Dungeons And Dragons Online: Explanation of How Shield Mastery Works!

DeadlyGazebo helped clarify how Shield Damage Reduction works in DDO.

Since there's some confusion about blocking DR:

When blocking, you get the following sources of DR:
1) a sliding scale for being smart enough to block; with shield in hand it's (your BAB/2)+2, so a 10th level fighter is getting 7 points, while a 1st level with nothing in his left hand is getting +1.

2) the amount for the shield type; 1 for buckler/light, 2 for heavy, 4 for tower

3) the enhancement bonus on the shield; 1 DR for every +

4) +3 for shield mastery

5) +3 for improved shield mastery

All of this layers on top of other DR you might have (the attack first hits your shield, and then hits your axeblock armor or barbarian DR or warforged DR or whatever). It's possible I'm missing some other sources of blocking DR, but this should be the normal set.

So a level 10 fighter with a tower shield +5 and both feats is getting 22DR; add in a few more from other sources and you can indeed have some fairly hefty enemies bouncing off of your shield.

The shield mastery and improved shield mastery bonuses seem small (+3 versus the +9 you're getting from a tower shield +5), but they're often going to be the difference between someone hurting you a bit with each blow and being completely ineffective -- if a monster hits you for around 28 points of damage, then 22DR with the feats means you're taking 6 points of damage per hit, while you'd be taking 12 points of damage per hit without the feat and thus dying twice as fast. If they're only averaging around 20 per hit, then that 22 DR makes you invulnerable unless they crit or roll high on damage, while a 16 would leave them still nibbling you a bit on every hit. Of course, if someone hits you for 100 points at a time, you're toast either way...

Module 2 is going to have some extra information in the combat chat window, including how much damage got absorbed by your DR, which should help make this easier to see.

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