Expert Tactician while invisible facing 4 flatfooted foes in reach--how many attacks?

FrankTrollman said:
This is really simple guys. It's D&D - absolutely everything is present tense.

And yes, it is essentially someone who will be denied Dexterity against your attack because the modifiers don't technically get added up until the attack is declared.


this is whats confusing me. is it present, or future?

in my eyes, it would be just as bad to have Expert Tactician trigger off of an event that hasnt yet happened, as it would be to trigger off of a past event.

but, i can see where youre coming from on this. lets say your invisible, your opponent is denied their dex to you, but that doesnt mean squat until you attack them.
 

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but, i can see where youre coming from on this. lets say your invisible, your opponent is denied their dex to you, but that doesnt mean squat until you attack them.

Precisely. Think of it as the "present hypothetical".

If you attacked them right now, would they be denied their Dexterity bonus or not? That's the question that you are asking. Remember that if you are feinting, invisible, using flick of the wrist, or doing any of that other crap - your opponent is not denied their Dexterity against you until the actual attack is made.

But that's OK - because the attack is there whether you have a target or not. You get one extra attack per round, and you can only use it against someone who gets no Dexterity bonus against it.

Other people don't have to be denied Dexterity bonuses for you to have the attack in the first place - just for you to target them with your attack. So if it makes you feel any better, you actually can declare your attack long enough for it to check whether it has a legal target or not. This being a WotC product, I would imagine that an invalid target would cause it to fizzle.

-Frank
 

hrm, that does make sense. you changed my mind.

it doesnt look like a big deal to me, anyway. it just means you have to rearrange your actions in the round. instead of feint, attack, extra attack, you have attack, feint, extra attack.

thanks
 

I could go with the interpretation that you can only use ET against someone who is currently denied Dex bonus (though it's not the reading I use)... but I can't see using the attack from Expert Tactician to impose the condition that allows me to make the attack from Expert Tactician.

-Hyp.
 

but I can't see using the attack from Expert Tactician to impose the condition that allows me to make the attack from Expert Tactician.

Then you have forbidden the feat entirely. One of the prerequisites for having your Dexterity denied against an attack is for the attack to have been declared - until that happens you don't have your dexterity denied against that attack.

So since declaring an attack is in fact one of the prerequisites of using the attack from Expert Tactician, requiring someone to have fulfilled all of the prerequisites of using the attack before declaring it causes a recursive error that prevents the feat from ever being used at all.

-Frank
 
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FrankTrollman said:
One of the prerequisites for having your Dexterity denied against an attack is for the attack to have been declared - until that happens you don't have your dexterity denied against that attack.

Not at all.

Flat-Footed: A character who has not yet acted during a combat is flat-footed, not yet reacting normally to the situation. A flat-footed character loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any) and cannot make attacks of opportunity.

Blinded: The character cannot see. He takes a –2 penalty to Armor Class, loses his Dexterity bonus to AC (if any), moves at half speed, and takes a –4 penalty on Search checks and on most Strength- and Dexterity-based skill checks.

Grappling Consequences
No Dexterity Bonus
: You lose your Dexterity bonus to AC (if you have one) against opponents you aren’t grappling. (You can still use it against opponents you are grappling.)


None of the above require an attack to be declared. If you're blind, you lose your Dex bonus to AC. If you're flat-footed, you lose your Dex bonus to AC. If you're grappling, you lose your Dex bonus to AC against opponents - they don't have to be in the act of attacking you to be an opponent.

All of these would allow an Expert Tactician attack, even if one doesn't permit a Feint to grant a bonus ET attack in the absence of any other attack.

-Hyp.
 
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FrankTrollman said:
It's that simple.

Do you threaten them? (within melee reach)
If you attacked them right now, would they be allowed a Dexterity bonus to AC?
[/b]
But that's not what the feat says Frank.

Not if they "will be denied their dex bonus at some point in the future?", but "are they denied their Dex bonus right now?".

It doesn't say "who was very recently denied a Dexterity bonus" and it doesn't say "who you have attacked in the last turn without allowing them a Dexterity bonus." It says who "is denied a Dexterity bonus against your attacks for any reason."
Right, and since you haven't attacked them, they aren't denied their Dex bonus. Pretty simple.

At the point you attack them, then they are denied their Dex bonus, and then the feat would trigger and give you an extra attack, after your current turn. When you make the extra attack, they would no longer be denied their Dex bonus and it would not be a sneak attack.

So if you successfully feint - you can stab someone at the end of your turn with the ET attack. If you successfully feint and then stab someone with a normal attack your feint is over and it is too late to use that for an ET attack.

This is really simple guys. It's D&D - absolutely everything is present tense.
Exactly. You keep trying to use the future tense: "Would they be denied their dex bonus if I attacked them?"

And yes, it is essentially someone who will be denied Dexterity against your attack because the modifiers don't technically get added up until the attack is declared.

-Frank[/QUOTE]
No, no. Present tense remember? Will be is future tense. Use your own ruling. :)
 

FrankTrollman said:
Then you have forbidden the feat entirely. [/b]
That's so wrong its funny.


One of the prerequisites for having your Dexterity denied against an attack is for the attack to have been declared - until that happens you don't have your dexterity denied against that attack.
Are we reading the same rule book here?

So since declaring an attack is in fact one of the prerequisites of using the attack from Expert Tactician,
That's odd, that's not listed anywhere in the feat. If your opponent is blind, you can make a extra melee attack against him, regardless of whether or not you use your regular action to attack him.

requiring someone to have fulfilled all of the prerequisites of using the attack before declaring it causes a recursive error that prevents the feat from ever being used at all.
No, that's how feats work. Before you can use them, you have to mee the prerequisites for their use.

And you don't seem to understand how this feat works at all, because you are adding prerequisites and conditions that are not in the text of the feat.
 

Caliban said:
At the point you attack them, then they are denied their Dex bonus, and then the feat would trigger and give you an extra attack, after your current turn. When you make the extra attack, they would no longer be denied their Dex bonus and it would not be a sneak attack.

That's exactly how I read the feat.

I know Frank doesn't like the word "trigger", here.

But when you make the attack, he is denied his Dex bonus. So, he is a foe who is denied his Dex bonus, which means you can make an extra attack against him, before or after your regular action. And since "before" has already happened, it leaves "after".

Like I say, I can see the reading that the foe must actually be currently denied his Dex bonus before or after your regular action as having merit. But if the last thing you do in your regular action is feint, he is not currently denied his Dex bonus... so no ET, under that interpretation.

-Hyp.
 

Frank & Caliban said:
One of the prerequisites for having your Dexterity denied against an attack is for the attack to have been declared - until that happens you don't have your dexterity denied against that attack.
-------------------------------------------------
Are we reading the same rule book here?

Well, in the case of a feint, it's true... but it's not universally true.

Oddly, it's exactly the argument we're using to suggest that a feint by itself is insufficient to allow the extra attack :)

-Hyp.
 

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