Flanking and attacks of opportunity question

Hey all, another quick question. We are hosting are first game tonight, can't wait. I was piecing together the rules for attack of that say if you move through a threatened sq. it provokes an attack. What let' say a fighter and an orc face each other. If a rogue wanted to move behind the orc to get a flank bonus, but had to pass by the orc to do so, would the orc get an attack of opportunity?

Also, just from a game perspective, I am reading the adventure and it seems like they give out a lot of gold and loot. Maybe I am just used to D&D but does anyone scale the rewards back?

Cheers,

Sasha

Hi Sasha, the orc will get an attack of opportunity against the rogue if the rogue moves out of a square that the orc threatens. The orc normally threatens all of the squares next to it. Usually, moving "past" a creature will involve taking an attack of opportunity.

Don't forget that if the rogue has the Acrobatics skill, she can use it to try to avoid the attack of opportunity!

If you're talking about the beginner's box, then yea, it does give a lot of loot in the base adventure. But I think they need all of it.

First, the an AOO occurs when you move OUT of a threatened square. I know some groups interpret that wrong and give an AOO when you approach. Note that 5ft steps and the withdrawl action are exceptions to that rule.

Second, if the rogue moves through a square threatened by the orc then the orc can take an AOO.

In reference to your attack of opportunity (AoO) question, yes, the orc probably does. Pathfinder assumes you are using with miniatures. It is often possible for the rogue to maneuver himself around the orc's threatened area and into position (remember you only provoke when leaving a threatened square, not entering one). If the rogue can't maneuver around and into position?...Well, that is why rogues take acrobatics. An acrobatics check with a DC equal to the orc's CMD would allow the rogue to move safely through threatened squares.

Prepares for ninja attack.

You are free to scale back the loot if you desire. But since it is your first game then let it slide and focus on the rules.

If you come from D&D there is a tendency to think "oh the rule is the same I don't need to read it". Please read everything because there are a great deal of small changes that take a close reading to notice.

Yep, ninja'd by karkon and cheapy. Double ninja strike!

As far as loot goes. You'll eventually get a feel for what you believe to be the "proper" amount of treasure. There are guidelines for the amount of wealth that a character should have at any given level, but these are only guidelines and are mainly for use when designing adventures for publication or generic use.

If you feel the adventure is giving out more treasure than you'd like the characters to have at his point, feel free to take some of it out.

Don't be afraid to use miniatures yourself.
"Miniatures" in this case can mean pennies and dimes on a checker/chess board, but visual reference helps ALOT.

If you move out of a threatened square (such as a rogue moving past the enemy to flank), you suffer an attack of opportunity. There are several ways to avoid this:

1.) Most creatures start out their combats "flat-footed" until their first turn. If the rogue moves first, he can move past his foe before the foe is able to make attacks of opportunity.

2.) Most creatures can only make one Attack of Opportunity per turn: If they use theirs up, they can't make another until their next turn. If your fighter moves past and the orc swings at him, the rogue can move wherever he wants.

3.) The rogue can Tumble past (by beating his foe's Combat Maneuver Defense [CMD] using the Acrobatics skill). This prevents an Attack of Opportunity.

4.) By using the Bluff skill(as his standard action), a rogue can "Feint" to make his foe flat-footed against his next attack. I would allow the rogue to instead make a move action while the opponent is flat-footed. This is not specifically permitted in the rules, but your GM may allow this as a reasonable rule extrapolation.

When my group switched to PF about a year ago, our rule was "Assume nothing." We figured the best way to switch was to just go for it, looking up things as they came up or after sessions. We are still occasionally finding small changes in spell descriptions and such.

This thread is helpful for catching all the small changes.

You are free to scale back the loot if you desire. But since it is your first game then let it slide and focus on the rules.

If you come from D&D there is a tendency to think "oh the rule is the same I don't need to read it". Please read everything because there are a great deal of small changes that take a close reading to notice.

Yeah I have definitely read the book, it's just a lot to remember :)

Thanks for the help again.

When my group switched to PF about a year ago, our rule was "Assume nothing." We figured the best way to switch was to just go for it, looking up things as they came up or after sessions. We are still occasionally finding small changes in spell descriptions and such.

This thread is helpful for catching all the small changes.

Cool, thanks everyone for being so helpful again.

karkon wrote:

You are free to scale back the loot if you desire. But since it is your first game then let it slide and focus on the rules.

If you come from D&D there is a tendency to think "oh the rule is the same I don't need to read it". Please read everything because there are a great deal of small changes that take a close reading to notice.

Yeah I have definitely read the book, it's just a lot to remember :)

Thanks for the help again.

Half the reason I hang out on the message boards is to find out all the rules changes I missed. I will be confident in a rule and then a question comes up on the board. So I look it up or read the responses and find out I was wrong. Hanging around here for a year has really cleared up most of the small changes in the rules. Once in a while I am still surprised.