I was just playing around with OC today and had an interesting thought. Instead of the shield being an item which simply deflects objects, it could work with a solid mask to block. This way it could work like the Olaf character from the Lost Vikings. Apart from just blocking, the shield's user could also provide a physical platform. However, my experiences with rotating solid masks seemed to simply remove them until the object was reset to zero degrees. It might not be the most original idea, but I think it could make the shield a bit more robust.