Epic Combat Expertise...WTF?

[Crothian]

but it is just one feat and that isn't its job--it does its job with brutal efficiency. You get something else to deal with saves. Basically, when facing a big melee opponent, you can turn any advantage in your respective hit chance into a sure thing.

It is two feats, and the second one makes the first completely worthless. Unless characters are having super attack bonuses so they can afford to place a lot into AC and still hit, boosting one's AC just makes the combat a draw. One character has a high AC but so low attack he can't hit, and the other guy just can't hit the high AC. And in a group where the high AC guy's job is to distract the bad guys so the other character s can kill him; the bad guy just ignores the high AC guy and goes for someone he can hit.

I think like most things in D&D the feat can be abused, but it isn't even close to being broken. There are many resoniable characters that can take this feat.

 

[Rystil Arden]

It is two feats, and the second one makes the first completely worthless. Unless characters are having super attack bonuses so they can afford to place a lot into AC and still hit, boosting one's AC just makes the combat a draw. One character has a high AC but so low attack he can't hit, and the other guy just can't hit the high AC. And in a group where the high AC guy's job is to distract the bad guys so the other character s can kill him; the bad guy just ignores the high AC guy and goes for someone he can hit.

I think like most things in D&D the feat can be abused, but it isn't even close to being broken. There are many resoniable characters that can take this feat.

But that's the point of my first post--it isn't useful unless it is abusable. It is abusable if your Attack Bonus - Their AC is higher than their Attack Bonus - Your AC because then you can keep on hitting while they always miss. If you aren't a character who can pull that off, it doesn't help at all and you just wasted your feat. If you are, then you can use it to become extremely powerful. Broken doesn't mean "always more powerful than all the other feats", for me at least. Heck, Divine Metamagic isn't broken if you choose it for Extend Spell, or if your Charisma is low and you never take Extra Turning.

 

[Crothian]

But that's the point of my first post--it isn't useful unless it is abusable. It is abusable if your Attack Bonus - Their AC is higher than their Attack Bonus - Your AC because then you can keep on hitting while they always miss.

I disagree. Unless you are in a situation where monsters are hitting you with a natural 2 and lower, it's going to be a good feat. If the monster needs a natural 5 to normally hit you, placing six points into expertise so they now need a natural 11 just made it so you get hit a third less. The feat is not weither completely useless or abusialbe, there is a lot of middle ground.

 

[NexH]

IMHO, the only "problem" with Improved Combat Expertise is that it benefits those without manufactured weapons much more than it does those with them since the penalty to attack rolls applies to disarm checks.
Monsters with ICE can be very dangerous.

 

[Cheiromancer]

The two bonuses stack, right? So if you are a 22nd level fighter, you could get +11 AC from ECE and +20 AC from ICE. (Your BAB is capped at +20, so I think that is the most you could get).

Admitedly your attack rolls wouldn't be very good, but your AC would be pretty special.

 

[Rystil Arden]

IMHO, the only "problem" with Improved Combat Expertise is that it benefits those without manufactured weapons much more than it does those with them since the penalty to attack rolls applies to disarm checks.
Monsters with ICE can be very dangerous.

This is perhaps the most dangerous place for the feat of all. Monsters tend to have a huge attack bonus. I was building an Advanced Half-Fiend Tyrannosaurus, and when I gave him Improved Combat Expertise, he went from a total wimp for his CR (barring the broken Blasphemy power) to a complete killer. Check the Tyrannosaurus AC. Now the Attack Bonus. He can afford to put away a lot of that to advance his AC.

 

[Ciaran]

On my first reading of ECE, I thought that it gave you twice as much AC as you deducted from your attack bonus...

 

[Question]

LOTS of Epic feats desperately need an errata.

Epic weapon prowess is something like +1 to hit...this is epic? I can take weapon focus as a 1st level char and get the same effect!

 

[Ovinomancer]

This is perhaps the most dangerous place for the feat of all. Monsters tend to have a huge attack bonus. I was building an Advanced Half-Fiend Tyrannosaurus, and when I gave him Improved Combat Expertise, he went from a total wimp for his CR (barring the broken Blasphemy power) to a complete killer. Check the Tyrannosaurus AC. Now the Attack Bonus. He can afford to put away a lot of that to advance his AC.

How did your T-Rex make the Int pre-reqs?

Last I checked, and IDHMBIFOM, T-Rex has animal int, and the half-fiend template doesn't exactly provide that much of an Int bonus...

 

[Ovinomancer]

IMHO, the only "problem" with Improved Combat Expertise is that it benefits those without manufactured weapons much more than it does those with them since the penalty to attack rolls applies to disarm checks.
Monsters with ICE can be very dangerous.

Yup. This has NEVER made sense to me...someone/something with an uncommonly good ability to avoid incoming attacks will , at the same time, allow his weapon to be easily removed from his possession and/or destroyed by a sunder attack. No sense at all.

I houseruled that expertise penalties do not apply to opposed rolls for disarm or sunder. YMMV.