This came up in another thread, and it has me wondering. This FAQ seems to open the flood gates and I'm hoping someone can help me close them:
FAQ wrote: The Greater Trip feat allows you to take an attack of opportunity against a foe that you trip. The Vicious Stomp feat allows you to take an attack of opportunity against a foe that falls prone adjacent to you. If you have both these feats and trip a foe, do you get to make two attacks of opportunity (assuming that you can)?
Yes, the two triggering acts are similar here but they are different. One occurs when you trip a foe. The other occurs when a foe falls prone. It requires a large number of feats to accomplish, but you can really pile on the attacks with this combination.
Now let's look at Paired Opportunist. Let's say we have Jack and Jill they have 18 DEX, Combat Reflexes, and Paired Opportunist.
Jack attack's and gets a Critical hit.
Jill is adjacent so gets an AoO #1.
Jack gets AoO #1 based on Jill's AoO #1
Jill gets AoO #2 based on Jacks #1
Jack gets #2...etc.
After reading the FAQ, what stops people from doing that mess above?
Because of the way paired opportunist works. You don't get an AoO from your ally getting an AoO, thats just shorthand. What actually happens is the action that provokes an AoO from your ally also provokes an AoO from you. That triggering action is what grants the AoO's.
Paired Opportunist wrote: Enemies that provoke attacks of opportunity from your ally also provoke attacks of opportunity from you so long as you threaten them (even if the situation or an ability would normally deny you the attack of opportunity). This does not allow you to take more than one attack of opportunity against a creature for a given action. So how it actually works:
Jack scores a critical hit.
Jill is adjacent so this action provokes an AoO
This action also provokes an AoO from Jack due to paired opportunist.
Chain ends because you can only get one AoO from the triggering action (in this example the critical hit).
Works just fine, it just requires two players to build a very specific way. If you can make that tactic work for you and your partner, go for it.
dragonhunterq wrote:
So how it actually works:
Jack scores a critical hit.
Jill is adjacent so this action provokes an AoO
This action also provokes an AoO from Jack due to paired opportunist.
Chain ends because you can only get one AoO from the triggering action (in this example the critical hit).
I disagree - you're triggering off a separate triggering action. (A separate critical hit.)
I'm not sure I understand you Dr. There is only one critical hit in the example given, so they can only get one AoO each.
If one of the 2 AoOs criticals then sure, both get another single AoO each off of that critical hit but that is a different situation.
Jodokai wrote: Now let's look at Paired Opportunist. Let's say we have Jack and Jill they have 18 DEX, Combat Reflexes, and Paired Opportunist.
Jack attack's and gets a Critical hit.
I'm confused. What is the AoO trigger in this case? You were talking about Greater Trip and Vicious Stomp. Now you are talking about Critical Hits? Does Jack have Tripping Strike?
Please clarify.
Scott Wilhelm wrote: Jodokai wrote: Now let's look at Paired Opportunist. Let's say we have Jack and Jill they have 18 DEX, Combat Reflexes, and Paired Opportunist.
Jack attack's and gets a Critical hit.
I'm confused. What is the AoO trigger in this case? You were talking about Greater Trip and Vicious Stomp. Now you are talking about Critical Hits? Does Jack have Tripping Strike?
Please clarify. I added the feat outflank and didn't specify, it doesn't matter really, say the bad guy tried to unarmed punch A. The other stuff is just there for the FAQ
Dragonhunterq- And I would agree with you, but if you read the FAQ they are different actions that provoke.
Dr. I'm not sure that qualifies as "a very specific way". It requires I feat each.
What exactly do you say is the different action that provokes? Because I just see one action - the critical hit (or the unarmed strike). This isn't a situation analogous to 'tripping' and 'falling prone'.
Lets simplify it and go through it with the unarmed strike:
unarmed strike (the action) against Jill provokes an AoO from Jill.
Paired opportunists says 'the action' also provokes an AoO from Jack.
Paired opportunists says you cannot gain more than one AoO for a given action and both have now provoked an AoO from 'the action'.
There is no opportunity to chain AoOs because of the limitation built into paired opportunists.
dragonhunterq wrote: What exactly do you say is the different action that provokes? Because I just see one action - the critical hit (or the unarmed strike). This isn't a situation analogous to 'tripping' and 'falling prone'.
Lets simplify it and go through it with the unarmed strike:
unarmed strike (the action) against Jill provokes an AoO from Jill.
Paired opportunists says 'the action' also provokes an AoO from Jack.
Paired opportunists says you cannot gain more than one AoO for a given action and both have now provoked an AoO from 'the action'.
There is no opportunity to chain AoOs because of the limitation built into paired opportunists.
And that's how I see it, but I can also see the argument presented like this:
Unarmed Strike on Jill provokes from Jill.
Since it provokes from Jill, Jack gets an AoO
Wow it just hit me. Now I get it, I'm changing the wording to make it work the "bad way". If we look at how Paired Opportunist is actually worded, Jill's AoO isn't what gives Jack his AoO, it's the creature's action, not Jill's action. Phew, that makes more sense.
