Multiple opportunities for attacks with Combat Reflexes

[zoroaster100]

We had a climactic battle tonight in a D&D 3.5 session, but ran accross a rules question which I had to rule on and which I'm still not quite clear on. As it turned out, the question became irrelevant to the result of the battle because of the dice rolls, but it could have decided the whole fight otherwise. Here is the question: a medium-sized fighter with Combat Reflexes and wielding a glaive (a weapon with a 10 ft. reach) is enlarged with the spell enlarge person and then goes into combat. The opponent, a medium sized creature without reach, tries to close.

The glaive, now enlarged, has reach of 20 ft. The fighter can use the glaive to strike at opponents who are at 20 ft. distance and opponents at 15 ft. distance. The fighter's opponent moves in from about 30 ft. and closes on the fighter. He moves within 20 ft., then to within 15 ft., provoking an attack of opportunity. The fighter hits and causes much damage. The opponent continues the move to within 10 ft. of the fighter (hoping to close to within 5 ft. to attack). Does the fighter get a second attack of opportunity when the opponent again leaves a threatened square?

Does the whole move from 30 ft. to 5 ft. count as one opportunity that the fighter can take advantage of, or does each time the opponent moves out of a threatened square during a move count as a separate opportunity that the fighter can take advantage of using the Combat Reflexes feat?

 

[Thanee]

Movement is considered a single opportunity AFAIK.

Bye
Thanee

 

[Enamel_32]

I would say no, because you can't make multiple attacks of opportunity if they're provoked by the same action, which in this case would be moving.
Edit: Beat me to it!

 

[Peter Gibbons]

Movement is considered a single opportunity AFAIK.

That's correct. Moving provokes only one AoO per opponent, no matter how many threatened squares you leave.

 

[MichaelH]

Does the whole move from 30 ft. to 5 ft. count as one opportunity that the fighter can take advantage of, or does each time the opponent moves out of a threatened square during a move count as a separate opportunity that the fighter can take advantage of using the Combat Reflexes feat?

It's the former. Here's a quote from the SRD, which can also be found in the PHB in the Combat chapter.

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.

I boldened the appropriate text for you.

 

[Elder-Basilisk]

Note the specific wording in MichaelH's bolded quote. "Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round...."

The restriction is specific to moving out of more than one square and isn't true of movements in general or actions in general (as the first two posters claimed--though their posts are good rules of thumb, there are some exceptions to them which make the exact wording above important).

There are some cases where one action could provoke multiple AoOs (for instance performing multiple unarmed strikes or grapple attempts in a single attack action without the right feats); similarly, in some instances, movement may provoke AoOs for reasons other than leaving a threatened square (for instance, the Hold the Line feat makes charging INTO a threatened square provoke from you).

 

[zoroaster100]

Thanks, everyone, for the responses. This answers my question. That text about multiple attacks of opportunity should probably also have been put into the Combat Reflexes description. But I don't think I'll ever forget that particular rule now. In last night's game, my gut feeling was that the player should only get one attack of opportunity as the opponent moved towards him, but since I couldn't find a rule that said so, and didn't want to waste too much time looking through the rules, I let him take the second attack. But he missed so it turned out not to matter. The opponent (big bad evil guy for the adventure) struck the player's character down to 0 hp in one blow, then the player got his regular attacks, hit with two attacks and rolled criticals, doing massive damage with his enlarged greatsword and killing the bad guy.

 

[Cabral]

at 0 hps, he's disabled He can't take a full attack action so he'd only get one attack, not "his regular attacks"

By the way, if you have a computer where you play, I suggesst bookmarking www.d20srd.org if for no other reason than to have a searchable rules set

 

[zoroaster100]

He has Whirling Frenzy instead of the regular barbarian rage (he's a barbarian/fighter) but I think you are right, as the whirling frenzy only grants the extra attack when someone can take a full attack. Oh, well. Too late to try to reconstruct how the fight should have worked out. I think the first attack, being a critical, would have been enough to bring the foe down anyway.