[bug?] Defensive Duelist is actually broken?

[o(^▽^)o]

Has anyone actually confirmed that this feat is working for them?

Description: "When you are attacked with a melee attack, you use your reaction to increase your Armour Class (+2), potentially causing the attack to miss."

I tested with a lvl 4 cleric and a 4 fighter separately.

For the cleric, after I activated the feat, and then got into a fight, it just disappeared from the Reactions bar. Couldn't figure out how to get it back or turn it on again.

For the fighter with a base AC of 17, I checked the logs after getting hit in melee, and it's getting hit on 17 and above rolls in melee.

Tested with the fighter using only one 1h weapon (mace), and also tested with a 2h weapon (longsword). One enemy was using no weapons (bare hands), another enemy was using a dagger, both in melee. Same results.

Also for the fighter, tried both activating/deactivating the feat, indicated by the spinning circle around the Reaction icon for the feat. Same results.

AoO was not used up at all ever in the fight, so it's not like something else is using up the Reaction.

Under what conditions does this feat actually work?

[GreyHuntr]

I haven't tried it in BG3 yet, but in tabletop Defensive Duelist only works if you are holding a Finesse weapon (Dagger, Rapier, Scimitar, Short Sword, etc). Maces and Longswords are not Finesse weapons.

[DiceWrangler]

I don't know about the Defensive Duelist Feat but as a Battle Master Fighter with Maneuvers I have seen some wonkiness with the Reaction icons on the toolbar. Sometimes I cannot toggle the Reaction icons or they just disappear from the hotbar completely. I suspect that it has to do with switching weapons, possibly from the inventory page ("i") instead of using the character page ("o").

[o(^▽^)o]

Thanks for the explanation! I did not know that from the tabletop. The BG3 description for the feat didn't seem to indicate that prerequisite.

I tested with a dagger, and you're right! The AC went from 17 to 19 on the first melee attack, back down to 17 on all other attacks from the same turn.