Okay, I'm following you now. Jack has Outflank. My first guess was Jack has Tripping Strike, Greater Trip, and Vicious Stomp.
Jodokai wrote: I added the feat outflank and didn't specify, Jodokai wrote: Jack attack's and gets a Critical hit.
Jill is adjacent so gets an AoO #1.
Jack gets AoO #1 based on Jill's AoO #1
Jill gets AoO #2 based on Jacks #1
Jack gets #2...etc.
dragonhunterq is right. The Attacks of Opportunity won't just keep looping. Jill does get an AoO off of Jack's crit, and Jack gets an AoO off of Jill's AoO. And there it stops. Honestly, that's pretty cool right there, isn't it?
But,
If Jack or Jill score a Crit on their attacks of opportunity, then they both will score another pair of attacks of opportunity between them: 1 for Outflank, 1 for Paired Opportunist. The Attacks of Opportunity will keep looping of Jack and Jill keep critting, and that is not too-too unlikely if Jack and Jill both have Crit Fishing builds.
I'm guessing that if both of them have Improved Crit, Crit Focus, Low Blow, and Anatomist, and an 18-20 Crit weapon, the chance of scoring a crit with any given attack is close to 30%.
So, Jack scores his crit, then both get attacks of opportunity. The probability that neither of them will crit is 70% of 70%, just under 50%, so you can expect a little looping to go on.
Building a pair of characters with Outflank, Paired Opportunist, Combat Reflexes, and crit fishing seems quite viable and cool. Maybe a pair of Halfling twins with Improved Crit, Crit Focus, Low Blow, and Anatomist to go along with Outflank and Paired Opportunist. Have them both use Paired Wakizashis. Give them the Childlike feats, too. They'll be the Murderous Moppets from Venture Bros. Since they'll do a lot of Flanking, give them levels in things that grant Sneak Attack Damage, like Ninja, Vivisectionist Alchemist, and Snakebite Striker Brawler.
Jodokai wrote: it doesn't matter really, Probably not, but it's so easy to misunderstand each other online. I wanted to make sure we were talking about the same thing.
Jokokai wrote: say the bad guy tried to unarmed punch A. The other stuff is just there for the FAQ If the bad guy doesn't have Improved Unarmed Strike, then that will provoke attacks of opportunity from both Jack and Jill, 1 because of the unarmed strike, the other because of Paired Opportunist, as before. And if they start Critting, then they will rack up more AoO's as long as they keep critting, which won't happen all the time, but it can happen.
Scott Wilhelm wrote: If Jack or Jill score a Crit on their attacks of opportunity, then they both will score another pair of attacks of opportunity between them: 1 for Outflank, 1 for Paired Opportunist. I'd like to challenge that for a minute. If we look at Outflank (APG p.165, it says:
Benefit: Whenever you and an ally who also has this feat are flanking the same creature, your flanking bonus on attack rolls increases to +4. In addition, whenever you score a critical hit against the flanked creature, it provokes an attack of opportunity from your ally.
However, Paired Opportunist wrote:
Enemies that provoke attacks of opportunity from your ally also provoke attacks of opportunity from you so long as you threaten them (even if the situation or an ability would normally deny you the attack of opportunity). This does not allow you to take more than one attack of opportunity against a creature for a given action.
So, I'm not so sure that Paired opportunist triggers from Outflank, since the triggering act is a crit from your ally and not from an action from the enemy...seems weird to me that getting hurt badly (= being crit) would give AoO..
Thoughts???
I always read that whenever you get an attack of opportunity from someone, the term for that is that you provoke an attack of opportunity from them.
If you have Greater Trip, then your enemy provokes an attack of opportunity by getting tripped by you.
So, I just looked up Attacks of Opportunity on d20pfsrd, and this is what I found.
Attacks of Opportunity wrote: Sometimes a combatant in a melee lets her guard down or takes a reckless action. In this case, combatants near her can take advantage of her lapse in defense to attack her for free. These free attacks are called attacks of opportunity. See the Attacks of Opportunity diagram for an example of how they work.... Provoking an Attack of Opportunity: Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing certain actions within a threatened square.... Some actions, when performed in a threatened square, provoke attacks of opportunity as you divert your attention from the battle. Table: Actions in Combat notes many of the actions that provoke attacks of opportunity. So, since the only way to become the target of an attack of opportunity is to provoke one, it seems that "provoke" is a term that just means that someone gets to make an attack of opportunity.
The only ways to provoke attacks of opportunity are to move out of a threatened square or to perform a distracting act that lets your guard down. It seems that getting Tripped by someone with Greater Trip is the "distracting act" that you perform that lets your guard down provokes attacks of opportunity. And getting Critted by someone when he and his ally has Outflank is distracting, lowers your defenses, and is the distracting act that makes you provoke an attack of opportunity.
Anyway, those are my initial thoughts.
Outflank and Paired Opportunists definitely dovetail off of each other and grant multiple AoOs if you guys can keep crit'ing.
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