Block

This information is reliable as of patch 2.0.194.1. If this is no longer the current patch, you can help by updating it.

This information is reliable as of patch 2.0.194.1.

Block

	Shield
	0 sp
	0 Strength
	Shield_Block

As long as you wield a shield, there is a 50% chance you block one melee attack per round. When you block an attack, you add the shield's AV bonus to your AV for that attack.

Block is a shield skill that unlocks upon purchasing the base skill of the same name. "Shield" in this article will refer to any shield or buckler that use the Shield skill. If a creature does not have Block, they are unable to receive the AV benefits of wearing any kind of shield. DV penalties and other additional effects will still affect the creature. As long as the creature has Block, they have a 50% passive chance to have their shield's AV bonus added to their total AV calculation for one melee attack. This passive is still active when the creature is asleep.

If the weapon used is psionic, blocking adds to the creature's MA instead.

The following skills can affect how common blocking is:

• Deft Blocking increases the chance of each shield by 25%
• Swift Blocking allows two attacks to be blocked a round
• Shield Wall allows non-bucklers to block all melee attacks for 3 turns

Stacking Shields

Num Shields	Chance to block	Deft Blocking
1	50%	75%
2	75%	93.75%
3	82.5%	98.44%
...

The player is able to wear multiple shields, but the bonus to blocking is not a linear increase. In the event of a melee attack, the game will roll a 50% chance on each shield one by one. If one succeeds, then the attack is blocked. This means that any additional shield will only be rolled for if the first 50% retuns a failure. With no additional skills, this only increases block chance by $0.50^{n}\times 0.5$, with $n$ being the additional number of shields.

Each shield will also apply their DV penalty, and only one shield's AV can be added in an attack. Because of this, the optimal amount of shields depends on the total DV penalty and AV of the shields, and whether or not the player has Deft Blocking.