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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Elder-Basilisk" data-source="post: 2740641" data-attributes="member: 3146">For all that, it still doesn't demonstrate that Improved Combat Expertise is what made the character powerful. It just demonstrates that one character in one game found one situation where it was (supposedly) highly advantageous. (We don't have enough information to judge whether or not the character might actually have come out better with a different build or different tactics). My own experience is that whenever I see a character with ICE, I have pretty much been guaranteed to see a character who is going to take one or two attacks and then sit there doing nothing for the rest of the party while he revels in his "I'm invincible; no-one can hit me--never mind that I'm not doing a darn thing to the enemies who are pounding the rest of you" feeling. The one ICE character who was useful made himself useful with his dread pirate rally ability (and the fact that we were fighting REALLY stupid enemies who kept attacking him).In the end, your suggestion (take another -2 to hit in order to get +1 or +2 to AC) doesn't throw a bone to shield wielders as much as it offers them a  pretty darn worthless feat that wouldn't even be useful in the one example of one encounter in one campaign where ICE was supposedly god-like. You might as well invent a 4 hit point Toughness feat and say "here, if you use a shield, you can have this."</blockquote>