I've been building an AoO PC and had a question about reach. The play style will be me running around deliberately provoking AoO's, then attacking back as an immediate action.
I've thought about getting a reach weapon, but ran into an issue. I figure most enemies from lvl 1-10 won't have a lot of reach, so I'll need to get next to them and leave. When I am leaving a square and they AoO me, does it happen before or after I leave the square? In my mind I've thought it happens as I leave the square, but that's not specific enough now.
If it happens before I leave I won't want a reach weapon, because I can't threaten someone right next to me. If it happens after I leave the square I will want a reach weapon, other I'm too far away to attack back.
J
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Provoking an Attack of Opportunity
Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing certain actions within a threatened square.Moving
Moving out of a threatened square usually provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening opponents. There are two common methods of avoiding such an attack—the 5-foot step and the withdraw action.Performing a Distracting Act
Some actions, when performed in a threatened square, provoke attacks of opportunity as you divert your attention from the battle. Table: Actions in Combat notes many of the actions that provoke attacks of opportunity.Remember that even actions that normally provoke attacks of opportunity may have exceptions to this rule.
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 modifier 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.
so the AoO happens because you leave a square
it interrupts the action and still happens in the initial squarealso, smart enemies will stop making the AoO once they see what happens to others
A couple of things.
First, an AoO is NOT an immediate action. You only ever have 1 immediate action, and using your immediate action means you don't get a swift action on your following turn . Meanwhile Attacks of Opportunity are effectively their own action type. Players start with 1 AoO per turn, but can get more by taking feats like Combat Reflexes. Your AoOs don't prevent you from taking other actions like Immediate Actions, nor do those other actions prevent you from taking AoOs. I'm not 100% sure if you were misunderstanding that, but better to clarify.
Second, reach. Yes as happykj said the AoO happens before they leave their square. If it didn't happen this way then you technically couldn't make the attack. Here's the text that really matters:
An attack of opportunity “interrupts” the normal f low 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).
This means that if you kill an enemy with your AoO they cannot continue their action. Or for example, if an enemy charges you and you use your AoO to trip them then they cannot continue their charge because they have been knocked prone.
One other thing to remember is that you can 5-foot-step. Taking a 5-foot-step is a free action that can be done once per round, and it does NOT provoke AoOs. You can Only 5-foot-step if it is the only movement on your turn, so you can't 5-foot-step to get out of someone's threatened range and then move away from them, but you could 5-foot-step and then attack them, cast a spell, or do some other action that doesn't involve movement.
For a reach weapon user this is important because it means you can fight someone who has come within reach of your weapon. They're too close to attack, but you can 5-foot-step away from them and then attack them from reach. Also be aware though that they can then 5-foot-step back toward you on their turn and attack you, and since they used a 5-foot-step they don't provoke when doing so.
One tactic to use is to move away from them and ready an attack for when they come within range. Thus when they get close enough your readied attack goes off, and then if they continue to move toward you it also provokes an AoO . The downside of this is that they may not attack you, and may go after someone else instead, in which case you've just wasted your turn and you get no AoOs. However they probably have to walk all the way around you, possibly wasting their entire turn, so that can be worthwhile anyway.
Once you get to level 6, the LUNGE feat makes this easier. Now Lunge only increases your reach until the End of your turn, so you won't keep that reach for AoOs, but what it does is allows you to attack enemies from 10 feet away rather than 5 feet away. This means they can't 5-foot-step to get into range, which in turn means that when they do move in they provoke an AoO, and also means that they don't get a full attack action.
Also in either of the above 2 paragraphs I highly recommend investing in Acrobatics so that you can be more mobile without provoking as many AoOs from enemies.
How are you attacking back as an immediate action? I figure you have to be using a feat or class ability, but offhand don’t know any that allow you to attack someone who makes an AoO on you?
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How are you attacking back as an immediate action? I figure you have to be using a feat or class ability, but offhand don’t know any that allow you to attack someone who makes an AoO on you?
snake fang i would assume
Thanks for the feedback everyone, that's what I was thinking was the case.
As for my build: it's a Vigilante chassis, taking a level of Master of Many Styles Monk, taking the Ascetic Style, Snake Style and Snake Fang feats. My plan is to get a Longsword with the Versatile Design modification to make it a part of the Monk weapon group. Vigilantes get the Vital Punishment talent, so I'm combining it with Vital Strike.
This is really a modification of Allerseelen's Viper build from his guide to Vigilantes. To quote him: "This is the heart of the build: you’ll voluntarily trigger as many attacks of opportunity as possible in a round, usually by running blindly through the battlefield, taking an attack of opportunity yourself every time an opponent misses you."
He has it as a reach build with a Naginata, but that didnt make sense to me so I changed the weapon. I'm really writing to see if I'm right or not about the mechanics, that a reach weapon wouldn't be a good idea. My thought is if my enemies don't have reach, I wouldn't benefit from a reach weapon with my running around drawing AoO's--and if they do have reach I'll have Enlarge Person cast on me.
J