In my current game, I have a player looking to play a whip-wielding fighter, and has brought a number of rules questions regarding how exactly certain mechanics interact with the whip.
1) With Imp. Whip Mastery, the whip threatens at a range of 15'. Does that mean that if he has the Combat Reflexes feat, that he can get 2 attacks of opportunity on an enemy that moves from out of his range into melee with him? (when the enemy moves from 15' to 10', and again from 10' to 5')
2) The Vital Strike feats state that the extra damage is applied when the wielder uses the "attack" action. Is an Attack of Opportunity considered an attack action? Or does this feat only work when using a Standard Action to perform an attack.
3) If Vital Strike works when using an "attack action," does this mean that it deals it's damage if you use your "attack action" to perform a combat maneuver like Disarm or Trip (but not Bull Rush or Overrun, since those are specific standard actions)?
Most of this confusion is stemming from the term "attack action." If neither of these Vital Strike interactions work, then is there any way to have Vital Strike Errata'ed to be listed as its own Standard Action, like Cleave?
1. No. Neither would someone provoke multiple times from walking in circles around a PC. Movement provokes from leaving each square, but a character can only take an AOO once for a given movement even with combat reflexes. You should find this under AOOs.2. AOO is not an attack action.
3. No.
You spend a standard action to attack to deal damage with your weapon then via vital strike you will deal extra damage.
-James
Thanks for the answers. That's what I thought, but I just wanted to make sure.
As an aside, to piggyback on question 1: if an enemy moves toward the whip-wielder, he provokes an AOO moving from 15' to 10', so the whip wielder uses his AOO to perform a trip. If he has the Greater Trip feat, and is successful, then the act of being tripped will still provoke a second AOO, correct?
1. No. Neither would someone provoke multiple times from walking in circles around a PC. Movement provokes from leaving each square, but a character can only take an AOO once for a given movement even with combat reflexes. You should find this under AOOs.2. AOO is not an attack action.
3. No.
You spend a standard action to attack to deal damage with your weapon then via vital strike you will deal extra damage.
-James
Thanks for the answers. That's what I thought, but I just wanted to make sure.
As an aside, to piggyback on question 1: if an enemy moves toward the whip-wielder, he provokes an AOO moving from 15' to 10', so the whip wielder uses his AOO to perform a trip. If he has the Greater Trip feat, and is successful, then the act of being tripped will still provoke a second AOO, correct?
I believe so:
If you have the Combat Reflexes feat, you can add your Dexterity modifier to the number of attacks of opportunity you can make in a round. This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity). Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent. All these attacks are at your full normal attack bonus.
(Emphasis mine)
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The CRB says specifically that movement, even through multiple squares threatened by a single opponent, provokes only one AoO per round from that opponent. However, a character can provoke multiple AoO per round from a single opponent by taking different actions.
Vital Strike requires a standard action (since the attack action is a standard action) and thus is not useable for an AoO. An AoO is a free melee attack, not a standard action or an attack action.
My first reaction to question #3 was "no," but upon reviewing the CRB, I have to amend that. I noted that the combat maneuvers Bull Rush, Disarm and Trip all say that they are performed "in place of a melee attack." Therefore they would not be useable with Vital Strike. Grapple and Overrun seem to discount Vital Strike by defenition. However, there is some argument that Grapple could work in conjunction with a Vital Strike unarmed attack. However, since the grapple itself does no damage but merely gives the target (and the attacker) the grappled condition) multiplying your damage dice is moot. Perhaps someone with greater rules-fu than me can chime in on that. That leaves Sunder, which appears to work with Vital Strike.
So I would rule out using Vital Strike in conjunction with any combat maneuver other than Sunder.
I'll tackle these in order, as I've done a lot of looking at whips myself lately.
1)
Benefit: While wielding a whip, you threaten the area of your natural reach plus 5 feet. You can also use a whip to grasp an unattended Small or Tiny object within your whip's reach and pull that object into your square. To do so, you must hit AC 10 with a melee touch attack. Further, you can use the whip to grasp onto an object within your whip's reach, using 5 feet of your whip as if it were a grappling hook, allowing you to use the rest of your whip to swing on like a rope. As a free action, you can release the object your whip is grasping, but you cannot use the whip to attack while the whip is grasping an object.
Your reach plus 5 feet. If you are a small or medium creature, you have a reach of 5 feet. 5+5=10 feet threatened zone. Same as a medium creature with a reach weapon.
2) No, AoO are not attack actions and you can't vital strike with them.
3)
Benefit: When you use the attack action, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage. Roll the weapon's damage dice for the attack twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength, weapon abilities (such as flaming), precision based damage, and other damage bonuses. These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total.
