Fixing the "infinite AC" bugs

[Drowbane]

I guess I'm the only one that's bothered by it. Perhaps my players have been right all along...maybe I really am Lawful Evil. :\

Eh... no.

Lawful Evil delights in manipulating the Rules to its gain.

You sir, are clearly not L/E.

 

[DogBackward]

Aid Another in combat is basically distracting the foe, annoying him, and making an opening for your ally to help you out. Could those of you who keep advocating making incorporeal creatures incapable of aid another please explain why you think this is a valid idea? A shadow can be jsut as distracting and annoying as any other ally, and Aid Another does not require actual physical contact to work.

 

[CleverNickName]

Aid Another in combat is basically distracting the foe, annoying him, and making an opening for your ally to help you out. Could those of you who keep advocating making incorporeal creatures incapable of aid another please explain why you think this is a valid idea? A shadow can be jsut as distracting and annoying as any other ally, and Aid Another does not require actual physical contact to work.

True...I guess if a player really wanted to break the system, all he would have to do is command his shadow to command its own shadow-spawn (and so on, to infinity) to occupy the 5' space below the ground the character is standing on. The character gets uncapped bonuses to AC, attacks, and skills, while all of his shadowy assistants get to enjoy total cover the whole time. (rolling eyes)

Very few players would go to these great lengths just to tip the odds in their favor, and if they do, they will probably find themselves gaming all alone. But that really wasn't what I was trying to focus on in this thread; I was trying to figure out a way to assign types to these untyped bonuses, to prevent stacking abuse. The feedback was pretty good, and I think this is what I'm going to do:

Defending weapons: defending weapons grant a Defense bonus, instead of an "untyped bonus that stacks with all others." That accomplishes what I had wanted to do, without making the ability useless.

Aiding Another: using the Aid Another option grants a +2 Aid bonus to the armor class, attack rolls, and skill checks of the character you are assisting. This bonus increases by +1 for each additional assistant, to a maximum bonus of +5. This way, multiple assistants grant a larger advantage, but "too many cooks spoil the soup."

What do you think? Less broken?

 

[Gerion of Mercadia]

I think that for "Defending" you should have to be wielding the weapon to get the bonus. Gauntlets aren't considered "wielded" unless you are acutally using them for your attacks.

At best - a PC is going to use a defending quarterstaff... and get two of these to stack. It's nice, but not THAT nice.

I would also rule that, in general, for the purposes of aid another, you must be within 5 feet of a character to use this action. Futhermore, this is a circumstance bonus to AC.

If more than 1 character is actually trying to "help" your AC... I would be inclined to try and apply the rules for COVER as opposed to Armor class somehow.