The Shield Bash skill is a special defensive skill, which can be used to harm an attacker.

A Shield Bash may be used to stop any attack a Shield Block would, but also has the bonus of possibly doing damage back to the attacker. (See the Shield Block skill for a list of possible attacks stopped.)

In addition, the Shield Bash skill allows the user to return Crushing damage equal to 2 for a Buckler or Medium Shield, or 3 for Tower Shield plus his / her Weapon Damage and Enhanced Strength skills to an attacker if possible, thus a melee attack which is blocked by a Shield Bash where the user has a Medium Shield, Weapon Damage of +5 and Enhanced Strength of +1 would do 8 points of physical damage to the attacker and block the melee attack. (This skill can only cause damage if the attacker is within “arms reach” of the defender, but the user doesn’t actually strike the attacker with the shield.)

To use this skill, the character would simply state “Shield Bash, crushing” loudly enough for all those including the attacker to hear. The skill is used up whether it is successful or not at that time.

Example would be the above defender blocking an incoming attack would state loudly “Shield Bash 8 crushing”. The Shield Bash may be couple with certain Shield Block spells as well.

Certain attacks have an "Unparriable" portion to their tagline Those attacks cannot be Parried or Blocked, but they can be Dodged or Evaded.

The player may purchase this skill once after gaining three (3) levels of the Weapon Damage skill and other prerequisites. They may then purchase this skill each time they gain an additional three (3) levels of the Weapon Damage skill. Thus, it is possible for a player with Weapon Damage +13 to have 4.