No. There are many reasons that you may be unable to make an AoO while you still threaten. For example, if You and I move into flanking position against an orc where we both threaten him with our melee attacks, and another orc tries to run past me so I take an AoO against that second orc, I am now no longer able to make any AoO (I don't have Combat Reflexes). Do I still threaten the orc we're flanking? Yes. On your turn you get the +2 attack bonus for flanking and you can sneak attack it because I threaten it, even though I cannot make any AoOs.
Tying the ability to threaten to the ability to make an AoO would make too many exceptions and is not explicitly stated anywhere in the rules (that I know of).
The Grappled condition says you take a -2 penalty on all attack rolls. This means you clearly must be able to threaten something. It does not qualify this penalty to clarify that you can only attack or threaten the enemy who is grappling you, so by raw, you can attack your grappler or attack anything else you can reach (threaten).
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Does Strangler set a new precident, that you must be able to make an attack of opportunity to threaten? Or does that aspect of the Practiced Strangler ability clarify something that does not exist?
The Strangler does not set a precedent, its class ability is an exception. That is why these features are specifically spelled out, because they constitute an exception.
A Ring of Freedom of Movement allows you to avoid grapple attempts, walk through an Entanglement spell, and ignore a lasso that's thrown at you. Does a Ring of Freedom of Movement therefore set any kind of precedent for the grappled or entangled conditions? Certainly it does not, because its value is that it provides an exception to specific rules.
Dude.
The strangler archetype, which is designed to make you better at grappling, removes the "cannot make AoOs" restriction from grappling.
That's all it means.
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Threatened Squares
You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn. Generally, that means everything in all squares adjacent to your space (including diagonally). An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity from you. If you're unarmed, you don't normally threaten any squares and thus can't make attacks of opportunity.
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Threatened Squares
You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn. Generally, that means everything in all squares adjacent to your space (including diagonally). An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity from you. If you're unarmed, you don't normally threaten any squares and thus can't make attacks of opportunity.
From the definition of threatening from the CRB, you must be able to make a melee attack when it is not your turn (i.e. take an AoO) to threaten. Whether or not you have used your AoO is irrelevant.
From the definition of threatening from the CRB, you must be able to make a melee attack when it is not your turn (i.e. take an AoO) to threaten. Whether or not you have used your AoO is irrelevant.Threatened Squares
You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn. Generally, that means everything in all squares adjacent to your space (including diagonally). An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity from you. If you're unarmed, you don't normally threaten any squares and thus can't make attacks of opportunity.
No, there is no "must" in there. The phrase "even when it's not your turn" is in addition to, not a requirement of, being able to make a melee attack into the square.
Look at it this way (because this is what the sentence in question means): You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack and this is also true even when it is not your turn.
Being grappled takes away your ability to make an AoO, but it doesn't take away your threat - you CAN still attack enemies in squares you threaten and you CAN still give a flanking bonus to allies based on you threatening an enemy according to flanking rules.
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From the definition of threatening from the CRB, you must be able to make a melee attack when it is not your turn (i.e. take an AoO) to threaten. Whether or not you have used your AoO is irrelevant.Threatened Squares
You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn. Generally, that means everything in all squares adjacent to your space (including diagonally). An enemy that takes certain actions while in a threatened square provokes an attack of opportunity from you. If you're unarmed, you don't normally threaten any squares and thus can't make attacks of opportunity.
No, there is no "must" in there. The phrase "even when it's not your turn" is in addition to, not a requirement of, being able to make a melee attack into the square.
Where would the "must" be? The phrase "even when it's not your turn" is part of the condition to be considered threatening in addition to being able to make a melee attack into that square. It is a requirement of being able to threaten.
Look at it this way (because this is what the sentence in question means): You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack and this is also true even when it is not your turn.
Look at it this way: You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack AND make such an attack even when it is not your turn
I get what you are saying, and understand why you might be confused. The wording is confusing and would be much clearer without that comma. But, the author of the strangler archetype got it right. You need to be capable of attacking outside of your turn to be considered threatening.
Does any unarmed person (without IUS) threaten? They are capable of a melee attack, but not AoOs.
Not only does your definition break with other parts of the rules, it just doesn't make sense from a real-world-the-rules-were-inspired-from sense. Your opponent doesn't know if you have Combat Reflexes or not. You threaten when you could theoretically attack someone that provokes. It's right there in the term, to threaten.
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Does Strangler set a new precident, that you must be able to make an attack of opportunity to threaten? Or does that aspect of the Practiced Strangler ability clarify something that does not exist?The Strangler does not set a precedent, its class ability is an exception. That is why these features are specifically spelled out, because they constitute an exception.
But what is it providing an exception to? Grappling does not normally deny you the ability to threaten, and the Strangler Class does not either.
Imagine if the Ring of Freedom of Movement included the phrase "You no longer take fire damage from being grappled". Your first question would be "Am I supposed to be taking fire damage from being grappled?". Same concept with the Strangler abilty saying "You may still threaten while grappling".
You seem to missing your own point. Your original post quoted the Grappled condition and you bolded the part that states that the grappled condition prevents you from making attacks of opportunity.
What do you think "threaten" means in Pathfinder? It means that you are "threatening" to take an attack of opportunity. So you threaten exactly 0 squares if you are grappled unless you are able to come up with some exception, such as the 9th level version of the Practices Strangler ability.
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There is a big difference between these two sentences:
"You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack, even when it is not your turn."
And
"You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack when it is not your turn."
Please note that the first one is what is actually in print in the CRB. It is longer than the second one; it has more word count and takes more page space. The developers work hard to reduce word count and page space so they only make sentences longer when the words are necessary to convey the meaning.
The meaning is clear: "You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack". Period. That is the definition of "threaten". They add a clause at the end of the sentence to tell you that you still threaten these squares "even when it is not your turn". This is an ADDITION to the threaten definition, not a restriction from it.
Some posters on this thread seem to believe that the developers wrote the second sentence, or at least believe that they meant to write it that way but somehow screwed it up, that somehow they added word count to confuse things rather than clear things up.
This is blatantly not true.
The first sentence is what they wrote, it's what they intended to write, it's perfectly clear and unambiguous both as a game rule and as a sentence in the English language: You threaten all squares into which you can make a melee attack and you do so when it is your turn and when it is not. Period.
So yes, you threaten squares when you're grappled, but no, you cannot make AoOs when you are grappled.