There a shields for the right hand in the game, but only specific ones. What’s stopping from opening the left-hand slot for a book or shield?
While shields can be equipped in both hands, it’s logical that, a book can only be equipped in one hand (not only left).
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those aren’t shields if you look closer 
(and it’s not just a technicality)
I don’t know the underlying reason (real)offhands/shields were never default opened to righthand slot, could be lack of animation applicable, “thematic” consideration, or technical limitation of game code applying the attacking hand’s equipped weapon, resulting in 0 dmg for a bunch of attacks if a caster offhand was “accidentally” equipped in MH(not allowing it also removes a pebkac headache/"bug"reports)
*or it’s just a legacy thing that was never deemed worthwhile to change from TQ days, making GD early access days that tiny bit more simplified for a 2man team.
Totally Normal Books have been requested tho, 
mainhand “offhands” appear in FoA
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If there are special shields, that means the animation was worked on. Plus, we can dual-wield weapons.
Let me guess, that requires more coding, and the developers won’t do that, even after the DLC releases.
It’s kind of weird to release a DLC with a shield specialization and add special shields to the right hand, but not make shields dual-wield weapons or armor to improve stats like Internal Trauma damage.
they are not special shields, they are maces, thus get all mace requirements/bonuses like Rhowan devo because the game treats them 1:1 as a mace.
it’s just a simple/“cheeky” way for devs to give us it in mainhand, without having to deal with all the technical hassle/mechanic interactions of what an actual shield/caster book in MH would incur
It’s like in Fallout 3, Train = head cloth😆, shield = mace? LOL!
Then it would be better if the shields were two-handed, so that at least the use of Blitz or Vire’s Might would be more effective. PainTrain!
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two-handed totally normal shields also got requested, but might be more derpy to deal with/lower chance of happening (since 2h melee animations probably looks “weird”/bad with wide model item/“shield” at that size)
(technically blitz/VM hits harder with “dual wield” shield, because slams with both weapons so get double component flat etc for slightly higher combined weapon dmg)
Well, at least we can expect something in development.
I’m all for the original!
So, the work is already done! All that’s left is Ctrl + C and Ctrl + V.
By the way, I didn’t know about the GD database.
I for one think all these ideas about a shield becoming equippable on your main hand or even as a two-handed item are quite good. For example, they would make no difference for skills that don’t use weapon damage, but they’d boost your defense more. As you already said, it would boost even more the damage of skills that use the shield. However, they should stop you from adding your weapon damage to any skills that actually use weapon damage. This might also require most skills to start requiring a melee weapon to be held. With hard work implementing it, it could be a great thing and make casters or shield strikers much better, just like dual-wield does for melee weapon users.
Would be cool!
It’s also a way to make DW melee look like S&B if you transmog one of the weapons into one of these.
If you use a two-handed shield, your base damage will be greatly reduced.
Shields have very low damage output. They won’t deal as much damage as an axe or mace. Only shield modifiers, materials, and devotion can help increase condition damage.
- Some abilities, such as Forcewave, won’t work because it’s not a melee weapon.
If your build uses only skills based on shield damage or skills that don’t use weapon damage (like casters might), then having a shield with more damage and defense would be more useful than having a weapon and a shield or two shields. The comparison would become the same as in the case of shield+weapon or dual wield vs a two-handed weapon, I think. Anyway, this modification (and others proposed before) might involve a lot of work changing the mechanics of the game, so maybe they’ll do it for GD2.