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You would have to be threatening the wizard as he begins to cast the spell- which can be done by using the immediate action to shorten your reach just after he 5 foot steps, before he begins casting it.
As for B- debateable. RAW I don't think tripping will actually disrupt it, he'll be prone but he can still chant and grab stuff out of his pouch and make hand gestures.
I'd treat it as vigorous motion and have him make a concentration check, but certainly not an auto-fail. Not even a critical hit is an auto-fail (although its extremely likely).
Bah, I am still waiting for my APG, so I'll have to speak vaguely here rather than specifically.
If the ability to short-haft the polearm truly allows the fighter to threaten adjacent squares, then this is a powerful ability. So that's the first qustion that needs to be answered: does someone with this ability threaten "adjacent" and "reach" squares.
If the answer to that first question is yes, he does threaten those squares through this ability, then the wizard's spellcasting will provoke an AoO.
The next question is whether Trip interrupts spellcasting.
First, Prone does not prevent spellcasting, so a caster lying flat on his back can still cast spells without worrying about failure.
Second, nothing in Trip or in Concentration explicitly talks about interrupting spellcasting by tripping the caster, so it seems that there is no RAW to support this as an interruption. However, under Concentration, we have Vigorous Motion, Violent Motion, and Extremetly Violent Motion, each of which causes an increasingly difficult concentration check.
So could we assume that being tripped constitutes one of those kinds of vigorous/violent motion? Sure, if we want to. I don't see any RAW to support it, so this seems to fall under DM Judgment Call.
So let's consider game balance.
How much do you want to rely on tripping spellcasters to defeat spellcasting?
If you disallow it entirely, then nobody will use Trip as an AoO against spellcasters - they will always prefer to do damage because the damage increases the concentration check DC.
If you allow it but set the DC really high, like 20+Spell Level, then anyone with a weak attack (or even an average attack) will always trip because the trip DC will be higher than going with 10 + damage + Spell Level.
So, to make Trip an option without making it so overpowered that everyone does it all the time, you need to set the DC at something that is roughly equal to the average damage being done on average melee attacks. In fact, you probably need to set the DC even lower so that average damage would be more likely to interrupt mainly because there are other benefits to trip (now the spellcaster is prone, harder to run away, standing provokes, and his AC is lower until he stands).
Consequently, 15 + Spell Level seems like the best option.
Thus, big giants would go for the damage since they do more than 5 HP on average. Little stuff, animals, low-level humanoids, etc., might prefer Trip but it won't be an automatic choice. For everyone else in the middle, a good damage roll is better than a Trip but a bad damage roll is worse than a Trip (or not much better) so Trip is an option without being an optimization.
If you allow it but set the DC really high, like 20+Spell Level, then anyone with a weak attack (or even an average attack) will always trip because the trip DC will be higher than going with 10 + damage + Spell Level.
So, to make Trip an option without making it so overpowered that everyone does it all the time, you need to set the DC at something that is roughly equal to the average damage being done on average melee attacks.
My game balance assessment goes the other way. In the absence of spellcasting disruption, I would assess that dealing damage is generally better than making your enemy prone. And Trip requires some investment of resources (feats to avoid AoOs, a trip weapon if you want any weapon-specific bonuses) that I think it would be reasonable for Trip to disrupt better than normal damage.
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Bah, I am still waiting for my APG, so I'll have to speak vaguely here rather than specifically.
If the ability to short-haft the polearm truly allows the fighter to threaten adjacent squares, then this is a powerful ability. So that's the first qustion that needs to be answered: does someone with this ability threaten "adjacent" and "reach" squares.
Switching to short haft incures a -4 penalty to hit, which declines as the fighter level gets higher. Switching to short-haft means he threatens adjacent squares, and loses the 'reach' squares.
Vigorous motion for a concentration check is a sensible way to run it, and it's how I would do it.
Switching to short haft incures a -4 penalty to hit, which declines as the fighter level gets higher. Switching to short-haft means he threatens adjacent squares, and loses the 'reach' squares.Bah, I am still waiting for my APG, so I'll have to speak vaguely here rather than specifically.
If the ability to short-haft the polearm truly allows the fighter to threaten adjacent squares, then this is a powerful ability. So that's the first qustion that needs to be answered: does someone with this ability threaten "adjacent" and "reach" squares.
