Arelith

I know monks have this sort of thing disabled for a reason until whatever is done to them is done.

But for everyone else, and even for and especially because of "pugilists" who are not monks who have all monk bonuses - let people who are using parry to get the offhand free AC, get it, so that they can look aesthetic and cool. It also means people can spend 30 points to not have to use meta shields and instead have a torch or lantern or whatever.

There are plenty of shields that have amazing bonuses and way more ac.

This was rejected.

Parrying is about balance and mobility, occupying your offhand hinders you.

I'll go into detail here since the above is not consistent with the design perspective.

Rationale for this is as follows,
While I was enabling stats on torches and some other offhand items we had to decide what state they would work in for parry ac,
Some factors we considered:

• No other offhand gets parry ac if it can also be given bonuses to skills and stats
• Could it scale to some lesser degree?
  • Would any scaling result in a best in slot dilemma?
  • Would any scaling result in a power dynamic shift?

It was decided for simplicity we match it to all other items that allow bonuses, by denying parry ac for these items.
So while this is denied on that basis it can be revisited but will need doing so internally, and if/when/partially that opinion changes this can be moved or not and announcements will be made, eitherway hope that is clearer!