Interesting stuff.
I'm still pretty OK with Tunnel Fighter, but to me the weird corner case isn't with Sentinel, it's with Polearm Master. TF+PM means if a single foe tries to get past you, you get up to three attacks: free OA for entering reach, TF reaction for moving more than 5 feet within reach, and another free OA for leaving reach. That's... a lot, potentially even at level 1 with variant human.
the problem is, if we are reading this correctly, Tunnel Fighter sets up a precedent for multiple reactions per turn...breaking the RAW/RAI and opening the door for absurdity.
Everyone discusses Polearm feat and Tunnel Fighting style OP. The thing is I can't picture how Polearm feat would be usable. Style used for fighting in "narrow" passageway. That would negate use of Polearm
"As a bonus action, you can enter a defensive stance that lasts until the start of your next turn. While in your defensive stance, you can make opportunity attacks without using your reaction, and you can use your reaction to make a melee attack against a creature that moves more than 5 feet while within your reach."
a) we assume we have used our main action to attack/etc(Main action burned)
b) we used our bonus action to assume the stance ( bonus action burned)
c) we can make opportunity attacks without using a reaction (free action? notice the plural...more than one)
d) we can make an attack using our reaction (reaction burned, but what did we do in our main action since we assumed the defensive stance as a bonus action...did we not attack?)
this feature is rife with holes, I personally agree that it should be used when feats are not an option, as well as the Main action must not be used to attack...but there is still the issue with open canon for multiple opportunity attacks...
Lastly, it breaks the conventional RAW, because opportunity attacks occur during an opponents turn, I.e., as a Reaction, this is the framework for my question. And disecting the feature as I did in the previous post quoted, we see that the feature assigns not only your Reaction, but Bonus action as well...and seeing as it is an AoO, we must assume it happens during the opponents turn, therefore, it cannot be a main action. What action then are we assigning to this (possibly infinite) attack?
Radaceus said:Lastly, it breaks the conventional RAW, because opportunity attacks occur during an opponents turn, I.e., as a Reaction, this is the framework for my question. And disecting the feature as I did in the previous post quoted, we see that the feature assigns not only your Reaction, but Bonus action as well...and seeing as it is an AoO, we must assume it happens during the opponents turn, therefore, it cannot be a main action. What action then are we assigning to this (possibly infinite) attack?
Honestly I didn't get this last point... I don't see the reason why we have to to assign an action type to everything.
And this is a good reason not to allow multiple OAs in a way that is so open ended as the tunnel fighting style. I'd rather have the DMG's Mark mechanic be available as a fighting style before I allow Tunnel Fighter. Not a fan. It also has scaling (more attacks = more AoOs) which AoOs are inherently missing.I guess that PM was designed assuming that an OA always costs a reaction, and that each creature has max 1 reaction. So you get the OA either when the target enters your reach or leaves your reach, not twice.
My reading of this, given the context it's in, it only allows free AoOs against marked creatures. This is more restrictive than the tunnel fighter, which (IMO) shows something is terribly wrong with the tunnel fighter.When a creature makes a melee attack, it can also
mark its target. Until the end of the attacker's next turn,
any opportunity attack it makes against the marked
target has advantage. The opportunity attack doesn't
expend the attacker's reaction
Tunnel Fighter: It lets you hit movers. It might be a bit clunky though and needs to be cleaned up a teeny bit.
A bit more than that. Thanks to the Polearm Godmode feat, even enemies that approach you are open game for opportunity attacks. Alone, that allows you to put out some incredible damage against moderate to large quantities of enemies, but that's just the tip of the iceberg. Combined with the Sentinal feat, a polearm user can keep entire armies of melee inclined foes locked down and trivialized, unable to advance close enough to hit the polearm user as he wears them all down with limitless attacks.
It's essentially a constant, unlimited 25*25 foot aoe zone of lockdown that only requires a bonus action to activate. Kind of like the ability to cast a wider range, generally more reliable Evard's Black Tentacles at will.