Scenario:
-The rogue and the party's Fighter both have Outflank and Combat Reflexes.
-They are flanking the Big Bad.
-The fighter attacks and hits the big bad.
-It's now the rogue's turn.
-The Rogue rolls a natural 20 and confirms.
-The Fighter takes his Attack of Opportunity and rolls a natural 20 and he confirms.
-The fighter argues that because he has outflank this should trigger another attack of opportunity.
-The Dm amused by the situation says sure.
-The rogue takes his Attack of Opportunity and rolls a natural 20 and confirms.
-The rogue argues that the fighter now gets another attack of opportunity and the DM completely dumbfounded agrees.
-The fighter rolls a 19 and again confirms.
-The table erupts into chaos.
-The rogue takes another Attack of opportunity and rolls a three.
This happened earlier tonight and the DM just went along with it because it was the last fight of the night and several of us were packing up to go home. However, I would really like to get a ruling on this so that if it ever happens again we know what to do.
Is this an endless loop?
How many attacks should have been triggered?
If you continue to confirm crits you're limited by how many AoO you can do in a round.
Ahahahaha, now imagine this with two dex-based characters who have keen rapiers.
Oh this is beautiful. Yup, totally legit. I'm going to have to remember this one.
Also, how many crits is whatever you're fighting surviving anyways?!
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In my Emerald Spire group we call this "The Blender".
Our Swashbuckler added Quickdraw and fragile Obsidian Rapiers to the mix, and a couple feats that allow him to break his weapons to confirm crits, and Butterfly Sting.
For grins we did a round surrounding an enemy and counting the damage totalled. It was over 300. At like level 9.
It is a 0.0729% chance for two 14 dex characters to go through all their AoOs going off of eachother's keen rapier attacks by constantly confirming crits.
So you know what? Knock yourself out. Or the enemy out, I guess. Basically- you are running off a relatively low chance of keeping this going, and even without that, you are limited by your AoOs. Also, by the creature you are AoOing with crits over and over (I mean...you might just be stabbing a troll over and over, and just having fun with the constant critting while you wait for someone to get a torch)
So overall- it is hard and mostly just hilarious when this works out. Not something you can rely upon in any real sense as 1 or 2 crits. So no problem with balance. Unless Bear Burning Ashes has some crazy build (in which case, it would be more the fault of the weapon breaking stuff if there is a problem)
Ahahahaha, now imagine this with two dex-based characters who have keen rapiers.
Oh this is beautiful. Yup, totally legit. I'm going to have to remember this one.
I'm playing a rapier using hunter with this build, it looks good on paper but isn't that powerful.
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It is a 0.0729% chance for two 14 dex characters to go through all their AoOs going off of eachother's keen rapier attacks by constantly confirming crits.
Disposable Weapon + Butterfly Sting is what our Swashbuckler uses. His Initiative is crazy high so he almost always goes first. He uses non-magical Obsidian Rapiers, which for him have a crit range of 15-20. So the chance of him scoring a crit is literally 6 out of 20.
The blending happens the moment anyone else gets up there to hit. We all (Swashbuckler, Magus, Warpriest, Cleric) have Paired Opportunist + Outflank. The Magus has a menacing Mongoose that we all laugh about. Somebody has something where you don't need to be flanking to flank. The Wizard in the party is the only one of the five of us that doesn't blend, but he's usually Jester's Jaunting the rest of us into position (it was the first spell he acquired being a Pathfinder Savant).
It's crazy effective. The crits are automatically confirmed and chain more crits. No homerules, we're all PFS characters. The Emerald Spire taking up most of our careers allowed us to build this way. And it's not terribly resource demanding (except for the Swashbuckler), so outside of it we're still a very flexible party.
I'm no cavalier expert, but the Strategist archetype would be an example to use the Tactician and Drill Instructor class features for both Outflank and Paired Opportunist feats.
So then with the rogue's Dex of 21 and the Fighters Dex of 18 (both wielding Short swords with weapon finesse and combat reflexes) they could beat the living snot out of an enemy for 12 consecutive attacks at full Attack and 2 more at minuses?
1) fighter attacks and crits + 2) rogues aoo and crits + 3) fighter aoo and crits + 4) rogues aoo and crits + 5) fighter aoo and crits + 6) rogues aoo and crits + 7) fighter aoo and crits + 8) rogues aoo and crits + 9) fighter aoo and crits + 10) rogue aoo and crits + 11) figher has no more aoo nut finishes his second attack and crits + 12) rogue aoo + 13) rogue attacks at full + 14) Rogue takes second attack
I realize the chances of this happening are astronomically small but it's crazy to think about. I think we need to pick up a pair of keen rapiers.
Ahahahaha, now imagine this with two dex-based characters who have keen rapiers.
Oh this is beautiful. Yup, totally legit. I'm going to have to remember this one.
My husband and I used this combination on paired two-weapon fighters with Ouflank. My fighter wielded dual wakizashis with Improved Crit and Improved Two Weapon Fighting for 4 attacks a round, critting on a 15-20.
Throw in Bless Weapon to autoconfirm crit threats against evil foes, if you really, really want to get nasty...
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@Bear Burning Ashes: Probably the Gang Up feat, where you gain flanking on a target as long as you have two allies threatening the target. Requires Combat Expertise...
But, yeah, AoO chains can be fun.
I have started a beat down on opponents using my reach fighter using Greater Trip, which gives both my fighter and his allies who threaten the tripped target AoOs. Add in any IUS folk who threaten and have the Vicious Stomp feat, which grants them another AoO when the target winds up prone adjacent to them...
My Greater Trip fighter would use Greater Disarm as his AoO. And, as a Polearm Master, he gets a bonus to that AoO Disarm attempt...