As per 3.5 SRD Attacks of Opportunity are defined as:
"Sometimes a combatant in a melee lets her guard down. 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."
So my question: since combat meneuvers such as disarm or trip are (as the name suggests) combat actions why do they provoke AoO. The attacker still attacks the enemy and I (personally) cant imagine why he lets his guard down if he makes a trip attack or a disam attempt.
So my suggesstion: so simplify the rules, remove AoO from combat maneuvers. This (or course) requires the reworking of some feats (such as Improved Trip) but this can be done fairly easily by just giving a character s +2 (or +4) competence (?) bonus when executing such a maneuver if he has the approrpiate feat.
Y'know, that's always bugged me too and I've been more or less prepared to ignore the AoO if any of my players ever expressed any interest in performing those maneuvers.
In other words, I fully support your statement here.
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I imagine it was just a balance thing. The combat manoeuvres can be fairly debilitating (being prone, or weaponless, or something isn't much fun in combat), so they tossed in that they provoke AoO. Then they made a feat to eliminate that. It's odd, but ... ok. :)
With the CMB/DC mechanic built into PRPG, I could see doing away with the AoO altogether. Although, a successful AoO no longer totally stymies the combat manoeuvre, either - it just adds to the DC to complete the manoeuvre.
I gave it another minute of thought and realized that some of it makes sense. Bull rush and overrun, fer instance, seem like they'd give the target a chance to wack you before you made contact.
For others, though, I wonder if the AoO could be moved to after your attack misses.
For example, if my fighter tries to sunder the orc's axe, I'd make the attack as per description. If I hit his weapon, all is well and good. If I miss, though, my fighter is off-balance enough to earn an AoO against him.
Any thoughts?
Tangential interesting thought, with some love for fighters.
What if these manuvers don't provoke, but like bull rush, they are all standard actions? Unless you are a fighter of "blah" level and have gotten the class ability, I dont know, "Quick Manuvers" or some such. Said ability lets you perform these actions as part of a full attack.
Course, I still stand by my idea of letting fighters tack these abilities onto regular attacks rather than giving up the only thing they are good at. Works in my games.