As written, this spell seems to only redirect attacks to, in most cases, your allies, since it specifies that attacks are always redirected to something threatened by the subject of the spell. Would he be considered to threaten his allies for the purpose of this spell? If this is RAI, how would that interact with flanking?
Technically you threaten any creatures within your reach provided you're wielding a melee weapon (ranged weapons do threaten with the exception of a few feats that allow it).
The best use of this spell would be when enemy melee creatures are standing next to one another and casting it on them.
How does it interact with flanking? It doesn't as far as I can tell. The spell doesn't cause you to not to threaten, you just can't control where you make your attack.
The only confusing part to me about this spell would be someone under it's influence trying to make an AoO against an opponent while standing next to their ally.
Specifically, i meant that if the target counts as threatening its own ally, could that cause that ally to count as flanked?
Scratch that, should have reread the flanking rules more, as they specify an "enemy character" in the flanking requirements.
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Specifically, i meant that if the target counts as threatening its own ally, could that cause that ally to count as flanked?
Scratch that, should have reread the flanking rules more, as they specify an "enemy character" in the flanking requirements.Because they are attacking an Ally and not an Enemy, does that mean the victim should be considered flat footed, seeing as how they'd never expect an attack to come from that direction?
Is there a relevant rule somewhere or would this be purely GM discretion?
It seems this question would come up with any of the Compulsion spells as well, but I did a google search and didn't see it asked anywhere.(I know this is an old thread, but no reason to make a new one.)
Being flat footed is a very specific condition that only happen att the start of combat, before the first action of a character or when called by specific rules.
The therm is often used as a short hand for "be denied a Dexterity bonus to AC", but that is a different thing.As in Pathfinder and 3.5 our characters have 360° vision and there is no facing normally there is no loss of "dexterity bonus to AC" for attacks from unexpected directions. A GM could decide to implement that for people under compulsion spells or confused, but then he should allow the other characters free reactive spellcraft checks or sense motive check to recognize either the spell that was cast or that the target is subject to an effect that modify his behavior.
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I suppose I should have worded that better, I didn't actually mean 'direction' in an angular way, but meaning that they wouldn't expect an ally to attack them, even if they saw a swing lined up in their general direction, most humans and other intelligent creatures would trust their teammates not to attack them, thus their defense might be lowered (removing Dex seems the most logical).
Of course any GM can modify any stats at any time if they want to.
In a world with charm, domination, confusion, doppleganger, shapechangers and so on, if you see a "friend" aim a swing in your general you dodge.
;-)