Before CMBs and CMDs, Combat Expertise sort of made sense as a prereq. for the various special attacks like Improved Disarm and Improved Trip. But now, C.E. doesn't seem to have anything to do with those attacks: why is learning a defensive move necessary to know how to knock weapons out of your enemies hand?
I suggest using Agile Maneuvers as the prereq. or maybe allow either one, to make for more variety of choices. Seems like focusing on your quickness would prepare you for Improved Steal, Disarm, Reposition, Trip, etc., just as much, if not more so, than Combat Expertise.
Anyone see any problems with this before I add it as a homebrew rule in my campaign?
Thanks.
Good point. I'm stealing this.
Yup. Stolen.
I don't see any mechanical problem with it. Personally, I would hate if a GM did it to me though. Its replacing a decent feat that I will occasionally use with a useless feat that shouldn't exist and should be rolled into weapon finnesse.
Hmm I can see what you mean there, but at least that weak feat has something to do with the feats we're talking about qualifying for.
I'd much rather be made to take an inferior feat than a completely irrelevant one. Even if it's not ideal, it gets part of the way to solving the problem.
The next step might be to improve agile manoeuvres, possibly by rolling into weapon finesse exactly as you suggest. If we do that, the manoeuvres that are about finesse end up belonging to finesse fighters and the manoeuvres that are about power remain with the purely strength based fighters.
Is that much of an improvement? It certainly feels more right to me than giving them to intelligent defensive warriors. They are physical attacks, after all, and at least they would interact with their prerequisite feat this way.
I dunno. I have a hard time seeing Agile Maneuvers as necessary, I think it should have been part of weapon Finesse.
At any rate, what about Str-based Maneuver builds? They have no need for either feat.
I'd rather we reserve feat pre-reqs for things that are mechanically linked, so we don't cut off a bunch of otherwise-viable builds for intangible reasons.
Drop CE from maneuvers, drop Power Attack from Cleave... there's a bunch more.
Make them BAB pre-reqs if balance is that much of a problem.
Life is too short to waste feat slots.
Lincoln, you're probably right.
... why is learning a defensive move necessary to know how to knock weapons out of your enemies hand?...
I would point out that one of the benefits of the Improved feats is to avoid the attacks of opportunity, which seems to be defensive in nature...
Yeah - this.
Yeah - that.
... why is learning a defensive move necessary to know how to knock weapons out of your enemies hand?...I would point out that one of the benefits of the Improved feats is to avoid the attacks of opportunity, which seems to be defensive in nature...
This kind of "loose" association for feat pre-reqs drives me up the wall. There just aren't enough feat slots to go around. If I'm trying to do something mechanically creative or... heaven forbid thematic and I'm forced to take a feat I don't need or want to get a feat that I do want... ug.
I'm still bitter that Power Attack works against cleave now, and it's still a prereq. Combat Expertise is and has long been a feat "tax" — severe enough that few people go down those paths.
Grah. I'm very opinionated about this one.
... why is learning a defensive move necessary to know how to knock weapons out of your enemies hand?...I would point out that one of the benefits of the Improved feats is to avoid the attacks of opportunity, which seems to be defensive in nature...This kind of "loose" association for feat pre-reqs drives me up the wall. There just aren't enough feat slots to go around. If I'm trying to do something mechanically creative or... heaven forbid thematic and I'm forced to take a feat I don't need or want to get a feat that I do want... ug.
I'm still bitter that Power Attack works against cleave now, and it's still a prereq. Combat Expertise is and has long been a feat "tax" — severe enough that few people go down those paths.
Grah. I'm very opinionated about this one.
Since the original post was about selecting a different pre-req than the one in the book, it is far from a 'loose' association. It is an answer to his question as to why CE works rather than AM. If anything, your post is a 'loose' association to this thread. A conversation about the validity of feat pre-reqs belongs elsewhere.
Since the original post was about selecting a different pre-req than the one in the book, it is far from a 'loose' association. It is an answer to his question as to why CE works rather than AM. If anything, your post is a 'loose' association to this thread. A conversation about the validity of feat pre-reqs belongs elsewhere.
Sure. Still, lots of builds rely on Strength for maneuvers. For those builds, wouldn't CE be better, since they have lower Dex (and therefor AC)?
Sure. Still, lots of builds rely on Strength for maneuvers. For those builds, wouldn't CE be better, since they have lower Dex (and therefor AC)?
I see CM as a better fit because of the elimination of the AoO. It would be easy to try and map out which of the Improved feats should be strength and which are dexterity based. It would also get messy and contentious. There would also be an even bigger feat tax if some were based on AM and some on some other feat. In the end I think the designers chose a single feat that could at least loosely be seen as a valid pre-req. You get inside their defenses without getting attacked and sunder/trip/disarm/... better than you could before.
Now an argument could be made for a different pre-req for the CM feat, but that is another story.
Great feedback, everyone. I agree that Weapon Finesse and Agile Maneuvers should be combined. I know not everyone will agree with AM as an alternate prereq, but my main concern was if doing so would break something that I hadn't thought about.
The larger arguments about how things should be done differently are all quite interesting, but from the comments, I am feeling pretty good about going ahead with this as a house rule in my campaign.
Thanks!