Quote:
Originally Posted by Ulzgoroth
Can you present any definition of the word 'dive' which makes sense here? I can't think of a single one.
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Same as the word "duck". Duck behind your shield, dive behind your shield, cower behind your shield, hide behind your shield, cover yourself with your shield, take cover with your shield, take cover from your shield, shield yourself with your shield -- you have to desperately parse minor shades of meaning to read differences into any of these to come up with dramatically different meaning. In fact, all those phrases mean the same thing. In this case, you'd have to insist that "dive" must always mean "throw yourself headlong from a higher place to a lower altitude", even though the word isn't a requirement, but just the name of the rule.
(Compare the various arguments about "blocks" or "parries" having stop a weapon from moving altogether versus deflecting it from its target, even though those words, too, are just the handles for mechanics.)
There's no reason the "dive for cover" rule means you can't use your shield as the cover for which you're "diving". Even if you insist on ending up prone while the shield-cover means you could wind up kneeling -- or MUST wind up kneeling, if one wanted to be dogmatic about that interpretation of the phrase -- that's a far smaller and less intrusive change than inventing entirely new rules that ultimately have about the same effect.
The OP was complaining that bearers of large shields can't use them to defend against cone attacks and explosions (at least so far as that one player and GM saw it), and wanted some rules to do so. Several posters, including me, have pointed out where RAW does actually provide some defensive benefit for shields in such cases. Sometimes those rules are a little indirect -- as you mention, nowhere do the rules explicitly say that shields can be used as cover, much less against dragon attacks, but start connecting the dots and it's there -- so it's worth pointing out how shields are connected to those other rules.
If the OP doesn't like those rules for some reason, then he'll still need to invent new ones. I don't find them unsatisfactory to the point of wanting to replace them.