TL;DR which builds would CE actually be useful in if you didn't need it for certain Combat Maneuvers?
With the creation of Dirty Fighting, and before that people saying that they wish their Brawlers could Martial Versatility into trip/dirty trick without having to take Combat Expertise, I believe that we could fix combat expertise, instead of creating workarounds.
A good fix that I've seen is by Dreamscarred Press. Instead of granting +1 AC, it grants 2 Temporary Hit Points that last 1 round. Also it's like Power Attack for shields, in that it grants +3 temp HP if you are wielding a shield.
Another fix I've seen proposed is that it directly grants a Miss Chance instead of a bonus to AC.
However I think we can salvage the original feat by changing when it applies. So the first step is to determine which types of builds would actually like to use Combat Expertise.
The first build that comes to mind is Grappling. Once you've succeeded at the first grapple, you get +5 to maintain it. This means you'll probably succeed at maintaining. However, you take a -2 penalty to AC (which also applies to CMD) and a -4 to Dexterity (which applies a -2 to CMD). This makes it quite easy for anyone competent to escape a grapple. Now, if I had Combat Expertise, I could increase my AC (which also increases CMD) and decrease my Attack Rolls (which will almost always succeed).
Are there any other builds you would like Combat Expertise in?
The CE fix is, a good feat that is that says it counts as CE.
not the the feat is completely bad but it is taxed onto a lot of things for no good reason.
I may take the feat as a sword and board fighter just to keep my AC up in some situations. A fighter's to hit will still be in the "good" range,
The int thing is dumb as well.
It is really good in the Maximum DR barbarian build
CWheezy wrote: The int thing is dumb as well.
It is really good in the Maximum DR barbarian build
Oh right, with Stalwart and everything! I would love CE in that! Thanks man
GeneticDrift wrote: The CE fix is, a good feat that is that says it counts as CE.
not the the feat is completely bad but it is taxed onto a lot of things for no good reason.
I may take the feat as a sword and board fighter just to keep my AC up in some situations. A fighter's to hit will still be in the "good" range,
Combat Expertise aint bad is some builds. Its inherent problem is that the builds which must take it are never the builds that would like to use it.
In NPC soldiers for sure.
Stalwart is the best use for Combat Expertise, but even then fighting defensively is often a better idea.
You could probably pull off something cool with an Order of the Eastern Star Daring Champion Cavalier going into the Aldori Swordlord prestige class, grabbing Threatening Defender to reduce the penalty and Draconic Defender to double the AC bonus by selecting yourself as the target of your defense.
The only build I've personally considered it for without needing it as a prereq would be a sword and board fighter. Due to the highly non-linear protective nature of AC, there are situations where being able to add 2-3 points of AC can drop the expected value of the damage you take by 50-75%. As a fighter with a shield, your AC is already quite high, and the higher your AC, the more each additional point does for you, so it can be pretty good there. The 13 int requirement kind of makes it probably not worth it even there though, at least on point buy.
I've personally found it useful on my Guisarme trip fighter, but not useful enough that I would have spent a feat if I didn't need it as a prereq (subject to a possibly incorrect rules interpretation; more on that later). I use it to transition to "Turtle Mode" when low on HP. I start out the fight two handing with a Guisarme, which tends to draw a lot of attention because of the large amounts of damage that can put out (essentially drawing aggro and tanking by a combination of being too lethal to ignore and controlling large areas of the battlefield with AOOs, reach and trip). If I get focused down and drop to low HP, I will sometimes swap to a tower shield and turn on Combat Expertise + Fight Defensively. It is a little awkward from an action economy point of view; generally there is a turn of taking a total defense action in there to bridge from two handing->tower shield+CE/fight defensively.
That leaves enemies in an awkward spot tactically; generally, you don't want to spread damage across a party, you want to focus down enemies one at a time. But you also don't want to attack the guy fighting super defensively with a tower shield and an AC through the roof you barely have a chance of hitting. Once in that mode, I can still take my normal attacks and AOOs that have a small chance of hitting, I can still physically get in the way in narrow corridors, and I can still act as a flanking buddy for my teammates. Enemies can try and finish me, of course, but my AC is 10 points higher, which can push a lot of things into needing close to a 20 to hit, so I count them swinging at me at that point as a win. Enemies also still have to watch out for the drop Tower Shield -> two hand power attack with longsword line that can punch out a final unexpected damage spike if appropriate.
While looking up some stuff while writing this up, I realized that I may have gotten the rules on deploying a tower shield wrong; I've been playing it as a move action to go from empty hands to using a tower shield, but reading the rules more closely, it looks like maybe it should be two actions. I'm not sure if it equips like a weapon, where you draw it (or in this case strap it on) for use with a move action from some place where it is accessible, or like an item in your pack, where you first have to dig it out with an AOO provoking move action and only then equip it with another move action. On a closer second reading, I am leaning towards the second case being correct, but am not 100% sure. If that is the case, this strategy is probably not worth it. The usage is already situational, but by the time you want to transition, you are in almost always in enough trouble that provoking an AOO and spending a whole round at only +6 AC from total defense is unlikely to afford a safe enough transition to be worth giving up a last round of two handed power attacking.
I'll have to get a ruling from my DM and see how she wants to handle it.
Crane Wing-based Monk of Many Styles, perhaps? Or just uber-dex/wis defense Monk?
Crane Wing uses fighting defensively, not Combat Expertise, just like most other similar effects. Pathfinder should really just have one or the other.
Avoron wrote: Crane Wing uses fighting defensively, not Combat Expertise, just like most other similar effects. Pathfinder should really just have one or the other. But you can stack both of them. You'll be biting nasty penalties to hit, but your AC will be monstrous.
Combat Expertise (besides with Stalwart) has a niche as a "free" AC boost if you're able to hit enemies on a 1 even with the penalties.
Not a big draw, but it's there.
Pathfinder Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Covert Operator wrote:
The first build that comes to mind is Grappling. Once you've succeeded at the first grapple, you get +5 to maintain it. This means you'll probably succeed at maintaining. However, you take a -2 penalty to AC (which also applies to CMD) and a -4 to Dexterity (which applies a -2 to CMD). This makes it quite easy for anyone competent to escape a grapple. Now, if I had Combat Expertise, I could increase my AC (which also increases CMD) and decrease my Attack Rolls (which will almost always succeed).
Are there any other builds you would like Combat Expertise in?
I might use it as a magus in spell combat if my main damage spell was going to be delivered by melee touch, or I wanted concentrate on getting a defense spell up that round.
|
1 person marked this as a favorite.
|
Combat expertise is useful for shutting out enemies.
If your AC sucks, expertise won't help you.
If your AC is good, expertise could reduce say, a 20% chance to hit you to a 5% chance to hit you.
I've made tanks that aren't primarily damage dealers (like clerics, dragon shamans, etc.) that try to draw AoOs from opponents where it would have been useful.
Kineticists could make good use of it with Kinetic Blade and Kinetic Whip with Energy Blasts.
If you have a generous stat method, CE is good for a Dawnflower Dervish Bard. Once you can cast Dance of a Hundred Cuts, with buffs you have such a high attack bonus that you can sometimes use CE, fight defensively, and still hit on a 2.
Nothing. If I was going to use a defensive build, I would use Crane Style and just fight defensively instead.
It's also a bit of a problem that, at levels 1 through 3, or 1 through 5 for partial BAB, Dodge is straight up better. A lot of play goes on at those levels.
Any stalwart build.
Also, rogue use it for ac boost.
My oracle reach high ac with buffs, heavy armor and expertise.
|
