Attacks of Opportunity

[SwiftyKun]

One of the rules that I believed in, bringing over from d&d 3.5 (I know, stupid of me.) is that you can't attack the same person twice if they provoke you twice. However!!!

Attacks of opportunity:

Making an Attack of Opportunity: An attack of opportunity is a single melee attack, and most characters can only make one per round. You don't have to make an attack of opportunity if you don't want to. You make your attack of opportunity at your normal attack bonus, even if you've already attacked in the round.

An attack of opportunity "interrupts" the normal flow of actions in the round. If an attack of opportunity is provoked, immediately resolve the attack of opportunity, then continue with the next character's turn (or complete the current turn, if the attack of opportunity was provoked in the midst of a character's turn).

Combat Reflexes and Additional Attacks of Opportunity: If you have the Combat Reflexes feat, you can add your Dexterity bonus to the number of attacks of opportunity you can make in a round. This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity). Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent. All these attacks are at your full normal attack bonus.

If I'm reading this correctly, if you have combat reflexes, you can in fact attack the same person with two AoO if he oh I don't know, stands up and moves away from you in the same turn. Is this correct?

[SlimGauge]

You may make one attack of opportunity for each provocation (provided you have combat reflexes). What you may be thinking of is the rule that you only get one AoO for movement out of threatened squares.

Core Rules wrote:

Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent.

If, for example, an enemy wizard casts a ray spell while in your threatened area (NOT casting defensively) and makes his ranged attack against some target. That's two AoOs, one for casting and one for making a ranged attack. Someone without combat reflexes could only take one of them. If the AoO provoked by casting results in a damaging hit that forces a concentration check that fails, then the second provocation never happens (because the spell was lost rather than being aimed as a ranged attack).

[Mapleswitch]

To expand on SwiftyKun's question:

What if you had an ability like Improved Snap Shot (or a combo like enlarge person/lunge feat) and combat reflexes? Would some zombie walking up to you get multiple attacks of opportunity against it?

[SlimGauge]

Mapleswitch wrote:

To expand on SwiftyKun's question:

What if you had an ability like Improved Snap Shot (or a combo like enlarge person/lunge feat) and combat reflexes? Would some zombie walking up to you get multiple attacks of opportunity against it?

No, because those are all provoked by movement out of a threatened square.

If you used your AoO from the zombie moving out of a threatened square to trip the zombie, it would provoke again when it tried to stand. With your combat reflexes, you could whack him again (but not trip him).

[Mapleswitch]

Thank you :)

[Nefreet]

Movement does not provoke more than one AoO. If your movement speed was 60, you could run circles around your opponent, and only provoke once.

[Kazaan]

No because the entirety of the movement counts as a single provocation, not each individual square he moves out of. For example, say you are facing two Orcs standing side by side and you adjacent to both of them. One of the orcs tries to move into flanking position and goes through two squares that you threaten:

Start:
o 1 2
o X o
o o o

End:
o 1 *
o X *
o 2 o

Orc 2 provoked from his move which PC X could take at either asterisk location, but not both even if he has Combat Reflexes. However, if he has Combat Reflexes, Greater Trip, and Vicious Stomp and at least a +2 Dex mod, he could take an AoO against the move to trip the Orc, then Greater Trip makes the Orc provoke on "being tripped" so you make another attack and then "falling prone" provokes a third AoO from Vicious Stomp (though this one must be made with Unarmed Strike). But barring all this, you can't hit him with two AoOs just because he moved through two threatened squares.

[Howie23]

SwiftyKun wrote:

One of the rules that I believed in, bringing over from d&d 3.5 (I know, stupid of me.) is that you can't attack the same person twice if they provoke you twice.

The AoO rules for 3.5 and PF work the same. As in PF, the only prohibition on multiple AoOs on the same target in 3.5 is w/respect to movement.

[SwiftyKun]

In other words, you can attack the same target more than once with an attack of opportunity, but the AoO must be sparked from a different source. I can't attack the same target for taking 2 move actions and walking around me in a circle with 60 movement speed, but I can attack them if they fire an arrow in melee, then again if they move away from me.

[Komoda]

Yes, that is correct. This rule is very often misunderstood.

[Howie23]

SwiftyKun wrote:

In other words, you can attack the same target more than once with an attack of opportunity, but the AoO must be sparked from a different source. I can't attack the same target for taking 2 move actions and walking around me in a circle with 60 movement speed, but I can attack them if they fire an arrow in melee, then again if they move away from me.

They have to be different opportunities, and they cannot both be provoked merely by movement. Other opportunities can provoke more than once. If an opponent makes multiple ranged attacks, each one provokes.