I'd like to have javelins as weapons for the ranged slot, usable with shield, very short range, high damage (on par with crossbow). I would like if chars didn't benefit from shields in the melee slot when they have ranged weapons out, and that it would cost something to change the weapon sets (even if that would hurt as one possible char I'm planning is a dex based ranged Battlemaster Fighter). Maybe in a more elaborated system there could be + 2 AC shoulder shields to use with bows (I would like normal shields would give + 4 AC btw).
Ah, okay. On characters benefitting from shields when using bows, when I reported this to Larian support not all that long ago they said it was planned to be fixed for the full release.
Personally, I don’t think use of weapon slots is the right solution for thrown weapons for QoL reasons, unless there’s a significant change to the interface. And javelins can already be used as a ranged weapon with a shield using the Throw option. But I’ll not rehash weapon switching and slots here, as it’s already been discussed relatively recently in
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=840832 and
https://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=841361.I agree thrown weapon damage in 5e seems poor compared to bows, given that the majority of the strength-based ones (spear, javelin, hand axe, etc) do just 1d6. But not being a 5e expert I’m very wary of just changing damage on weapons in case it breaks balance in unexpected ways so I’ll let others comment on that.
Upping basic shield AC by +2 really does seem balance breaking even to my inexpert eyes, though. That’s quite a boost.
