Can you use the Dueling Fighting Style with a Shield. If you can, do you lose the +2 Damage to you're weapon if using a feat that allows you to treat your shield as a weapon?
When Druids take damage in animal form. Is that damage always applied to their human form, or only if it is in excess of 0?
EzraTwitch wrote:
Shield Master feat. Page 170 of the PHB. It allows you to shove, which is as close as you can get to attacking with a shield at present. Even at that, no. Duelist is intended to be for one main hand weapon (naked offhand or shield) and gimping yourself with a feat tax wouldn;t make sense. In the event that a shield ever gets to make "real" attacks, duelist will still work, as a shield isn't a weapon. (It is armor. You can tell this because it is in the armor table, not the weapon table.)
With dual styles (champion fighter or multiclass) it is possible to go with both the protective and duelist styles and benefit from both of them.
Damage to a druid's wild shape comes directly off the wild shape's hp until you hit 0. Any damage which carries through hits the caster form of the druid.
I don't think Duellists with shields is a problem at all, even if (eventually) shields can be used offensively for damage. FIrst, because any attack a Duellist can make with a shield is bound to be considerably less than an off-hand attack from a dedicated Two Weapon Fighter. Second, because bucklers and shields used by Duellists probably won't do that much damage (when we see them in future bumf). Even a spiked buckler won't do as much as a short sword, I'm guessing, not in game mechanics.
Finally, it's only realistic (yeah, I know, I know, "fantasy RPG =/= realism"). You can do quite a lot of damage with a buckler wielded offensively, especially against unarmored opponents. A punch to the face with the center of the buckler is quite effective. Even more effective is the edge of the buckler into the throat. These techniques are all over Medieval and Renaissance swordplay manuals. Those manuals were aimed primarily at duellists. 
Cheers,
Bob
EzraTwitch wrote:
Those mentioning the buckler. I think the point of removing the buckler from the playtest to the final product was not to say that bucklers aren't around anymore but to say that buckler is just another shield and thus uses the stats of a shield now. At least that's how I'm going to run it.
EzraTwitch wrote:
Confusingly, you might technically be able to use a shield as an "improvised weapon". Although since "improvised weapon" isn't on the Weapons table you could argue that an improvised weapon isn't a weapon either.
Thoughts_My_Aim wrote:
Bloodscythe wrote:
shivafang wrote: