Allied Defense: Overpowered?

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Allied Defense is a Forgotten Realms feat from The Shining South sourcebook that allows the user to apply his AC bonus from Combat Expertise to all adjacent allies. The only pre-req is Combat Expertise.

When I read the feat, I thought "Whoa! That's a little over the top. So I could pull 5 points for Combat Expertise and provide +5 AC to every adjacent ally?!?!" Even if one assumes that the bonus can only be applied to adjacent allies who are threatened by enemies also threatened by the user (none of which is stated in the feat description), it's still a little out there.

Not to mention that Combat Expertise grants a dodge bonus (which stacks) so conceivably you could have multiple people using Allied Defense to grant HUGE dodge bonuses.

I could see it applying to a single ally, but not to every adjacent ally.

Thoughts? Am I crazy?

edit: Even worse, I thought Combat Expertise was capped at 5 but, no, you can put up to your BAB into it!

 

[Joker]

Combat Expertise is capped at +5, -5.

I'm sure it's open for abuse, like a plethora of other feats are. But realistically I don't see a character with this feat giving more than 2 allies at one time the bonus.

Though that's just based on my experience and by no means have I done any empirical studies on the subject.

Or any studies.

Or studying...

Oh that reminds me. I've got to do.

 

[mikebr99]

The Improved Combat Expertise feat (CW) removes the +5 cap.


Mike

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

Even if it's just two other PCs (plus the user, who also gains the benefit), that's potentially three +5 bonuses to AC for the price of a single feat. What other feat does that?!?

 

[Joker]

None. That would be pretty redundant .

 

[Nail]

Thoughts?[/S]

Depends on the party, but my vote would be "overpowered". Look at Devoted Defender, for a similar ability...but not nearly as powerful.

In a previous group, we would have asked one of the less-effective melee combatants (i.e. Bard) to take it, then stand right behind the front-line fighters. They would have gone from "moderately hit-able" to "untouchable" with an additional +5 AC. Yoowsa.

 

[AuraSeer]

[...]that's potentially three +5 bonuses to AC for the price of a single feat.

The price of a single feat plus a -5 on all his attack rolls when it's in use. That's significant.

Against a dangerous melee-oriented enemy, the defender will pretty much stop hitting except on natural 20. He's giving up most of his offensive power in exchange for aiding his allies, which sounds like a decent tradeoff to me. In many cases it won't even be worth it; if he focussed on killing the enemy, it would die sooner and have fewer rounds to make attacks, which means it'd hit his allies less anyway.

(If the enemy isn't dangerous or isn't melee oriented, then it's already screwed as soon as three PCs get into melee range. The AC bonus is not going to matter at that point.)

 

[AuraSeer]

Depends on the party, but my vote would be "overpowered". Look at Devoted Defender, for a similar ability...but not nearly as powerful.

In a previous group, we would have asked one of the less-effective melee combatants (i.e. Bard) to take it, then stand right behind the front-line fighters. They would have gone from "moderately hit-able" to "untouchable" with an additional +5 AC. Yoowsa.

Combat Expertise requires that you "use the attack or full attack action in melee." Your guy in rank 2 is not in melee, so he can't use it.

If you give him a reach weapon, he counts as being in melee and can use the feat, but his allies grant cover to the enemy. That means he's at an effective -9 to attack, so he won't be hitting much of anything.

In essence, your scenario has one guy standing still and doing nothing for the whole fight? That's hardly broken. Even a bard has better things to do with his rounds.

 

[Ogrork the Mighty]

The price of a single feat plus a -5 on all his attack rolls when it's in use. That's significant.

Arguable. He's taking the -5 penalty but he still receives the +5 AC himself; he's not sacrificing his own benefit to aid the rest of the P. So, the way I see it, the -5 penalty is offset by the +5 AC he's getting himself. Applying the bonus to everyone else is where the Allied Defense feat comes in. If he were giving up the bonus for himself, then I could see how that factors into the "cost" of the Allied Defense feat.

So if a pair of characters both have Allied Defense, by the RAW, do they provide each other with up to a +5 dodge bonus to AC, which stacks with the +5 dodge bonus to AC they're giving themselves from Combat Expertise?!? I'm getting a dodge bonus at the same time I'm providing a dodge bonus to my ally and he's doing the same thing.

 

[Nail]

Combat Expertise requires that you "use the attack or full attack action in melee." Your guy in rank 2 is not in melee, so he can't use it.

True. I missed that.

Keep in mind that two-hand weapon fighters take penalties to their attack rolls all the time, and they still hit their enemy. The feat? Power Attack.

In essence, your scenario has one guy standing still and doing nothing for the whole fight? That's hardly broken. Even a bard has better things to do with his rounds.

Depends. Which is more valuable: preventing your buddies from taking damage, or healing their damage afterwords?

I suspect this feat is so over-the-top because most people don't play "as a team", and the designers want to encourage team work. Even so, this feat sounds like NPC fodder to me; give it to the 2nd rank of some organized foes the PCs must face.