Talk:Combat Reflexes, Improved (3.5e Feat)

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Ratings[edit]

RatedLike.png Foxwarrior likes this article and rated it 3 of 4.
A nice way to stop people from simply walking away from you.

The name isn't great, though, and I'm not sure I approve of the teleportation exclusion.

Why the Nix?

Nixing involuntary movement seems like an odd choice for exclusion. It also eliminates teamwork build with one character shoving and throwing enemies to this guy who has this feat, and a monster with this feat would be impossible to by pass without an ally that could toss you. I would increase the tumble DC and have involuntary movement provoke AOOs.--Change=Chaos. Period. SC 02:04, 2 August 2011 (UTC)

Because that would be unbalanced. A party made to provoke tons of AoOs through forced movement or monsters that synergize to force movement would almost always make combats less of a challenge. --Ghostwheel 03:15, 2 August 2011 (UTC)
Fine, it's not balanced, but why the negation of tumble as an option? Doesn't that invalidate several character builds and erase tumbling as an evasive manuever?--Change=Chaos. Period. SC 04:44, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Investing a few skill points is far different from 2 out of your 7 feats. --Ghostwheel 05:06, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
Yes, but those feats should not invalidate those skill points, which are also a scarce reasource with the current 3.5 skill system. Make it harder, not gone.--Change=Chaos. Period. SC 22:54, 3 August 2011 (UTC)
I am tempted to agree on Spaz on this one. Also, why isn't there a Base Attack Bonus prerequisite? Any character could simply take it on Level 1? -HarrowedMind (talk) 23:08, 27 November 2012 (UTC)
Yeah, I don't like hard counters at the best of times, but this feat makes exceptions to exceptions to the status quo. It is too far removed from the base rules to be resolvable in all situations.
Let's say that someone made a feat that had rules text along the lines of, "If you move at 1/4 speed, you provoke no attacks of opportunity. This applies to all voluntary movement of any sort, including movement from a maneuver, teleportation effect, etc." Improved Combat Reflexes specifies that atypical movement modes provoke AoOs, while this hypothetical feat specifies that they do not. Neither is prior to the other, and neither specifies the other as something to be nullified. So which feat wins out?
It could be assumed that each is only meant to apply to the base rules and what it specifies -- to apply both feats to the game simultaneously, in a manner -- but then both feats are limited more than what the author intends; certainly GW intends Battle Leader's Charge to be foiled by this, but that philosophy would prevent such an interaction. So that's no solution.
It seems to me that it is a fundamentally bad idea to make exceptions to exceptions; it can lead to a race condition in the rules. If one piece of material diverges from core rules and operates under its own rules instead (such as tumble diverging from the core rule of movement provoking an AoO), it is firstly wise to design such material to be fully self-contained and not affect the rules for other material, and secondly unwise to design further material that creates another separation to diverge from the divergence. --DanielDraco (talk) 00:12, 28 November 2012 (UTC)