What is considered casting for purposes of attacks of opportunity?

[Only Mostly Dead]

I've run the first five parts of Doomsday Dawn thus far in public play and I have been having a good time. Unfortunately, a few of my players who desperately want to "win" Pathfinder argue that basically everything the enemies do provokes attacks of opportunity, which they all multi-classed to get. They argue that everything with a tag of magic, a school of magic (such as evocation), or similar tagging constitutes casting for purposes of provoking.

Do you consider all innate spell-like abilities to be casting for purposes of attacks of opportunity?

Are breath weapons considered spell-like for purposes of provoking attacks of opportunity?

Do special abilities with spell-like effects (e.g. Dance of Destruction) provoke attacks of opportunity?

[Cyouni]

Only Mostly Dead wrote:

I've run the first five parts of Doomsday Dawn thus far in public play and I have been having a good time. Unfortunately, a few of my players who desperately want to "win" Pathfinder argue that basically everything the enemies do provokes attacks of opportunity, which they all multi-classed to get. They argue that everything with a tag of magic, a school of magic (such as evocation), or similar tagging constitutes casting for purposes of provoking.

Do you consider all innate spell-like abilities to be casting for purposes of attacks of opportunity?

Are breath weapons considered spell-like for purposes of provoking attacks of opportunity?

Do special abilities with spell-like effects (e.g. Dance of Destruction) provoke attacks of opportunity?

Attack of Opportunity provokes on very specific things. "manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action". Only the Material and Somatic Casting actions have the manipulate trait, so those and any Verbal ranged attacks.

[Edge93]

It is not casting specifically that provokes AoOs but rather actions with the Move trait or the Manipulate trait that do not specify that they do not provoke reactions (For example the Step action has the move trait but specifies that it does not trigger reactions).

So the answer lies in the traits of the actions the monsters are taking. To reference your specific examples:

If by innate spell-like abilities you are referring to innate spells (Such as those possessed by most Evil Outsiders) then usually this does provoke. Innate spells are cast using the same spellcasting actions as other spells, and the Somatic casting action has the manipulate trait (As does Material, I believe). So if the spell has a Somatic or Material action (Most spells do) then yes it provokes.

Dragon breath weapons have the arcane and evocation traits, as well as an elemental trait, but no manipulate trait. So that does not provoke.

For other abilities, you'd need to look at the specific ability. To use your Dance of Ruin (I assume that's the Dance of Destruction you refer to, the one possessed by Vrocks?) example, that ability has the Arcane, Evocation, and Manipulate traits. So it does provoke AoOs. However as it is not a spell, I don't believe it would be automatically disrupted by the AoO, they would just take damage, similar to an AoO provoked by movement or a ranged attack. (Innate spells however are disrupted if the caster takes damage equal to or greater than their level from an AoO, unless their statblock says otherwise).

So in short, most of the aforementioned abilities provoke, but not all. Most that provoke are disrupted by a good hit, but not all. It's easy to tell whether or not something provokes though due to it being tied to specific traits of actions (Manipulate and Move) rather than a long list of specific acts. Spellcasting actions are easy to remember as far as which ones have Manipulate, and other monster abilities have their traits listed in the stat block for easy reference.

Really, AoO is arguably more useful than in PF1 since it's harder to get, so a party that went to the trouble of getting it across the board certainly should be getting some good mileage out of it.

Also, not sure how wanting their AoOs to work where they are suposed to warrants a derisive comment like "Desperately wanting to win Pathfinder", whatever that even means...

[MER-c]

My guess is they are somewhat disruptive players who tend towards a lack of engagement in a story or narrative contribution, some of the worst of that type I have had to play with are those who don't even participate when combat is not the current activity, thus leaving all the narrative load on the remaining players and the DM. It's not a totally wrong way to play, as there isn't really a wrong way, it's just one of the more difficult to deal with ways to play. It's main issue being it really only works if all the players on on board and really the game is just a massive dungeon crawl with the idea to see how far you get in some sort of endless dungeon, the moment you bring in a lot of narrative, in my experience mind you, those "Win Pathfinder" kinds of players tend to zone out or even go and play a different game while they wait for combat.