[OOC] Return to the Rusty Rat

[Lugar]

Yes good call with the flank, maybe there's another weapon on the wall with adamantine construct bane? Or armor that he won't attack the wearer! With the insignia!

[Silent Giant]

Yeah Toot's handsome compared to us, I thought I had the lowest CHA. Giant is beating me in kills and ugliness

Yeah, a nice pet who is more clever than SG

[DM Surranó]

Lugar as a dwarf is quite familiar with adamantine so I think he can tell Giant. If he doesn't then it's player's call to decide what Giant does, lacking the information.

You haven't had a look around yet so you have no idea about the stuff on the wall. Guess looking around in 360 degree is sufficiently complex to treat it as a move action. What go you think?

Afaik FD/TD and CE don't add up. Correct me if I'm wrong. Tumble on the other side increases FD/TD (but not CE) bonus to 3/6, I believe it works like synergy (I.E. 5 ranks needed)

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[Lugar]

Fighting Defensively as a Standard Action: You can choose to fight defensively when attacking. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC for the same round. This bonus stacks with the AC bonus granted by the Combat Expertise feat (page 92).
Page 140 PHB

I just found that out the other day while looking into the tumble skill. I'm glad I took the feat now
I think a move action is fair for very specific information, like noticing details, but a quick look around to get general information only takes a second.

[Silent Giant]

I think we had standard or move action to look around for a bit when we entered. We moved only 10-15 ft.

[DM Surranó]

Technically you could have but you all were focused on trying to save the armorer's sorry a$$ by sacrificing yourselves both. You might have perceived that time elapsed since your entrance to the vault was several rounds but it's because of those lots of clarifications on who stands where etc. In game terms, all this happened in a single turn.

I will add bits and pieces of what you can perceive in every turn "as a free action" since you specified that you wait for sh*t to happen (i.e. ready what action against what exactly?) and meanwhile shooting nervous glances all around the walls.

[DM Surranó]

Fighting Defensively as a Standard Action: You can choose to fight defensively when attacking. If you do so, you take a –4 penalty on all attacks in a round to gain a +2 dodge bonus to AC for the same round. This bonus stacks with the AC bonus granted by the Combat Expertise feat (page 92).
Page 140 PHB

Hm. I thought it was errata'd since this last sentence is missing from SRD but nope, on the contrary: this is confirmed in the official FAQ.

So, will Lugar use FD (-4/+3) and CE (-x / +x) together with x being equal to...?
Also note that if you "ready an action" that's not an "attack" nor a "fight" so you can't apply either... Nor can you apply TD because it does not allow a readied action at the same time.

[Lugar]

Lugar wasn't readying an action, just delaying his action to see how the statue reacts to our presence.

I hadn't thought about that being errata'd, thanks for checking. It makes since that they would stack considering how easy it is to increase ones attack bonus over time.

[DM Surranó]

Well I didn't take it for granted, given the explicit mention of FD in CE's text as:

Normal: A character without the Combat Expertise feat can fight defensively...

insinuating that the "benefit" is that you may decide to use the feat instead of FD and not in addition. And indeed, this is what the feat is about at the first glance: giving you control over the penalty / benefit of fighting defensively. Except that the original authors expressed quite the contrary in the FAQ.

[Lugar]

Going over Lugar's options to survive this fight, really for the party to survive this fight, and I think his best bet is The Hat of Disguise. Maybe, just maybe, taking on Sirrith's appearance might get him the opportunity to control the construct if it recognizes Sirrith's authority. But I digress, I've always took the powers of The Hat of Disguise as an at will power with no duration or time limit, but still requiring a standard action to activate. In game, Lugar "willed" it, in my mind his concentration on the form he wished to imitate was a standard action. I was curious of other views on how the magic item worked.