Prerequisite: Proficiency with light armor
You have trained to master the use of medium armor and shields, gaining the following benefits:
Increase your Strength or Dexterity score by 1, to a maximum of 20.
You gain proficiency with medium armor and shields.
Moderately Armored: When You Really Want a Shield
Review by Sam West, Twitter:@CrierKobold
Would you like to wield a shield as a rogue, and are sitting at an odd Dexterity modifier? Then do I have the feat for you!
Moderately Armored basically is a shield proficiency for high Dex characters. That’s it. There are a handful of characters that’d consider taking it if they already have a decent Dex, or are working towards an off-brand high strength mid dexterity frontline warlock build or something. In those cases, if you can get a 13 Dexterity to a 14, or are getting a 15 to a 16 or 17 to 18, this is probably slightly better than an Ability Score Improvement.
Shields are amazing in 5th edition. They let you get an AC bonus for free should you just have an open hand. Despite this, there aren’t a ton of characters who don’t already have this option who’d consider taking it. Somatic and material components together take both hands of most spellcasters. Ranged characters normally need to wield their weapons with two-hands, and when they get in melee range will look to disengage and relocate instead of staying and getting beat up a bunch. The latter at least now has an option to drop the bow and draw a shield, but in that turn you aren’t drawing a weapon to attack with, making it feel a lot worse.
I don’t think the majority of characters are going to readily have an offhand available to really make use of this. On melee warlocks, especially strength based ones, I want to be wielding a two-handed greatsword or greataxe summoned with my pact weapon over a longsword just so I can also have a shield. It's an option, sure, but when you have a myriad of other incredible martial feats that feel near necessary for those builds to work, I have such a hard time justifying Moderately Armored.
There isn’t a whole lot to talk about here unfortunately. The reality of it is most classes that want access to shields already have it, and the rest don’t really care enough to take this because they use both their hands for something and can’t easily whip out their shield when needed. If you don’t specifically care about shields, this is worse than an Ability Score Improvement, as odds are you also don’t care that much about going from light to medium armor. It might be a small AC bump, specifically if you’re going from a 13 to 14 Dex, but beyond that it’ll feel like a feat for a +1 AC. That’s not particularly exciting, nor powerful.
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