Proposed new rules:
You can choose to fight offensively when attacking in melee. If you do so, you gain a +2 bonus on all attacks in a round but take a -4 penalty to AC until the start of your next turn.
Special: If you have at least 3 ranks of acrobatics, you only take a penalty of -3 to AC while fighting offensively.
Combat Expertise
You can choose to use combat expertise offensively. You can choose to gain a +1 bonus on melee attack rolls and combat maneuver checks but suffer a -1 penalty to your Armor Class. When your base attack bonus reaches +4, and every +4 thereafter, the AC penalty increases by –1 and the attack bonus increases by +1.
You can fight offensively and use offensive Combat Expertise simultaneously; the bonuses and penalties stack.
The purpose of these rules:
It's very frustrating to fight a melee battle against an opponent who is almost impossible to hit. There are currently very few options for a PC in that situation. It may be especially beneficial to the sort of characters who have trouble hitting (monks, rogues).
It's also useful for GMs who want to provide danger without cheating. (I'm running Jade Regent at the moment. I have two PCs with AC in the high thirties, and there are numerous encounters with groups of enemies who attack at around +15.)
It also makes Combat Expertise better, for those who don't want to use it but who need it as a prerequisite for another feat.
Would these rules help your game? Are there any downsides I haven't thought of?
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I like the Combat Expertise part. It makes CE a lot more useful, because to get that Int 13 you probably had to settle for a lower Str (and therefore lower to-hit). It also allows CE to contribute usefully to the feats it's a prerequisite for: by taking the bonus on a Trip and putting an opponent on the ground, you're reducing the quality/quantity of attacks he's gonna make, so you can afford to risk your AC a bit.
The fighting offensively in general, I think that might be more risky; it'll come in very handy for characters that move in from nowhere, deal one big hit, and hopefully kill/stun/daze the monster with that move.
I'm also not sure fighting offensively is really needed; Charging provides a similar benefit (bonus to hit, penalty to AC).
But I really like the CE part. It feels like the missing link between CE and Power Attack.
Well, the One Big Hit characters usually don't have much trouble hitting either, and it would be risky if you were fighting more than one enemy. And if there is only one enemy, it's likely to be a powerful one who can survive a single attack, and who you really don't want to be next to with an AC penalty.
Another unintended consequence - it would be a benefit when fighting a caster who doesn't make attack rolls. But again, those targets usually have low ACs and and an extra +2 to hit isn't likely to be necessary.
The extra Combat Expertise option is nice, but it doesn't help the lowly minion bodyguard who can't hit the paladin and doesn't have the borderline genius level intelligence required to use combat expertise.
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So let's speculate about what might happen if enemies start using offensive fighting. Poor-AC classes won't hold up if the enemies make kamikaze runs, but Cleaving fighters might suddenly start doing pretty well: "Hey look, there's a bunch of mooks with AC down from offensive fighting!"
When protecting the squishies against this sort of assault, maybe Combat Patrol becomes really important? But if you intercept with CP, is the lower AC already in effect?
