Ways to defend and draw "aggro" or "punish"?

[J. A. P-Rock]

Strengthening the attack of opportunity would go a long way towards allowing melee characters to control the battlefield.

There's a long story about how Fighting Men used to get attacks against monsters that turned there back on them, and how in d20 such attacks became really weak because of the way that physical damage scales (spread over multiple additional attacks instead of advancing a single attack), and because of the 5-foot step and concentration checks to cast spells in melee, but the end result is that its hard to keep enemies from moving past you if they really want to without a boat load of feats (that only marginally improve the situation...why do Stand Still and Pin Down blank your damage?).

[Erick Wilson]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

ARchon style: oh wow.. that IS bad. Requires more feats than bodyguard, the combat expertise feat tax, AND burns a standard action AND you take an AC penalty .. did I mention it burns your standard action?

Archon Diversion: the move action isn't bad.

Archon justice: swift action, now we're talking. But thats a looong road of bad to get there. The AOOs are sweet though

Indeed, the AOOs are what make it. It looks bad on paper, but my Ki Mystic/Lore Warden/Magus has used it to great effect in PFS.

EDIT: And actually, I just stopped at Archon Diversion since my swift actions are already at a premium with that character, and it still works great. Using it as a move action is enough. I combine it with Vital Strike and Kirin Strike, or sometimes I just take total defense and then sit there deflecting things and giving people AOOs. Also, Lore Warden meant I picked up Expertise anyway, and meanwhile it's good for my Kirin Style.

[Doomed Hero]

The issue with Archon Style is that you have to be adjacent to both the enemy you're effecting and the ally you're protecting. That's really circumstantial. Not reliable at all.

Bodyguard/In Harm's Way is much better.

Really, best of all is the Suicidal Trait (which any character can get with the Adopted trait). It's only once a day, but you can save it to re-target spells with attack rolls. That's seriously cool.

[BigNorseWolf]

Doomed Hero wrote:

The issue with Archon Style is that you have to be adjacent to both the enemy you're effecting and the ally you're protecting. That's really circumstantial. Not reliable at all.

I'm not seeing that for the latter 2 feats

I very much need to try to fit these into the build for my space invader kitsune fox form fighter.

[Erick Wilson]

BigNorseWolf wrote:

Doomed Hero wrote:

The issue with Archon Style is that you have to be adjacent to both the enemy you're effecting and the ally you're protecting. That's really circumstantial. Not reliable at all.

I'm not seeing that for the latter 2 feats

Yeah, as far as I can tell you only have to be adjacent to your ally to divert an attack.