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Noticed a possible inconsistency about how I've been using Bodyguard.
When an adjacent ally is attacked, you may use an attack of opportunity to attempt the aid another action to improve your ally’s AC. You may not use the aid another action to improve your ally’s attack roll with this attack.
If you're in position to make a melee attack on an opponent that is engaging a friend in melee combat, you can attempt to aid your friend as a standard action.
Does the reference in Bodyguard override or overlap with the part in the Aid Another attempt that says "if you can attack the opponent"? That is, can you use Bodyguard
1) When you are adjacent to your ally OR
2) Only when you are adjacent to your ally and the attacking opponent is within your melee weapon reach / threatened area
I also just heard that some feats that read "adjacent" were intended to read "within reach" instead. Does anyone know if this applies to Bodyguard?
| 2 people marked this as FAQ candidate. |
I just took Bodyguard myself, and my read is that you have to be:
(a) Adjacent to your ally, and
(b) Within reach of your enemy.
It makes sense to me in a 'real world' sense (even with a reach weapon leverage would make parrying at range woefully ineffective), but I'm not even remotely related to PFS, so I'd like to see what more strict rules-interpreters say.
It overrides. You have to be adjacent to the ally, but do not have to be within reach of the enemy attacking him.
The feat tells you exactly what it does, it says you can use the AoO without any mention of the enemy's placement.
The feat would be very difficult to use if you needed to meet both conditions. Note on a "normal" aid another, you can buff your ally's to hit against the enemy without needing to care about that ally's placement, just that you can melee attack the enemy.
So this is sort of the mirror opposite of that, in a way.
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It overrides. You have to be adjacent to the ally, but do not have to be within reach of the enemy attacking him.
The feat tells you exactly what it does, it says you can use the AoO without any mention of the enemy's placement.
I disagree.
You can use the AoO to attempt the Aid Another action. Which IMO means that you then check if you can actually take the action. If not (enemy not in melee range for example), then your attempt at Aid Another fails.
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Look at it this way. If you had a strict requirement to be in melee of the enemy and adjacent to your ally, this feat becomes nearly useless.
You couldn't help with ranged attacks. You couldn't help with rays. You couldn't deal with large or greater creatures without a reach weapon.
Furthermore, you can't aid another as an immediate action. But you can because the feat says so. In this case I am sure we agree that the feat is already breaking the rulebook entry for how aid another works.
Flavor-wise, you are helping your ally differently than the standard case. Before, you feinted and jabbed and distracted your enemy so that they couldn't put their full effort into attacking your ally. Now, you are actually affecting the target. You bump, turn and shield them to try to avoid blows. You can also intercept a blow as it is about to hit (hence the whole immediate action thing). Where before you were aiding preemptively, you're now aiding reactively.
Also, and note I include this last since most of you don't respect his rulings, James Jacobs says you only need to be adjacent. Link.
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Also, and note I include this last since most of you don't respect his rulings, James Jacobs says you only need to be adjacent. Link.
I bow to the greater wisdom of JJ (also it will make my Helpful Halfling Bodyguard Paladin cohort even more useful).
However, you should know that I honestly feel insulted by the part of your sentence that I bolded above. And I may not be the only one.
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The offense wasn't intended. I wish that his rulings could be taken as law since he's the only person from Paizo who is willing to offer his opinion on how things should be run in an expedient manner. Seems like you need to insult Paizo as a whole or accrue an excessive number of requests for FAQ to get a response from "the rules team".
I am just very guarded about linking to James' rulings since there very often is backlash from the "James isn't a rules guy" community.
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I would say that "specific overriding general" applies here. The feat states that you may attempt to Aid Another anytime you have attacks of opportunity and an adjacent ally is attacked. The general (needing to be able to hit the enemy) would seem to be overriden as a result. I would take "attempt" to mean that you're rolling to hit the AC 10 requirement for a successful aid. Still, it'd be lovely to have an official ruling, although I'll certainly be happy to reference JJ's ruling for my GMs.
I would say that "specific overriding general" applies here. The feat states that you may attempt to Aid Another anytime you have attacks of opportunity and an adjacent ally is attacked. The general (needing to be able to hit the enemy) would seem to be overriden as a result. I would take "attempt" to mean that you're rolling to hit the AC 10 requirement for a successful aid. Still, it'd be lovely to have an official ruling, although I'll certainly be happy to reference JJ's ruling for my GMs.
FWIW, JJ's word on this has been OK among the PFS GMs in my area. I keep a printout of the thread in my character folder.
I would say that "specific overriding general" applies here. The feat states that you may attempt to Aid Another anytime you have attacks of opportunity and an adjacent ally is attacked. The general (needing to be able to hit the enemy) would seem to be overriden as a result. I would take "attempt" to mean that you're rolling to hit the AC 10 requirement for a successful aid. Still, it'd be lovely to have an official ruling, although I'll certainly be happy to reference JJ's ruling for my GMs.FWIW, JJ's word on this has been OK among the PFS GMs in my area. I keep a printout of the thread in my character folder.
Why necro an almost 3 year old thread?