Carnithia |
I was running a game recently and I had a monk drop down a 20ft pit to engage part of the party. I rules that, since a monk can control his decent down, that he can use acrobatics to avoid AoO. We couldn't fine anything here for or against my ruling, so I stayed with it. Is there any rule about using acrobatics when you fall?
Slow Fall (Ex): At 4th level or higher, a monk within arm's reach of a wall can use it to slow his descent. When first gaining this ability, he takes damage as if the fall were 20 feet shorter than it actually is. The monk's ability to slow his fall (that is, to reduce the effective distance of the fall when next to a wall) improves with his monk level until at 20th level he can use a nearby wall to slow his descent and fall any distance without harm.
dragonhunterq |
Nothing specific springs to mind, as there is some dispute as to whether falling provokes at all..
Your ruling seems solid though. If you are allowing falling to provoke, then allowing acrobatics to avoid AoOs seems reasonable.
KainPen |
Falling does not cause an AoO it is consider involuntary movement. All slow fall does is slow your fall so you take less damage, it is still considers involuntary movement. The only way involuntary movement cause an AoO is if there is something that says it does, much like Greater Bull rush. I know there are more feats and ability that do so, I just don't remember the names
David knott 242 |
Of course, in the particular case cited for this thread, there is the question as to whether deliberately dropping down is involuntary movement since the character caused himself to fall and thus can be considered to be moving voluntarily.
KainPen |
This made me think of a old saying I heard before. That you can't fall off of anything. You can only fall while in the process of falling. because something else is always the causes you to enter that state of being. does not matter it be jumping, slipping, stepping ect. you don't have a choice in falling, it is going to happen unless you are in 0g. it does not get any more involuntary then that. lol
Claxon |
I deeply disagree KainPen.
The general paradigm in the game is that involuntary movement doesn't provoke, usually falling is involuntary. In this case the falling was on purpose and should probably provoke.
That being said, if the enemy party is unaware of the monks presence he gets a surprise round and the enemy is flat-footed and most likely can't make AoO.
Carnithia |
Thank you for that link. I stopped reading after a bit because it turned into an infinity loop argument.
Nothing specific springs to mind, as there is some dispute as to whether falling provokes at all..
Your ruling seems solid though. If you are allowing falling to provoke, then allowing acrobatics to avoid AoOs seems reasonable.
It is a tricky issue with voluntary and involuntary falling. This also reminds me of a discussion at a PFS table about using reposition to move a paralyzed PC out of the way so he wouldn't get killed. The movement was involuntary for the PC, but there was still discussion over weather the creature would get an AoO or not. It didn't. The rogue lived. The hard part is throwing out real world logic in favor of game balance and game play. It reality, that poor rogue would have gotten a solid beating from the party dragging him away.
Claxon |
Thank you for that link. I stopped reading after a bit because it turned into an infinity loop argument.
dragonhunterq wrote:It is a tricky issue with voluntary and involuntary falling. This also reminds me of a discussion at a PFS table about using reposition to move a paralyzed PC out of the way so he wouldn't get killed. The movement was involuntary for the PC, but there was still discussion over weather the creature would get an AoO or not. It didn't. The rogue lived. The hard part is throwing out real world logic in favor of game balance and game play. It reality, that poor rogue would have gotten a solid beating from the party dragging him away.Nothing specific springs to mind, as there is some dispute as to whether falling provokes at all..
Your ruling seems solid though. If you are allowing falling to provoke, then allowing acrobatics to avoid AoOs seems reasonable.
More importantly is that by the letter of the rules it isn't even legal. Reposition states you may move a foe. The rogues ally doesn't view the rogue as a foe.
Carnithia |
More importantly is that by the letter of the rules it isn't even legal. Reposition states you may move a foe. The rogues ally doesn't view the rogue as a foe.
True, by RAW, you can't use any combat maneuver against an ally. Yet, after reading through several threads, there is no mention of people use raw to deny this can be done. The reason being, it is the easiest mechanic to perform the action without having to come up with something new to accomplish the task.
By raw, you can't take a cure moderate potion from your party clerics inventory when he is dying and use it on him to save his life because that is stealing. Steal is a combat maneuver only usable on foes by raw. Sorry Mr. Healer, your gonna die.
Claxon |
Claxon wrote:More importantly is that by the letter of the rules it isn't even legal. Reposition states you may move a foe. The rogues ally doesn't view the rogue as a foe.True, by RAW, you can't use any combat maneuver against an ally. Yet, after reading through several threads, there is no mention of people use raw to deny this can be done. The reason being, it is the easiest mechanic to perform the action without having to come up with something new to accomplish the task.
By raw, you can't take a cure moderate potion from your party clerics inventory when he is dying and use it on him to save his life because that is stealing. Steal is a combat maneuver only usable on foes by raw. Sorry Mr. Healer, your gonna die.
Taking something out of the clerics bag isn't a steal combat maneuver. Steal combat maneuver isn't really stealing at all. It's more like snatching something out of someone's hand.
And actually I've denied people the ability to use combat maneuvers on allies to reposition allies out of dangerous situations (regardless of whether its reposition, bullrush, or drag).
And it's mostly because players try to circumvent dangerous situations for casters by having other players to use their actions to essentially turn it into a move action for the caster.
Turns are simulations, in theory everything happens at approximately the same time, and this sort of thing is an abuse of the turn based system.
Claxon |
Claxon, this is a turn based combat game. Things are not happening at the same time from a mechanical standpoint. If you go down that path, there are FAR bigger inconsistencies to combat than something simple like this.
There are other inconsistency. Some exist because the game becomes unplayable without it being that way. This particular issue exists only because players want to take advantage of the system.