Chargin and AOO's

[sam500]

When you charge a creature with reach, does it get an AOO on you?
I think yes, my players say no. Who is correct?
Cheers,
Sam

 

[Hypersmurf]

When you charge a creature with reach, does it get an AOO on you?
I think yes, my players say no. Who is correct?

The answer can be found on PHB p141, on Table 8-2: Actions in Combat.

The Charge action does not provoke an AoO. However, that column carries footnote 1:
Regardless of the action, if you move out of a threatened square, you usually provoke an attack of opportunity. This column indicates whether the action itself, not moving, provokes an attack of opportunity.

So, you do not provoke an AoO simply by virtue of the fact that you are taking the Charge action. However, if any movement you make during the course of that action results in you leaving a threatened square - such as when you move from ten-feet-away-from-an-ogre to adjacent-to-an-ogre - that movement provokes an AoO as normal.

In other words, in most cases, you're correct and your players are wrong.

-Hyp.

 

[Legildur]

Now then Hype, what's the character's AC at the point the AOO is made against them?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Now then Hype, what's the character's AC at the point the AOO is made against them?

[shrug] Per the charging rules, the -2 AC penalty doesn't kick in until the character makes his attack as part of the charge... so the ogre's AoO will be against his normal AC, not his penalised AC.

-Hyp.

 

[Legildur]

I really asked the question to allow you to show off a little applied aspect of charging.

 

[Darklone]

[shrug] Per the charging rules, the -2 AC penalty doesn't kick in until the character makes his attack as part of the charge... so the ogre's AoO will be against his normal AC, not his penalised AC.

-Hyp.

I do agree that's the rules... yet I rule differently and consider the -2 AC penalty as some kind of half-running penalty. Okok, ban me to houserules