Covering Fire and Cooperative Combatant

[DrunkRooster]

I've been looking at the Tactician Archetype for the Fighter and I'm wondering if using the Cooperative Combatant ability with the Covering Fire Feat.

Covering Fire:

You can use the aid another action with a ranged attack against an opponent, regardless of whether the opponent threatens an ally. Range penalties apply to this attack roll. Choose one ally when making the attack.

If the attack is successful, that ally gains a +2 bonus to AC against that opponent’s next attack, as long as the attack comes before the beginning of your next turn. All allies with this feat also gain this bonus against that opponent.

Basically, I pick a single ally, even if they don't share the same feat, and I can aid another them to increase AC. Sharing the same teamwork feat is just an additional bonus.

Cooperative Combatant:

At 11th level, when a tactician uses the aid another special attack, he may affect one additional ally per point of Intelligence bonus. For each ally that a tactician aids, he can pick whether to grant that ally the +2 bonus on its next attack against the opponent or the +2 bonus to AC against the opponent’s next attack on that ally, and can grant different allies different bonuses.

So, if I am reading both of these right, with Covering Fire I can do a ranged aid another which aids multiple allies instead of just the one who doesn't have the feat, almost getting around the entire need for the Teamwork part of the feat then? Also, since Covering Fire says that its only AC that is increased, while Cooperative Combatant says I pick either, am I correct to assume that I would only increase the AC of my allies since the Covering Fire part is explicitly saying that it only increases AC?

[JDLPF]

A: Yes.

Covering Fire allows you to use the aid another action with a ranged attack.

Cooperative Combatant allows you to affect additional allies with the aid another action.

From a balance perspective, Covering Fire can theoretically be granted to all allies by a Cavalier's Tactician ability as well from level 1. There's nothing overpowered about the Tactician Fighter's level 11 ability duplicating this.

You are correct that you should only grant +2 AC with aid another when doing so as a ranged attack. You couldn't aid another on attack rolls using Covering Fire, or other typical uses of aid another such as skill checks or saving throws.

[DrunkRooster]

Thanks for the confirmation, I figured as much but it's nice to get some confirmation from someone else. Just trying to get as much out of the archetype as possible.