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Boost Combat Expertise with Shields

Felnar

First Post
in a thread awhile back, there was talk of making Combat Expertise mirror Power Attack.
basically,
because Power Attack gets 2 for 1 with 2handed weapons
let Combat Expertise get 2 for 1 when used with a shield

anyone have reasons against implementing this?
i think it would help shield fighters
 

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I think it sounds excellent myself, and I'm ganking it for my house rules. The low AC BOnus of shields has always bothered me, and this seems like a nice, simple, elegant solution! Doesnt monkey with any rules, just alters the way a feat works in a logical fashion. I like it very much.
 



With the default wealth levels and magic item abundance, every single shield-user will have a magical shield by level X, whatever that might be, and more powerfully enhanced ones as levels go by.

Therefore, they're already going to be getting a substantial AC bonus from a shield, not just 1 or 2 (for light or heavy, respectively).

That's about all I can see 'wrong' with the idea, but that's not to say it actually is a flaw, just a thought.

Personally, I quite like the idea, and might even integrate something like it into the next full-magic / low-magic-item-proliferation AE/3.x campaign. :)
 

The only problem. How do you deal with an animated shield? Since you're not wielding it, does it count?

I like the idea a lot, and it does encourage shield users, which strangely don't seem to be around as much as I might have expected them to be.

I know there are 2 feats that allow you to increase the effective AC of a buckler, but not much else for shield users other than improved shield bash, which requires 2 weapon fighting to be extremely effective, which is rough if you're crunched for stats.
 

Combat Expertise is already very powerful, so though the idea is interesting, allowing this would be extremely unbalancing. There's a big difference between Power Attack and Combat Expertise: Power Attack puts down your chance to land a blow but increases the result if you do succeed, which means that you are still, in the long run, balancing for the attack. But Combat Expertise users often act as human shields, since Combat Expertise puts down the chance to hit while raising the chance to avoid hits--if you didn't plan on hitting in the first place, there's no reason not to full Combat Expertise and fight defensively, and Combat Expertise users pretty much all go for the shield already, so there's no real need to encourage them.

To give perspective: A level 5 human ubertank with 12 Dex will have 25 AC on standard wealth. A crazy-powerful Half-Dragon Orc Barbarian with maxed out Strength (so 30 Strength, and 34 in rage!) and Weapon Focus just to be more ridiculous will have +15 to hit at ECL 4. So he hits this dude a little more than 50% of the time. Combat Expertise and fighting defensively up the ubertank to AC 33 thanks to Tumble, so the insane Barbarian can only hit on an 18 or higher. With the overpowered Shield/Expertise rule, the AC of the ubertank is now 38--unhittable save on a 20 by a margin of 3! That means the Barbarian would need a +5 weapon to even hit on a 19 (I gave him a +1 by default).
 


Power attack becomes more powerful the higher level you are because you have more BAB to shift around. More BAB also means more attacks, and power attack makes those secondary attacks really suffer. Your AC is static against all attacks.

So while -5 to attack for +10 damage is a good idea for the first attack and a bad idea for the second attack, -5 to attack for +10 AC is an awesome idea all the time. The more foes the better!
 

Hodgie said:
Power attack becomes more powerful the higher level you are because you have more BAB to shift around. More BAB also means more attacks, and power attack makes those secondary attacks really suffer. Your AC is static against all attacks.

So while -5 to attack for +10 damage is a good idea for the first attack and a bad idea for the second attack, -5 to attack for +10 AC is an awesome idea all the time. The more foes the better!
I'm assuming from this that your reasoning is for why it is unbalanced right? If so, you're right on the mark: -5 to hit for +10 AC is ridiculously awesome all the time, whereas normal Combat Expertise is powerful in the right situation but not game-breaking.
 

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