IMO shields should be divided between physical and magical, with the ability to block both only appearing as an enchantment.
From there, much like staves, they should offer a skill that allows the user to restore their armor of the relevant kind(magic for magic shields, physical for physical shields).
Basically, instead of using AP for depleting the armor of an enemy, a shield user can use AP to increase their own.
That's also a good alternative. Keep it up fellas, I'm reading lots of good ideas here. Let's just hope the guys at Larian will at least consider some of them :P
