I am playing a sword and shield character and would really love to smack my sword against my shield like the NPCs do, is there a mod that lets you do this?

I don't think it has any effect on combat, but the mod "http://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/13931/?" allows you to use that animation, along with a number of others usually only used by NPCs.

Thanks, that link is to the wrong mod though by the way, found the one you intended to link anyway.

Whoops. Sorry about that. Love it when the copy/paste function doesn't work properly. Anyway, I fixed the link. Might not be exactly needed, but...