Combat Expertise and Defensive Fighting
dema
First Post
possible answer and more.
Page 142 in PHB, for Total Defense says can not combine Total Defense with Combat Expertise, or with fighting defensively.
Fighting Defensively as a full round action (page 143), You can choos to fight defensively when taking a full attack action.
Looking at page 92 for Combat Expertise the section for Normal kinda throws things off. But the Fighting Defensively does not say you can not use Combat Expertise.
I believe the intent of the rules is that with out Combat expertise, you can only get the -4 hit, +2 ac. I don't see anything saying you can not Fight Defensively and Take CE, The only thing that is a barring action is Total Defense.
FD, and CE together get you a nice +7 Dodge bonus to AC if needed, at a -4 hit. Not too bad. The Thead was one about making shields better, I don't know how to link them, sorry.
But I like the CE with small/large shield options givening a better return on CE.
I was thinking something like this
if you have CE
Exchange Rate is Buckler -1 hit/ +1 AC
Small Shield -1 hit/+1.5 AC rounded down
Large Shield -1 hit/+2 AC
or something like that.
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=174253 this is the older thread I think.
Page 142 in PHB, for Total Defense says can not combine Total Defense with Combat Expertise, or with fighting defensively.
Fighting Defensively as a full round action (page 143), You can choos to fight defensively when taking a full attack action.
Looking at page 92 for Combat Expertise the section for Normal kinda throws things off. But the Fighting Defensively does not say you can not use Combat Expertise.
I believe the intent of the rules is that with out Combat expertise, you can only get the -4 hit, +2 ac. I don't see anything saying you can not Fight Defensively and Take CE, The only thing that is a barring action is Total Defense.
FD, and CE together get you a nice +7 Dodge bonus to AC if needed, at a -4 hit. Not too bad. The Thead was one about making shields better, I don't know how to link them, sorry.
But I like the CE with small/large shield options givening a better return on CE.
I was thinking something like this
if you have CE
Exchange Rate is Buckler -1 hit/ +1 AC
Small Shield -1 hit/+1.5 AC rounded down
Large Shield -1 hit/+2 AC
or something like that.
http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=174253 this is the older thread I think.
Evilhalfling
Adventurer
dema said:
My soultion was to have a shield have the same benifits as 5 ranks in tumble ie
+3 ac for -4 to hit or +6 AC for total defense.
This is based on my completely untrained shield fighting (Boffer Larps, SCA, homemade weapons etc) with no skill, hiding behind a shield = good idea
The problem with making CE any better is that is already very powerful, and it doesn't take a lot of skill or brains to concentrate on hiding behind a shield.
edit- the HR comes with the sitpulation that it does not work with animated shields -
Last edited:
Darthjaye
First Post
shilsen said:
This gets really insane when you consider PrC's like Dervish who's 7th level ability allows for a +4 on top of this when fighting defensively. Net's you a +12 to AC for only a -9 at that point. If your using the Dervish dance from the class you'll gain at least +4 when dancing. It's a limited basis, but one of many examples where this trade-off can be worth it.
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