What damage do you do on a trip? On a disarm? 0? Double 0, you get 0. I guess you could say vital strike is working on a disarm/trip, but you don't do damage, therefore, its effectively not doing anything. Might as well take your full attack action and get off multiple swings.
I believe so:
(Emphasis mine)
If you have the Combat Reflexes feat, you can add your Dexterity modifier to the number of attacks of opportunity you can make in a round. This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity). Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent. All these attacks are at your full normal attack bonus.
Thanks, I was assuming the use of the Combat Reflexes Feat, but I didn't specifically mention that. Thank you for the thorough explanation.
I'll tackle these in order, as I've done a lot of looking at whips myself lately.
1)
Benefit: While wielding a whip, you threaten the area of your natural reach plus 5 feet. You can also use a whip to grasp an unattended Small or Tiny object within your whip's reach and pull that object into your square. To do so, you must hit AC 10 with a melee touch attack. Further, you can use the whip to grasp onto an object within your whip's reach, using 5 feet of your whip as if it were a grappling hook, allowing you to use the rest of your whip to swing on like a rope. As a free action, you can release the object your whip is grasping, but you cannot use the whip to attack while the whip is grasping an object.Your reach plus 5 feet. If you are a small or medium creature, you have a reach of 5 feet. 5+5=10 feet threatened zone. Same as a medium creature with a reach weapon.
I totally must have glazed over that. Thank you!
3)Benefit: When you use the attack action, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage. Roll the weapon's damage dice for the attack twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength, weapon abilities (such as flaming), precision based damage, and other damage bonuses. These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total.What damage do you do on a trip? On a disarm? 0? Double 0, you get 0. I guess you could say vital strike is working on a disarm/trip, but you don't do damage, therefore, its effectively not doing anything. Might as well take your full attack action and get off multiple swings.
This makes sense in that light. So then, does this mean that Vital Strike does work with Sunder, or a Disarm performed by an Aldori Sword Lord fighter of level 5 or higher?
At 5th level, when an Aldori swordlord successfully disarms an opponent using an Aldori dueling sword, the swordlord also deals normal damage to the target, but without the normal Strength bonus to damage.This ability replaces Weapon Training 1.
So, in this particular instance, the disarm does deal damage normally, so then does that mean that it does interact with vital strike?
About Disarm and Vital Strike
I believe that you are out of luck in the different disarm scenarios. Vital strike require you to 'make a single melee attack', and when you use disarm, you are doing that instead of making a melee attack.
Basically, Vital Strike cannot be combined with anything. It is kind of a trap feat that way. Vital Strike is a standard action, so you cannot even full attack with it, or combine it with spring attack.
Except that it isn't specifically a Standard Action, it's an Attack Action - a specific type of Standard Action. Notice the verbiage difference between it and Cleave:
Benefit: As a standard action, you can make a single attack at your full base attack bonus against a foe within reach. If you hit, you deal damage normally and can make an additional attack (using your full base attack bonus) against a foe that is adjacent to the first and also within reach. You can only make one additional attack per round with this feat. When you use this feat, you take a –2 penalty to your Armor Class until your next turn.
Benefit: When you use the attack action, you can make one attack at your highest base attack bonus that deals additional damage. Roll the weapon's damage dice for the attack twice and add the results together before adding bonuses from Strength, weapon abilities (such as flaming), precision based damage, and other damage bonuses. These extra weapon damage dice are not multiplied on a critical hit, but are added to the total.
This verbiage would lead one to believe that Cleave is its own independent action. But Vital Strike is a type of attack, and that you may gain its effects when you sunder, or when an Aldori Sword Lord disarms.
But Vital Strike is a type of attack, and that you may gain its effects when you sunder, or when an Aldori Sword Lord disarms.
The problem isn't the action, both Vital Strike and Sunder require the attack action.
The problem is that Sunder happens in place of the melee attack you make when using the attack action. So without that melee attack, there is no Vital Strike.
Sunder: "You can attempt to sunder an item held or worn by your opponent as part of an attack action in place of a melee attack."
I was looking up Vital Strike recently and came across a lot of old threads on the subject.
According to lead designer Jason Bulmhan:
"Vital Strike is an attack action, which is a type of standard action."
Thread can be found here:
http://paizo.com/paizo/messageboards/paizoPublishing/pathfinder/pathfinderR PG/rules/chargingWithAVitalStrike#newPost
Does this mean that Vital Strike could work when a Two-Weapon Fighter is 9th level or higher and has the Doublestrike ability?