According to the FFG rules on shields:

• Each character can have a maximum of 3 shields at one
time. If an effect would give a character more than 3 shields,
ignore the excess shields.

With that being said does that mean you are allowed to give a character a 4th shield which would then be ignored keeping them at 3 and allowing you to play certain cards?

For example

Loth-Wolf Bond

"Give up to 2 of your Blue characters 1 shield each. You may activate those characters in the order of your choice."

This clearly says to give them 1 shield each, and the rules say if an effect would give a character more than 3 shields the excess shield are ignored. But the shield was still given which fulfills Loth-Wolf Bond's text right?

There are other cards as well which you could give a character a shield to do something. The fact that the rules does not state that the shield must be given only that it would be ignored makes me think you could. I emailed FFG about this but haven't received a response so I figured id ask here.

Its kind of like upgrades. Your characters can only have 3 upgrades, but you have to play a 4th on them first to trigger the cost reduction if you're "over riding" that upgrade. So its kind of like the shields, they're overriding each other in this instance to keep a max of 3 (unless otherwise noted by another card).

~D

No different than resolving for zero

In the above case, the words "then", "before" and/or "after" are not present, so actual shield gain is not a requirement.

So you give up to two characters shields, they would ignore the excess shield gain, and activate the those characters.

"Then Effects" Page 19:

In order to resolve an effect that is preceded by the word “then,” the previous effects on the card must have fully resolved (i.e., the game state changes to reflect the intent of the effect in its entirety). If the part of an ability that precedes the word “then” does not successfully resolve in full, the part of the ability that follows the word “then” does not attempt to resolve.