Combat Patrol


Rules Questions


Combat Patrol increases your threatened area, is said area moves with the character when they move (as part of combat patrol rules)? Or is it set when full-round action of setting patrol is performed?


The latter. You spend a full round action to increase your threat range from your starting range. You then use up your movement actually moving around inside that space to make your attacks until your movement is used up or you can't take anymore attacks of opportunity.


I would say it move with the character. as the square you threaten normal move with you when you move. only difference is with this you can only move when someone provokes AOO. Combat Patrol can be a risky thing to do. you use your full round action and may not get any attacks, and if you do get one and move to attack your target you could very well provoke your self. which could be used as trip preventing you from even getting your AOO


I believe it stays where you initially set it up, and you're 'patrolling' that area.


I'm fairly sure I've seen this answered somewhere officially, and it moves with you ... but let me check that and get back to you.

Edit: I can't find what I thought I remembered, so I could be completely wrong about this one. I guess we'll just have to see what someone else comes up with?


Yea, first time i read it i was sure it is a kind of "zone" you patrol, but now when i read it i see it is "increasing your threatened area"...

On a different note, "You may move as part of these attacks" means i can move in, attack, and then return to the starting position (provoking AoO)?


Combat Patrol wrote:
Benefit: As a full-round action, you may set up a combat patrol, increasing your threatened area by 5 feet for every 5 points of your base attack bonus. Until the beginning of your next turn, you may make attacks of opportunity against any opponent in this threatened area that provokes attacks of opportunity. You may move as part of these attacks, provided your total movement before your next turn does not exceed your speed. Any movement you make provokes attacks of opportunity as normal.

I think the bolded is the sticking point here. The way its written i can see both interpretations being correct. That 'this' could be referring to either the particular threatened space covered at activation or the character's general threatened area. In our home games we've used the non-moving interpretation, but the limit on how far you can move seems to point towards a moving interpretation


I've always interpreted as being a set area.


I think the quote I was trying to find from one of the devs was along the lines of:

Paraphrasing wrote:

In any normal situation (eg. someone not using combat patrol) your threatened area would move with you when you move. This could even happen if you move out of turn (enemy bull-rushes you etc).

Mechanically what the Combat Patrol feat does is improve your threatened area.
Since this is giving you a threatened area with a wider range than your weapon can actually reach, you can move to attack (coz otherwise it wouldn't make sense).
Since nothing specifically calls it out, this otherwise functions the same way as any other character - Eg. your threatened area moves with you.

So essentially what he was saying is that even if the feat wasn't intended to work this way, this is how it's turned out. And that all seems pretty legit to me.

Having said that, My original interpretation was that you set up a zone you can move in and that's your personal space that no one can come into without your permission. That always seemed to be the intent of the feat, even if it didn't turn out that way.

And as Ridiculon said, either one can work. It's probably gonna get some table variation so it's something that's worth talking about with your GM if you're planning on taking it.

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