Shields provides a significant boost to your defense against attacks, especially at a high skill level. Whenever an enemy successfully hits your character one of your armor peices is hit at random(Helmet, Breastplate, Boots, Gloves or Shield), the higher your shields skill the better chance of your shield being hit instead of your other armor directly.

When your shield is hit you first get the reduction of the shield to the damage, and then another random peice of armor behind it will also reduce the damage.

The shields skill is available to the following classes:

Like most weapons and armor different shields can be used by different classes: