How useful are shields?

[Covenant]

I'm playing a Monk (my favourite class), and due to fortunate placement of a herb patch and a few altars, I've managed to get pre-crowned at level 13 (would have been earlier, but the game generated 'Serpent's Bite' in the Puppy Cave vault) just prior to killing Keethrax. I got 'Protector', which seems very nice as far as shields go, but I'm wondering if I should even use a shield.

I primarily plan to use unarmed until I get a good artifact weapon (preferably polearm, as I'm hoping to go for an Ultra ending and thereby get the Trident of the Red Rooster), and Serpent's Bite doesn't seem good enough to warrant using it. But will using a shield adversely affect my damage output? I checked the manual and found out that the shield skill won't rise on the Berserker setting (which is how I spend 90% of the game, personally), so that's already giving me pause for thought.

I just wondered what everyone else's position on shields was - I typically see two-handed weapons in dumps, so I thought they were perhaps a little out of favour?

[Soirana]

Use THAT dagger and THAT shield and hope to dish out revenge RNG is preparing for you.

[gut]

Shields are great in ADOM because of the bonus you get
from increasing your shield skill. As for a weapon, I would
use the dagger until a good ego weapon comes along.

[Ars]

Serpents bite is great. Protector is even better. Though I don't know how good they are for monks as they are "meant" to be unarmed, I haven't played them for ages.

And when the pure damage that Serpents Bite does might not seem great, it has some abilities that really make up for it.

[Grey]

If you want to fight unarmed then shields are useless to you - you get no unarmed marks or bonuses when wearing a shield. However, if you want to use weapons then Serpent's Bite is one of the best and Protector is simply awesome for any char. Two-handed weapons aren't usually that popular - much less safe. Polearms + shield is not really viable when it comes to decent weapons, because there are no particularly good one-handed polearms. The likes of Executor and Serpent's Bite are the best weapons you can get in the game.

You get no shield marks whilst on berserk tactics, but personally I'm of the opinion that you should almost never be on berserk. Very aggressive has better stat balancing, and with a decent skill level Defensive will be optimal.

[Soirana]

IIRC, twohanders are not so bad for monks. Weapon itself does not kill monk bonus (light armour defense one) so having some good twohander might be a way to go (runcovered trident for example).

Still i would stick with protector. +20DV at lv13 is alone incredible.

[gut]

One good thing about Protector is that it will help
train your shield skill faster than any normal shield.
It will cause a higher % of hits to be deflected,
therefore it takes fewer fights to progress. The
only problem I see with Protector is that it would
be inferior to a highly smithed eternium shield, and
that's not much of a knock, considering how dull
smithing is : )

[Silfir]

Serpent's Bite and Protector is usually a set at which I will consider a game over and done with - almost too powerful. Of course, if you want to stay true to monk-unarmed-style, you can't use them. Personally I'd consider my monk's vows to include an exclusion clause for really kickass artifact weapons.

[vogonpoet]

Serpents Bite and Protector is indeed teh awesome !!1!.

I mean, truely beautiful.

My advice: Screw monk roleplaying and kick ass.

[Grey]

Personally I'd consider my monk's vows to include an exclusion clause for really kickass artifact weapons.

I'm fairly sure all Catholic monastaries follow the same creed.