Better Shields adds material-tier shields, a Shield of Undying, Thorns support, and three shield-specific enchantments. The project contains implementations for Fabric and NeoForge on Minecraft 26.2, plus a Forge port for Minecraft 1.20.1.

The vanilla shield is displayed as the Iron Shield while retaining its minecraft:shield ID for recipe, world, and mod compatibility.

Copper, gold, diamond, and netherite shields use material-tier durability, enchantability, repair items, and distinct textures.

Copper, gold, and diamond shields support banner decoration.

The Netherite Shield is upgraded from a Diamond Shield at a smithing table, is fire resistant as a dropped item, and removes the Diamond Shield's banner while preserving its other data.

Crafting a Netherite Shield with a Totem of Undying creates a Shield of Undying with both normal blocking and vanilla totem death protection.

After its totem pops, the Shield of Undying becomes a Netherite Shield while preserving durability damage, enchantments, and other customized data.

Every shield can use the enchanting table.

Shields support Unbreaking, Mending through books and anvils, and Thorns I-III, along with these added enchantments:

-Bash lets the player left-click while blocking to dash forward and knock hostile creatures away without damaging them.

-Reinforce I-II reduces shield-disabling cooldowns by 25% per level.

-Lightweight I-III reduces the movement penalty while actively blocking.

Thorns retaliates only when the enchanted shield actually blocks a hit.