Combat Expertise and Fighting Defensively

[Stalker0]

...?

-Hyp.

It says the bonus applies until your next action, if that is a move action, you would lose the bonus. Hyp, if I remember correctly the last time combat expertise was brought up you debated this point.

 

[Hypersmurf]

It says the bonus applies until your next action, if that is a move action, you would lose the bonus. Hyp, if I remember correctly the last time combat expertise was brought up you debated this point.

Well, my position is that Combat Expertise is one of the examples that serves to illustrate that the phrase "your next action" is sometimes used to mean "your next turn in the initiative order".

This is shown more clearly in the Stunning Fist feat text:
"A defender who fails this saving throw is stunned for one round (until just before your next action)."

-Hyp.

 

[Asmor]

The ambiguousness of terminology is one of the most annoying things in this game... For example, level and hit dice are supposed to be essentially the same thing, but no matter how hard I try I can't convince my group that, no, you don't get feats from your ECL increasing (such as by taking racial levels that don't give hit dice) (their primary evidence to the contrary being the table of benefits by level in the PHB)...

 

[phindar]

I agree with Hyp. My reading of "until your next action" is mainly there so that characters apply the effects of that feat (Expertise, Power Attack, whatever) on any AoO's that crop up during the round.

On a (semi-un)related note, what about a character moving to attack who is hit by an AoO (from an invisible opponent, failed his tumble, whatever). Would he have his Expertise bonus to AC? Would it matter if he had already announced it at the beginning of his turn? When do you see Expertise "kicking in"?

 

[gardengoth]

Combat Expertise provides a dodge bonus, so no use against an invisible attacker.

Still, since you opt to apply it when you make an attack, I'd say the modifiers kick in at the start of your attack action - so if you move first, you don't count the Expertise bonus to your AC until you end your move and attack. If you had attacked and then moved away, you keep those mods. during your move.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Still, since you opt to apply it when you make an attack, I'd say the modifiers kick in at the start of your attack action - so if you move first, you don't count the Expertise bonus to your AC until you end your move and attack. If you had attacked and then moved away, you keep those mods. during your move.

Right.

Remember, it was different in 3E, since 'the attack action' was a standard action, but a standard action was different... it included a move before or after the attack. So move-attack and attack-move were both 'the attack action'.

The point to take note of, however, is that you could only use Expertise when taking the attack action in melee. Two characters are engaged in melee if they are enemies and either one threatens the other... so if I took the attack action to move thirty feet into melee and attack, I couldn't activate Expertise until one of us threatened the other (at which point I am not just taking the attack action any more, but taking the attack action in melee). If a readied bowshot happened when I was halfway there, my AC would be unenhanced.

On the other hand, if I broke away from a hobgoblin to move thirty feet and attack you, I could activate Expertise at the beginning, because I was in melee (with the hobgoblin) at the point I began taking the attack action.

-Hyp.

 

[gardengoth]

On the other hand, if I broke away from a hobgoblin to move thirty feet and attack you, I could activate Expertise at the beginning, because I was in melee (with the hobgoblin) at the point I began taking the attack action.

Are you referring to 3E now?

In 3.5 am I not correct in my understanding that the move action and the attack action (a standard action) are seperate things? That is to say, you may be in melee when you begin moving away from the hobgoblin, but you're not making an attack action - yet. Isn't it when you've moved e.g. 20' and then attack e.g. a bugbear, that you're making an attack action and can apply Combat Expertise?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Are you referring to 3E now?

Yes - note the reference to 'Expertise' rather than 'Combat Expertise', the use of past tense, and (more telling, perhaps), the "Remember, it was different in 3E" comment at the top of the post.

In 3.5 am I not correct in my understanding that the move action and the attack action (a standard action) are seperate things? That is to say, you may be in melee when you begin moving away from the hobgoblin, but you're not making an attack action - yet. Isn't it when you've moved e.g. 20' and then attack e.g. a bugbear, that you're making an attack action and can apply Combat Expertise?

In 3.5, correct.

-Hyp.

 

[gardengoth]

Yarr, my bad, I did indeed notice and take in the "3E" reference but thought you might have moved on in later paragraphs.

That'll teach me to abbreviate "Combat Expertise".