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Spiked Chains: Pure cheese or sometimes OK?
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<blockquote data-quote="Victim" data-source="post: 3028544" data-attributes="member: 78"><p>In my experience, AoOs are usually easily avoided - getting a chance to take even your free AoO each round is unusual. Thus Combat Reflexes isn't very good without a method to force attacks or as a particular counter. My monk didn't like the blackguard with Close Quarters Fighting and Combat Reflexes. But fiendish wolves are generally going to fast enough to skirt around a defender without reach (or even with reach) and trip attacks usually don't provoke AoO anyway.</p><p></p><p>I don't have a problem with Improved Disarm, Improved Sunder, or Imp Bullrush. Each one adds a useful enough ability. I do have a problem with all of them. Imp Disarm works against weapon using opponents, and loses effectiveness as enemy size increases. Imp Sunder works against weapon using opponents, and loses effectiveness as enemy size increases. Imp Bullrush works best against smallish foes without unusual movement modes. Basically, each of these feats works best against humanoids with class levels, leaving the character with largely redundant feats. If you're going for a Shock Trooper/Combat Brute combo, then taking 2/3 of is good but even then the last one is pretty extraneous.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That's great. But I'm not talking about fighters versus barbarians. I'm talking about fighters vs fighter/barbarians (the best of both worlds). I'm using marginal benefits in the economic sense: the benefit per each additional unit. Fighters aren't marginal. Think about it this way; your character already has a bunch of fighter levels (let's say 12) and you need to decide where to allocate future levels. Each extra fighter level adds half a feat in special abilities. So to justify further fighter levels, every bonus fighter feat has to be at least equivalent to the first two levels of other fighting classes (or other classes, but the general similarity in HD, Bab, and saves makes comparison MUCH easier). </p><p></p><p>That cost comparison sets a pretty high standard for feats. It's not enough that having Disarm might occasionally be useful when you already have Sunder, it has to be more useful than the stuff the character could gain from multiclassing. Opportunity cost is the key. So you need to be able to bring lots feats to bear effectively in order for them to pay off enough to justify the investment in fighter levels.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Victim, post: 3028544, member: 78"] In my experience, AoOs are usually easily avoided - getting a chance to take even your free AoO each round is unusual. Thus Combat Reflexes isn't very good without a method to force attacks or as a particular counter. My monk didn't like the blackguard with Close Quarters Fighting and Combat Reflexes. But fiendish wolves are generally going to fast enough to skirt around a defender without reach (or even with reach) and trip attacks usually don't provoke AoO anyway. I don't have a problem with Improved Disarm, Improved Sunder, or Imp Bullrush. Each one adds a useful enough ability. I do have a problem with all of them. Imp Disarm works against weapon using opponents, and loses effectiveness as enemy size increases. Imp Sunder works against weapon using opponents, and loses effectiveness as enemy size increases. Imp Bullrush works best against smallish foes without unusual movement modes. Basically, each of these feats works best against humanoids with class levels, leaving the character with largely redundant feats. If you're going for a Shock Trooper/Combat Brute combo, then taking 2/3 of is good but even then the last one is pretty extraneous. That's great. But I'm not talking about fighters versus barbarians. I'm talking about fighters vs fighter/barbarians (the best of both worlds). I'm using marginal benefits in the economic sense: the benefit per each additional unit. Fighters aren't marginal. Think about it this way; your character already has a bunch of fighter levels (let's say 12) and you need to decide where to allocate future levels. Each extra fighter level adds half a feat in special abilities. So to justify further fighter levels, every bonus fighter feat has to be at least equivalent to the first two levels of other fighting classes (or other classes, but the general similarity in HD, Bab, and saves makes comparison MUCH easier). That cost comparison sets a pretty high standard for feats. It's not enough that having Disarm might occasionally be useful when you already have Sunder, it has to be more useful than the stuff the character could gain from multiclassing. Opportunity cost is the key. So you need to be able to bring lots feats to bear effectively in order for them to pay off enough to justify the investment in fighter levels. [/QUOTE]
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