Fighting Defensively

[Poncho-Ninja]

Is there any way to reduce the penalties of fighting defensively? Its for a sword and board paladin so the Crane Style Feat Path (UM) won't work.

[StreamOfTheSky]

Shield Master feat is so amazingly poorly/sparsely worded that you could interpret it as removing attack penalties from just about any source.

[Kriskras]

Combat expertise

[Shfish]

There is a trait that works with combat expertise. Also, 3? ranks in Acrobatics gives a bonus that really helps with making the penalty count.

[Sarcon]

The Madu!

Also the trait Threatening Defender

[Nephril]

just an observation the negative from fighting defensively becomes less and less obtrusive as you get higher level. honestly fighting defensively at low levels should only be used so you can use combat expertise and fighting defensively at the same time for a higher ac bonus. the shield posted by sarcon is your best bet for actually reducing penalties. but when it comes right down to not wanting to get hit you generally are ok with sacrificing everything you have to do it.
for a tank idea might i suggest possibly researching the combat maneuvers such as improved trip and disarm. using a reach weapon you can be very difficult to take down. simply trip someone and they provoke an ao from being tripped then you use teh ao to disarm them and fling there weapon 15 feet away. now no need to fight defensively.

[Glutton]

Poncho-Ninja wrote:

Is there any way to reduce the penalties of fighting defensively? Its for a sword and board paladin so the Crane Style Feat Path (UM) won't work.

Actually crane style will. The base feat has nothing to do with what weaponry you use. If you take it and fight defensively with 3 ranks in acrobatics, you will gain 4 ac and take -2 to hit

[FuelDrop]

take the whole tree and it gets better, dropping to a -1 to hit for +4 (including acrobatics bonus) to ac. that wipes the floor with combat expertise.

[StreamOfTheSky]

FuelDrop wrote:

take the whole tree and it gets better, dropping to a -1 to hit for +4 (including acrobatics bonus) to ac. that wipes the floor with combat expertise.

It's also spending 3 feats + 2 pre-requisite feats...

[Glutton]

dip 1 level of unarmed fighter, bam

[Twigs]

Acrobatics ranks, the two-weapon defense feat and a few other methods can boost the AC bonus to make the penalty hurt a little less, but gathering from the fact that this character is already made, I suppose that's no good to you.

Otherwise you'll just want the usual staples for getting a high to hit bonus: a high strength and a magic weapon with a flat bonus (+3 and higher have the added perk of punching through numerous types of DR).

Hope this helps, some.

[Helaman]

The master of defensive fighting is the Aldori Sword master archetype with Crane style and 3 ranks acrobatics... +5 AC and no penalty at level 7. Its a BIG investment but its the best bar none for defensive fighting. Ideally, taken to level 9 you can get crane wing deflection as part of the defensive fighting which cancels one melee attack and at level 9 you get the weapon training feature, opening up the Bracers of Combat or something like that which gives +2 hit/damage and other fun advantages.

Its about the best you are gonna get for a while unless you want to try 20 levels. Getting out at 9th isn't a bad thing to try.