What to do with a spare hand?

[starwed]

He has a wand of shield (and ranks in use magic device) so a shield doesn't help.

Are you certain about this? Shield from a wand will only last a minute, so it'll cost you the first round of any combat to activate it. Given that a large shield is a cheap +2 to AC all the time, that seems a pretty good bargain. And it only gets better when the party (inevitably) comes across a magic shield.

 

[amethal]

Strictly, Fighting Defensively and Combat Expertise are completely separate - you can even do both at once, and the bonuses and penalties stack.

Unless the ability states that the bonus applies when fighting defensively or using Combat Expertise, it won't apply to CE.

Your DM may allow it regardless.

-Hyp.

I was wondering about that; it came up in conversation in our session today.

So, with combat expertise and einhander and fighting defensively, I could get -9 to hit in return for +10 to ac (I have 5 ranks in tumble).

Put that way, I think most DMs would decide to house rule that you can't fight defensively whilst using combat expertise.

If so, it only seems fair to allow einhander to work with combat expertise

Anyway, it seems that einhander is actually better than combat expertise, albeit its less flexible and relies on me not having anything better to do with my off hand. I can get -4 to hit and +5 to ac whilst fighting defensively.

And come to think of it, some of my vestiges do grant me sneak attack or sudden strike.

Per the feat description, to use the "off hand swap" I need to take a full attack action and "strike" an opponent at least twice. What the heck does "strike" mean? Hopefully not "hit"!

 

[Hypersmurf]

Put that way, I think most DMs would decide to house rule that you can't fight defensively whilst using combat expertise.

I dunno. In the PHB (rather than the SRD), the description of Fighting Defensively states "This bonus stacks with the bonus from the Combat Expertise feat (pXX)" pretty clearly.

DMs tend to be more inclined to house rule something like that if it's sort-of implicit, less so when it's plain in black and white. From my experience, at any rate.

-Hyp.

 

[Krafen]

Are you an elf? If so, you could make it into a Hand of the Mage.

 

[FireLance]

He has a wand of shield (and ranks in use magic device) so a shield doesn't help.

Use your free hand to hold your wand of shield, so that you don't have to spend a move action to draw it out when you want to use it.

 

[Darklone]

Fighting def plus C-Exp plus TWD plus tumble bonus and some other class or feat dependant bonuses to these fighting styles (duelist or Einhander) are really nice if you find yourself against a lonely melee monster and your buddies are dead.

 

[amethal]

Are you certain about this? Shield from a wand will only last a minute, so it'll cost you the first round of any combat to activate it. Given that a large shield is a cheap +2 to AC all the time, that seems a pretty good bargain. And it only gets better when the party (inevitably) comes across a magic shield.

We tend to have a bit of time to prepare for fights, and my character is more nuisance value than anything else in a fight anyway.

I also don't have shield proficiency, being a binder.

We are currently at 9th level, and so far we have found zero magical shields (but we still have the option to buy them).

 

[starwed]

I also don't have shield proficiency, being a binder.

For what it's worth, a darkwood heavy shield has no armor check penalty, and thus no penalty at all for using untrained. And it's only 260gp total, so that's not really an issue.

my character is more nuisance value than anything else in a fight anyway.

I guess you should just go for a wand, staff or rod in your offhand, then.

 

[Deset Gled]

I would recommend using your offhand to weild some slightly unorthodox items that will be fun in combat.

Examples:
Feath Token: Tree (you can never have enough of these)
Sovereign Glue (stick it to the bad guys, pun intended)
Dust of Tracelessness (run away!)
Tanglefoot bag
Thunderstone