Bodyguard question...

[Wiggz]

Relevant text listed below:

Aid Another
In melee combat, you can help a friend attack or defend by distracting or interfering with an opponent. [u]If you’re in position to make a melee attack on an opponent that is engaging a friend in melee combat[/u], you can attempt to aid your friend as a standard action.

Bodyguard
Benefit: When an adjacent ally is attacked, you may use an attack of opportunity to attempt the aid another action to improve your ally’s AC.

Does this mean that for you to be able to use Bodyguard, it must be against a foe that you are in position to make a melee attack against AND that foe must be attacking an ally who is adjacent to you? or does the text of Bodyguard supercede that of Aid Another by omitting that first requirement in its description?

[SlimGauge]

Yes, it must.
No, it does not.

Bodyguard is changing when you can attempt 'aid another' from only on your turn as a standard action to also include when not your turn as an AoO when an adjacent ally is attacked. It is not altering anything else about how that aid another attempt works. You must still be in a position to make a melee attack against the opponent.

[Scott Wilhelm]

Wiggz wrote:

Relevant text listed below:

Aid Another
In melee combat, you can help a friend attack or defend by distracting or interfering with an opponent. [u]If you’re in position to make a melee attack on an opponent that is engaging a friend in melee combat[/u], you can attempt to aid your friend as a standard action.

Bodyguard
Benefit: When an adjacent ally is attacked, you may use an attack of opportunity to attempt the aid another action to improve your ally’s AC.

Does this mean that for you to be able to use Bodyguard, it must be against a foe that you are in position to make a melee attack against

Yes, Aid Another exactly says you have to be Threatening your opponent.

Wiggz wrote:

AND that foe must be attacking an ally who is adjacent to you?

That is exactly what Bodyguard says.

Wiggz wrote:

or does the text of Bodyguard supercede that of Aid Another by omitting that first requirement in its description?

I think exceptions have to be specific. Unless it actually says somewhere that you no longer need to be Threatening your opponent, you still do. All the rules are in effect unless they are not.

I can think of a specific exception. The Protector Familiar gets Bodyguard and Combat Reflexes as Bonus Feats, and they also have the special ability to Aid Another without Threatening their opponents. But I think this would be the exception that literally proves the rule.

[TrinitysEnd]

Link to FAQ

FAQ wrote:

Bodyguard: The Bodyguard feat says that I can spend one of my attacks of opportunity to aid another the AC of an adjacent ally, but it doesn’t say one way or the other whether this removes other restrictions on aid another? Particularly, do I need to threaten the attacking enemy? Also, has that enemy provoked an attack of opportunity from me?

You still need to fulfill all requirements of aid another, including threatening the attacking enemy. Bodyguard uses up one of your attacks of opportunity for the round, but the enemy hasn’t provoked an attack of opportunity from you, nor are you making one (which is relevant for abilities like Paired Opportunist).