Large Metal Shields

[Steppenwulf]

Hi all, was just wondering why Large Shields of the metal type never drop anymore in random loot. This has been happening for quite a while now but just never got around to asking about it. You would be hard pressed to find one today. Searching in past posts does not offer an explanation. Their absence is not alarming, but more choices for players is always beneficial to a game of D&D, and a set of large shields made of steel, adamantine or mithral materials are a great complement to their wooden counterparts. They used to drop quite a lot in the years past, but I havent seen one in a long time now.

Where they removed from the random gen loot tables? Do they have a very low drop rate nowadays?

Any insight and help would be greatly appreciated!

[PurpleTimb]

Hi all, was just wondering why Large Shields of the metal type never drop anymore in random loot. This has been happening for quite a while now but just never got around to asking about it. You would be hard pressed to find one today. Searching in past posts does not offer an explanation. Their absence is not alarming, but more choices for players is always beneficial to a game of D&D, and a set of large shields made of steel, adamantine or mithral materials are a great complement to their wooden counterparts. They used to drop quite a lot in the years past, but I havent seen one in a long time now.

Where they removed from the random gen loot tables? Do they have a very low drop rate nowadays?

Any insight and help would be greatly appreciated!

When druids were added to the game with the MotU expansion (Jun 2012; yes, four and a half years ago) they devs didn't initially account for the fact that nearly every shield in the game was metal and druids could not use metal shields or armor. To address this they quickly patched the random loot tables to change the material type of every random generated shield to wood. This aspect of the loot table hasn't been changed since, so now it's nearly impossible to find a non-named metal shield. They do show up in a few odd places like some end rewards lists that don't use the regular loot tables, but you'll be very hard pressed to find a mithral or adamantine shield these days. I received a small mithral shield in the end reward for Waterworks recently; that's the only place I've seen them personally. I think Shan To Khor and some of the Sharn quests may still give them as well, but I have no first hand knowledge.

[Steppenwulf]

When druids were added to the game with the MotU expansion (Jun 2012; yes, four and a half years ago) they devs didn't initially account for the fact that nearly every shield in the game was metal and druids could not use metal shields or armor. To address this they quickly patched the random loot tables to change the material type of every random generated shield to wood. This aspect of the loot table hasn't been changed since, so now it's nearly impossible to find a non-named metal shield. They do show up in a few odd places like some end rewards lists that don't use the regular loot tables, but you'll be very hard pressed to find a mithral or adamantine shield these days. I received a small mithral shield in the end reward for Waterworks recently; that's the only place I've seen them personally. I think Shan To Khor and some of the Sharn quests may still give them as well, but I have no first hand knowledge.

Ahh, thanks very much for clearing it up, mate, that explains a lot. I certainly understand the need to increase the drop rates for the wooden material type shields, but it seems a bit of a shame that it meant the removal of the metal types from the regular loot tables. Thanks again for the info!