Does wearing a shield affect the 3x bonus from the mage armor alteration perk?

"Protection spells like Stoneflesh are 2x as strong if not wearing armor (+.5x per additional rank)"

Does anyone know from experience, or can test it out?

Don't post an answer if your just guessing please.

Thanks.

According to the discussion page of UESP (link below), the mage armor perks applies if you are only using a shield. I can't attest to it personally, but one anonymous source is as good as another, right?

http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Skyrim_talk:Alteration

Mage Armor perk description: "[...] if not wearing armor."

Shields: light or heavy armor...

Nowai D:

*goes test this*


Edit: It does too D: - you can still use a shield without breaking mage armour's bonus

Ah sweet, I'm asking because this could be a interesting idea for my next character (waiting until after 1.3, whenever the hell that is on the 360). So with ebonyflesh and the lord stone, I will have 350 armor rating, add in a heavy armor shield, could work.

Does holding a shield have any affect on your running speed or stamina used when running, I have a feeling it is only the armor that has an affect?

If it does have an effect, I never noticed it in 150 hours of playing a character who regularly switched from archery to one-handed with a shield. So I'd say no, but I wouldn't swear to it.

Simple. Activate alteration spell. Check armor rating. Equip shield. Check armor rating. :foodndrink:

I don't have the alteration perk on my character now, I was curious for my next character after the 1.3 patch.

I would have tested it myself if I had the perk.

I would test it for you but unfortunately I'm at work atm

Someone tested and commented above, thanks though.

Bizarrely in skyrim, Shields don't seem to count as armor, this might be so that shields do not break armor bonuses for matched set perks as some sets do not have shields at all but shields will actually benefit from the matched-set bonus irrelevant of their type (a heavy shield like deadric shield gets the armor benefit of matched set if the user is in dragonscale armor which is "light"). Despite not counting as armor they still boost the armor rating and as said before still receive the set bonus even if they shouldn't.