Shielded Staff Style (Combat, Style)

You can attack and defend effectively with a shield attached to your staff or spear.

Prerequisite(s): Dex 15, Two-Weapon Fighting, Weapon Focus (quarterstaff, any weapon from the polearms fighter weapon group, or any weapon from the spears fighter weapon group), proficiency with bucklers and light shields.

Benefit(s): When you enter this style, you attach your buckler or light shield to your quarterstaff, polearm, or spear, combining them into a weapon known as a shielded staff. While in this style, you can wield the shielded staff normally, but attacks you make with it take a –1 penalty. As long as you wield the shielded staff with two hands, you gain a +2 shield bonus to your AC (regardless of the shield or buckler’s enhancement bonus). You can’t make shield bash attacks with the attached buckler or shield, and detaching the buckler or shield from the weapon is a move action that provokes attacks of opportunity.

The weapon and attached shield count as separate objects for the purposes of abilities or effects that target objects, except for disarm attempts, which treat the shielded staff as a single object. Anyone not in this style who attempts to wield the shielded staff treats it as an improvised weapon that deals bludgeoning damage.