I guess that if an enemy is adjacent to you then you can feel that this enemy is threatening you and if you provoke an attack of opportunity then he can attack you if can and want to.
Now.... if someone have a higher reach due to size, weapon, special abilities or other suck as Combat Patrol feat. Does the player know or feel if the square he is in is being threatened by an enemy.
Example a Wizard is 15 ft away from a fighter Lv20 with Combat Patrol. The Fighter is medium size and the wizard could not tell if the fighter could reach him if he cast a spell.
I believe so. About the only way i think you couldn't know if you were being threatened was if the threatener were invisible.
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I usually expect that characters know they will provoke for an action unless something hides that information. (opponent is invisible, has the abberation bloodline power to threaten 15ft without appearing to)
For Combat Patrol, it depends on if the fighter displays the ability to threaten beyond his reach. If setting his patrol zone has no obvious tells, then the wizard should not know until the fighter demonstrates the ability.
I think that you always know when are being threatened except for cases like invisibility.
This is not explained in the rules. Therefore it is GM's call.
"Now.... if someone have a higher reach due to size, weapon, special abilities or other suck as Combat Patrol feat. Does the player know or feel if the square he is in is being threatened by an enemy."
I would say that in general, yes. With Invisibility (or a situation where the wizard is otherwise unaware of the attacker), I would say no.
Combat Reflexes feat where the attacker has already made one AoO this round is a borderline case. I would rule no.
Again, these are all GM's call.
I second that it is a GM's call, but were it in my game, my vote leans towards yes. Mainly due to the nature of threatened. If you are threatened you grant a bonus to someone flanking because you are watching and defending both sides, if you are unaware of being threatened from both sides, then how would the other opponent get a bonus.
I second that it is a GM's call, but were it in my game, my vote leans towards yes. Mainly due to the nature of threatened. If you are threatened you grant a bonus to someone flanking because you are watching and defending both sides, if you are unaware of being threatened from both sides, then how would the other opponent get a bonus.
Flanking: When making a melee attack, you get a +2 flanking bonus if your opponent is threatened by another enemy character or creature on its opposite border or opposite corner.
Threatened Squares: You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn.
Flanking and Threatening do not depend on the opponents awareness. They just happen when conditions are met.
As to a target determining the reach of an opponent, I would have it depend on what the person knows. Is it a human with a longsword? Then you know it's reach is normally 5'. Is it a human with a halberd, and you have the slightest idea of what a polearm is? Then you know it can usually reach 10'. Is it a giant, which you've been fighting all day long? Then you've figured out they have a natural reach of 10'. Is it a giant, the first one you've ever seen, and you failed your knowledge roll, and you've never seen anything larger than a medium creature? Then you may not know it's got reach until it hits someone.
After a certain point, most adventurers would figure out some basic rules. If it's large and on four feet, it probably can't reach farther than me. If it's large and tall, it can probably reach further. If it's really damn huge, has wings, and is breathing fire, it might be best to keep even more distance from those teeth.
Sometimes I feel threatened when people say "Dude why are you drinking a beer with lunch?"
So flanking is just magic?
No, flanking still works in an Antimagic Field.
A guy standing over there, 15' away, who you're not worried about because you don't know he's using the Combat Patrol feat makes you easier to hit, without you paying any attention to him or him interacting with you in any way?
It's just something undetectable that happens when the conditions are met.
Correct, just like the invisible guy standing behind you with a knife can let the rogue in front of you use sneak attack.
You could houserule some kind of perception check for flanking, or make rules about ignoring someone in order to deny flanking (perhaps at the expense of provoking an AoO) but that's not how it works as written, and I personally don't see the point in giving rogues even LESS ways to get sneak attack (or land hits in general).
I usually expect that characters know they will provoke for an action unless something hides that information. (opponent is invisible, has the abberation bloodline power to threaten 15ft without appearing to)
For Combat Patrol, it depends on if the fighter displays the ability to threaten beyond his reach. If setting his patrol zone has no obvious tells, then the wizard should not know until the fighter demonstrates the ability.
I agree with this notion. Being threatened is, in my opinion, obvious to everyone involved (exceptions abound as noted by TriOmegaZero).
I prefer this interpretation as it keeps players from feeling cheated and makes many of the above-mentioned abilities more worthwhile to have (as you can trick people out).