 dexdeflectiondodgemisc then you were missed . If it gets passed that then you should be checking if it got past that AC your shield bonus to see if you shield caught it . If it gets past that then you should be checking if it got past that AC your armor bonus to see if your armor deflectedblocked it . That ' s all a lot of work however when the end result is the attack roll comes to no effect so it gets translated to miss . What you ' re describing also doesn ' t really match how shields are really used either . Vast majority of engagements , anything that isn ' t a buckler or targe is more or less stationary . Think of your shield as a large usually 30 inches of immunity to attack that most people anchor somewhere between their belt and sternum to get the most out of . The reason why you ' re not usually flailing around with shields is because they ' re heavy , if you were constantly actively blocking as you describe you ' d be exhausted after a short while into a fight . You would also end up leaving decent sized gaps in your defense that you ' re not prepared to handle , as opposed to the stationary grip where you know where all your openings are and can be prepared to defend them , but you also end up having to deal with the fact that shields block your outgoing shots just as easily as they block incoming shots . If you ' ve ever fought SCA or any of the other medieval reenactments that are out there you ' d know that the safest place you can be is in front of the other guy ' s shield because that same piece of metal or wood that ' s stopping you from hitting him , is stopping him from hitting you . Now I ' m not saying you might as well tie your shield arm to your chest and call it a day , you will actively block with a shield , but it ' s generally because you screwed up somewhere and left an unexpected gap or got attacked from an unexpected angle . What you are more likely to do with a shield though is to manipulate your opponent ' s shield . For the most part shield bashes don ' t really do a lot other than move each other around a bit , shield edging however is another story . Shield edges can do some serious damage when used offensively , and give you extra weight you can use to push the opponent ' s shield off line . An edge strike to the outer side of an opponent ' s shield can open their center line for you , Hookiing your inside edge to their outer edge and help you spin them , ad just straight up edging your shield into their face can give you the precious moments you need to find gaps to get inside on your opponent . All that ' s a little more than a discussion like is really needs , but the TLDR version is basically , shields are one of the few parts of the Didn ' t hit AC so I missed concept that are actually kind of modeled correctly . If anything adding in a system that tracks the damage your shield is absorbing would be a more realistic addition to the system , your shield does get hit a lot and eventually they do give up the ghost . Armor as Damage reduction does a better job of modeling how armor really works than the AC system does but it has have an entirely different set of flaws , most of which stem from the fact that damage and attack bonuses have some pretty crazy scalings and it ' s an entirely different conversation .