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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Particle_Man" data-source="post: 1068898" data-attributes="member: 892">Under Fighting Defensively, it says "...this bonus stacks with the AC bonus granted by the Combat Expertise feat."  p. 140 (phb).  And the defending AC bonus on magic weapons "Stacks with all others" (DMG) p.224.  Oh, all this is 3.5As it stands, then, Combat Expertise, Fighting Defensively and a Defending weapon can all add AC bonuses that stack with each other.The Total Defense action would not get a Combat Expertise bonus as written (see. p. 142), because Combat Expertise requires you to use the attack action or full attack action in meelee (p.92), and Total Defense is neither.  (I think this is to stop someone getting a "free" +5 bonus to AC when they activate a magic item, or do something other than attack with their standard action).  In your above example of someone only taking a move action and wanting the benefits of Combat Expertise, they would still have to make at least a "token" attack (and hopefully one that does not draw an Aoo, like an unarmed attack if you don't have the improved unarmed combat feat).  However, no one said you had to use that attack to damage anyone.  If you have the improved disarm feat, you could use it to try for a disarm, which is pretty useful defensively.  Combat Expertise is based on the "use offense as defense" idea.  But you can use the total defense standard action and a move action, so that seems to be the "defense without offense" option.And if you like total defense and fighting defensively, you might want to get those 5 ranks of tumble to "upgrade" them, so long as your speed has not been reduced by "armour, excess equipment, or loot." (if your speed is reduced you can't get the use of tumble) (p.84).  If you like tumbling in armour, get a dwarf and go to town, since dwarves do not lose movement to petty things like armour or encumbrance, and so can tumble, and so can benefit from having 5 ranks in tumble.  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Finally, with respect to ranged attacks.  Combat expertise can only be used by someone in meelee, but I suppose that such a person would gain an AC bonus vs. both his meelee opponent and any ranged attack opponents shooting into the meelee.  But apparently fighting defensively and total defense work both when you are using ranged weapons and when others are using ranged weapons on you.  A defending weapon would work vs. ranged attacks, but itself only applies as a meelee weapon magical bonus.  I suppose that one might be able to use it when throwing a defending weapon, but that could allow one to throw 4 daggers/round and get 4 stackable AC bonuses if all the daggers have the defending ability.  On the other hand, one can fight with two weapons that both have the defending ability, and these AC bonuses apparently stack.  But, once you throw the daggers, they are gone, so one might interpret that to mean that the AC bonus is gone as well (you don't have the weapons in hand to defend you when it is the opponent's turn to attack).  So by my interpretation, one cannot use the AC bonus from defending weapons unless one is holding those weapons at the time one is attacked, and has declared how much if any bonus transfers to AC on one's turn, before one was attacked.</blockquote>

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