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Forums ate it the first time
Okay so is it just me, or does this feat = a must have for any class?
Seriously, CMBs are allready much harder to perform than in 3.5 and this feat gives twice the bonus to manuever defense than any feat gives to the manuever attack and it also covers every manuever whereas to gain an attack bonus they have to be taken individually. I can't see any fighter not having this as a feat, and I know that any character I ever build will take it if they can afford to. I thought having feats that were clearly better choices than the rest, or a must have for a class was a design flaw (I see this as a must have for fighters in the way wild shape was a must have for druids in 3.5)
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Defensive Combat Training doesn't increase your CMB by 4, it increases your CMB by 4 for the purposes of defending against combat manuevers only.
Yeah, I knew that, I was saying that it gives you twice the boost to your defense that the other feats give to your attack. but I can see how that came across as unclear and edit my first post.
I don't see how that is 'must have'.
Because it automatically makes any NPC with the offensive feats a lame duck because you have a much better defense than their attack. With one feat you've negated how many is it, six others?
I wouldn't have a problem with this feat if every time you took it you had to choose a different combat manuever, but to just take one feat to auto-negate 5 is messed up.
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two fighters level 5 with 16 Str meet on a battle field, in order to make a CM either one has to roll a 15
one of these fighters took all the imp CM feats so that he could be a CM machine. he only has to roll a 13 to trip the other fighter, which is decent odds. He has no feats other than CM feats.
but wait the other fighter took defensive combat training. now the other fighter has to roll a 17 (very little chance) in order to perform a manuever. And this fighter still has five other feats with which to whomp on the other fighter with.
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It's too generous. Combat maneuvers represent a variety of very different techniques. I can't get my head around the fact that a single feat with no prerequisites boosts the defenses against all kinds of combat maneuvers.
My solution (developed in Alpha 2) was to give a defensive aspect to all the Improved <combat maneuver> feats. I was assuming that if you got additional training at, for instance, disarming, you were also better at resisting being disarmed.
e.g.
Culled from here.
Improved Disarm
You are skilled at knocking weapons and other items out of your opponents' grasp.(3)
Prerequisite: Int 13, BAB +1.(4)
Benefit: You do not provoke an attack of opportunity when performing a disarm combat maneuver. In addition, you receive a +2 bonus on checks made to disarm a foe. When you are targeted by a disarm attempt, the DC of the maneuver is increased by 2.
Normal: You provoke an attack of opportunity when performing a disarm combat maneuver.
I think maybe tweaking the feat to only a +3 would be a good idea. But I don't see it as a must-have in any case. Monsters will usually just attack the wizard to deal damage rather than try to disarm his wand. And creatures with improved grab or trip have more than that going for them. It is usually bad enough if they hit you. Being resistant to their combat maneuvers just gives you a slight advantage. An NPC with Improved Trip is no different from a wolf really. Tripping is part of his shtick, but it isn't the only thing he can do.
Given that accomplishing the tasks presently known as combat maneuvers have become a bit more difficult in general, I believe that adds even less appeal to this feat. Players don't necessarily have to worry about colossal monsters automatically succeeding on grapple checks. If they want to even their odds a little more with this feat, I don't see that as a bad thing at all. Besides, it isn't like there aren't already a plethora of ways to manage these things. And since monsters don't generally worry about players pulling these tricks in the same meta-sense that players do, it isn't like every monster is going to have this feat making combat maneuvers worthless for players.
In summary, I don't see a problem.
Picking up the Defensive Combat Training feat delays an equal leveled combatant from reliably beating you by quite a few levels.
BAB difference between a low BAB and high BAB is only 2:1. A Strength score difference increases at only a 2:1 ratio, and in my experience doesn't increase nearly as fast as BAB does.
An 18 Strength Fighter who has the Improved "whatever" feat would be delayed by 4 to 6 levels at becoming reliably good at landing his tactic. Reliably being 75% chance (missing only 1 in 4 tries).
This means you go from tripping the 10 Str Wizard reliably at around 8th to 10th level, to somewhere around 16th level. At this point, why is the Wizard even getting into flying range, or even being seen past his Greater Invisibility.
It just gets worse for the Fighter if he tries to do these tactics against anything with a decent Strength score or BAB, especially if they pick up the Defensive feat too.
The levels where these tactics should be considered "powerful" should be in the lower levels, since magical abilities will be able to bypass them completely if they become a problem at higher levels.
And yet the Defensive feat can be picked right at level 1, no prerequisites, and defends against any and all Maneuvers.
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The point is, it's hard for someone who is trying to specialize in doing this Combat Maneuvers to even become good at them with the baseline. If you risk facing even a modicum of these tactics, then picking up the Defensive feat is very nearly imperative.
Now if Improved Combat Maneuver feats allowed being placed on a damage attack as a rider effect, then I could see limiting this to happen less often.
Basically, if someone focused on doing a Combat Maneuver was able to roll it with every attack without necessarily having to lose all his damage capability, then I could see it being reduced to occuring less than reliable... since you'll attempt it far more often (no loss in damage), it's success would need to be reduced.
What I'm trying to say is.. in a world where you have DC 15 + CMB and a +4 on Defensive Combat Training, I'd like to see Improved Combat Maneuver feats become rider effects with your normal attacks, instead of taking up your damage.
If it's fairly hard to even get a 50/50 shot at landing the effect, then you should be capable of doing damage with the attack as well.
Either that or make this the normal method, and include some combat option to forego damage and increase your CMB attack chance by something like +4 or 5.
I guess basically what I've described in my last post was to make all Combat Maneuvers work like Improved Grab (can attempt a Grapple when landing a damaging attack, etc).
If people start off having a fairly decent chance at defending against these attacks, and have an extremely easy feat to boost their defense against them by a fairly large amount, then giving the attacker with the Improved feat this option makes fairly good sense.
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It also streamlines Improved Grab for any creature that has it now. Basically give them the Improved Grapple feat as a racial feat, and by virtue of their naturally high Strength and BAB, they'll be good at grappling while attacking.
This is one step towards equalizing the mechanics between Monsters and PCs as well, which in my opinion can only be a good thing for 3e mechanics.
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I like that idea, it also opens up some tactical situations. and I am glad that you see where I am coming from. I understand that some people see combat manuevers as something that are going to be so difficult anyways picking up this feat is overkill, but that doesn't change the fact that it's unfairly advantaged to the defender. I wouldn't even have as much of an issue if you had to take this feat and name a manuever, against this manuever you gain +4 and then have to choose the feat again if they wanted to defend against other manuevers.
On second thought though that still urks me cause two characters one that trains in offense in a manuever and one who trains in defense should cancel each other out, not give the defender the advantage.