Full Defense versus Combat Expertise?

[0-hr]

I have no problem at all with CE only being useful when you are actually fighting in melee combat. I guess we just imagine it differently.

A fighter standing alone in the middle of hallway dodging blows ducking ripostes from enemies who are 40 feet away sounds pretty silly to me. But if you see it differently, that's fine - it's all in our heads anyway.

 

[Ranes]

I'm not saying the feat wouldn't make more sense if, as with the Dodge feat, the bonus to AC only applied against a specific melee target.

 

[RigaMortus2]

Wanted to add that if you have 5 or more ranks in Tumble, taking Total Defense gives you a +6 dodge bonus to AC and a +3 dodge bonus when Fighting Defensively.

Also want to add my 2 cents in regards to:

You can only use Combat Expertise when you are in melee, so it isn't useful all the time.
You can Fight Defensively anytime.
If you happen to me in melee, you can do both. Since dodge bonuses stack, these will stack.

To the original question Why would it ever be useful to use Total Defense after a certain point when you can just use Combat Expertise and Fighting Defensively to consistently get a higher bonus to AC AND still be able to attack?

As stated above, Combat Expertise is situational AND it cost a feat to do so. Not everyone will want to take the feat.

 

[Stalker0]

As far as all of this fighting in melee with CE, consider this.

"the changes to AC and armor class last until your next action."

So I'm a monk with 90 speed in melee with a guy. I use combat expertise, and make an attack. I then move 90 away, provoking AOOs from a whole bunch of guys. I would get my CE bonus on ALL of those AOOs.

And then if any of those guys attacked me on their action, my AC would still be increased until it was my turn to go.

So to me, the whole in melee thing isn't so critical, this is what is:

1) You have to use melee weapons to use CE, you can't use a bow
2) You must consume a standard action in order to benefit from CE
3) You don't get the benefit of CE until you consume your standard action. For instance, I can gain CE and move, gaining a better AC against AOOs and the like. If I move over to a guy and then use my attack action, I don't gain the AC bonus against AOOs until the attack action is made.

 

[Hypersmurf]

As far as all of this fighting in melee with CE, consider this.

"the changes to AC and armor class last until your next action."

So I'm a monk with 90 speed in melee with a guy. I use combat expertise, and make an attack. I then move 90 away, provoking AOOs from a whole bunch of guys. I would get my CE bonus on ALL of those AOOs.

As long as we use the 'assumed intent' reading of 'until your next action' - meaning 'until your next turn in thte initiative order'. Otherwise, your move action to move 90 feet is your 'next action', and you won't benefit from the AC bonus against the AoOs

But I'm not sure how you can take an example that has you using the attack action in melee to use Combat Expertise, and use it to illustrate that the 'in melee' clause isn't critical...?

-Hyp.

 

[Stalker0]

As long as we use the 'assumed intent' reading of 'until your next action' - meaning 'until your next turn in thte initiative order'. Otherwise, your move action to move 90 feet is your 'next action', and you won't benefit from the AC bonus against the AoOs

But I'm not sure how you can take an example that has you using the attack action in melee to use Combat Expertise, and use it to illustrate that the 'in melee' clause isn't critical...?

-Hyp.

If you want to get really literal with the next action clause, that would mean you can only get a single attack with combat expertise, for as soon as you make another attack you would suddenly lose your CE bonus. I don't think that was the intent.

My point was that if the bonus lasts the rest of the round, even when your moving, I wouldn't take "making a melee attack" to mean you have to be going toe to toe with a guy in melee to get the benefit. I could swing at the air, thinking "an invisible target might be there" and that would be good enough to get the benefit.

 

[Sirea]

The fact that your CE AC bonus works as well against that archer or ray shooting caster is another is another reason the prerequisite of being "in melee" has to go.

"Quick fellows, let's find us some melee opponents so I can kickstart my CE, before that flying Sorcerer fries us with his Scorching Rays!! Any volunteers to be my enemy?"

 

[Legildur]

If you want to get really literal with the next action clause, that would mean you can only get a single attack with combat expertise, for as soon as you make another attack you would suddenly lose your CE bonus.

No, because the feat says "when you use the attack action or the full attack action", so a second attack (which, except in very exceptional cases, requires the full-attack action) would not cause you to lose your CE based Dodge bonus.

 

[airwalkrr]

I don't have time to read the whole thread but I'll toss in my two cents. It is already easy enough for a character to get an obscenely high AC without combat expertise if the character knows what he is doing. Using Combat Expertise to its maximum potential means you can do something no one else can do: get a better bonus to your AC that using the total defense option and still attack. That, in and of itself is almost worth a feat to me, especially when you get to high levels where attack bonuses are so high a -5 penalty rarely counts for much besides reducing the effectiveness of possibly your last iterative attack.

 

[Hypersmurf]

My point was that if the bonus lasts the rest of the round, even when your moving, I wouldn't take "making a melee attack" to mean you have to be going toe to toe with a guy in melee to get the benefit. I could swing at the air, thinking "an invisible target might be there" and that would be good enough to get the benefit.

If the requirement were 'making a melee attack', that would work just fine.

But it isn't; it's being 'in melee', which means there has to actually be an invisible target there for it to apply.

-Hyp.