Shield bashing in BG and BG2?

[Kyrien]

Years ago when I first fell in love with this game, before I knew of modding or NPC packs, my very first PC was a dwarf sword and board fighter, and I tried to figure out a way to use his shield as an offhand weapon, basically dual-wielding. Always thought it sad that the game doesn't support shield bashing.

And now I'm revisiting that concept, using Near Infinity and other mod programs to jury-rig something that would work. I figured I could just use IEIM to create a new class of item that functions as a sword but appears on the doll and in the game as a shield. Weirdly that hasn't worked out - equipping the modded item crashes the game, every time, unless I make the item appear as a sword, which defeats the purpose for me.

So, has anyone made this attempt and had better results?

PS: I do realize it's a little cheesy and mucks with the game's intended balance. But hey, we've been doing that for years, so I figure, why not? I can always partially compensate by making sure the offensive function of the shield is inferior to actual weapons.