Ah, good to know, but does he simultaneously threaten both "adjacent" and "reach" squares, or does he only threaten one of those ranges at a time?
That's a crucial question and the answer to it is vital to determining whether the polearm wielder in the OP could even get an AoO against the spellcaster.
Apparently he can switch grips as an Immediate action, but if he is not threatening the provoking spellcaster at the moment the caster provokes, it doesn't seem like he should be able to switch grips AND make the AoO. After all, if he can do that, then he really does threaten both "adjacent" and "reach" ranges.
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Switching to short haft incures a -4 penalty to hit, which declines as the fighter level gets higher. Switching to short-haft means he threatens adjacent squares, and loses the 'reach' squares.Bah, I am still waiting for my APG, so I'll have to speak vaguely here rather than specifically.
If the ability to short-haft the polearm truly allows the fighter to threaten adjacent squares, then this is a powerful ability. So that's the first qustion that needs to be answered: does someone with this ability threaten "adjacent" and "reach" squares.
Ah, good to know, but does he simultaneously threaten both "adjacent" and "reach" squares, or does he only threaten one of those ranges at a time?
That's a crucial question and the answer to it is vital to determining whether the polearm wielder in the OP could even get an AoO against the spellcaster.
It would work like this.
Wizard takes 5 foot step at 15 feet to avoid the AOO.
5 foot step is resolved.
Fighter uses short haft grip as an immediate action.
Wizard casts, provoking AOO from the (now) threatened square.
actually i believe a creature doesnt have to us its natural reach, so a large polearm fighter threatens 10-15-20 feet from it with a pole arm
Except the rulebook says otherwise:
A typical Large character wielding a reach weapon of the appropriate size can attack a creature 15 or 20 feet away, but not adjacent creatures or creatures up to 10 feet away.
You may be confusing that with creatures who have natural reach but are NOT using polearms. For example, an ogre with a large club can hit anyone adjacent at 5' or anyone at reach at 10' (he is not prohibited from attacking adjacent enemies). But give that ogre a polearm his size (large) and he can hit at 15-20' but he cannot hit inside that range. Give him a human-sized polearm and he can hit at 10' and 15' but not at 5' (same as a human cannot hit at that range).
Apparently he can switch grips as an Immediate action, but if he is not threatening the provoking spellcaster at the moment the caster provokes, it doesn't seem like he should be able to switch grips AND make the AoO. After all, if he can do that, then he really does threaten both "adjacent" and "reach" ranges.
I think the idea is that the caster makes the 5-foot shift, then the fighter declares the immediate action to short haft, then the wizard casts the spell. Since the grip is changed before the spell is cast, the correct area is threatened at the correct time.
Just one of many mechanisms introduced to limit 5-foot shift abuse. I approve.
It would work like this.
Wizard takes 5 foot step at 15 feet to avoid the AOO.
5 foot step is resolved.
Fighter uses short haft grip as an immediate action.
Wizard casts, provoking AOO from the (now) threatened square.
Sure it would. Except that isn't what the OP said. In the OP, he said the wizard began casting before the polearm was short-hafted.
My guess is that in this situation, it's too late to short-haft to take the AoO (if that guess is wrong, then it means the polearm wielder really does threaten all squares from 5' to 20').
On the other hand, revising your steps to be more practical:
Wizard takes 5 foot step at 15 feet to avoid the AoO.
5 foot step is resolved.
Fighter uses short haft grip as an immediate action.
Wizard realizes that the fighter is holding his weapon differently and can threaten him at 10', so he is smart enough to cast defensively to avoid that AoO.
On the other hand, sorcerers who used INT as a dump stat might be foolish enough to fail to realize this; they deserve to get gollywhacked with an AoO...
(my point being that short-hafting should be able to fool someone into thinking they're safe when they are not - if the spellcaster can see the guy, then he can see the change of grips and can recognize the new threat range, so there should be no way to "surprise" that wizard with an unexpected AoO).
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(my point being that short-hafting should be able to fool someone into thinking they're safe when they are not - if the spellcaster can see the guy, then he can see the change of grips and can recognize the new threat range, so there should be no way to "surprise" that wizard with an unexpected AoO).
I think the problem is trying to represent an immediate action as following the event that triggered it. It's an interrupting action and resolves before the event that caused it. It looks weird that way but it's probably the way the original poster's example might happen in a game. Rather than the chronological way it was written.