Well, i have stated this in another post, but seems that nobody understand it or that nobody cares
I really hope that this get fixed but as it is now... only with novice shield user, and not a single point of dodger/agility/anything (i thing that even without shield user) you just can get a lot of shields, then *r*emove all shields from backpacks, doing this makes the shields equipped in your hands, and a LOT of shields (between 7~xx depending the types of shields you have) raise your overall block of incoming hits far beyond 100%
Still, fire/frozen/drowning/sickness/rotting could kill you, but you could be totaly naked besides shields, and not having a single scratch
As far i know, genesis mod have slightly changed system maded by another guy in this forum that i dont recall his name right now, that have a lot of things to do in adv mode, like making tanned hides/weapons/shields(yay!)/armors(currently size buged by hardcoded mechanics or something)/arrows... and many other things. Actually, i hope that the devs step aside in their quest to make something exactly like that, and just take that create system and simply correct the bugs
I once had and adventurer that has an armour of just lots and lots of reddragonscale/wyrm/hydra/dragonraptor shields maded by himself