Can I willingly provoke an Attack of Opportunity?

[Unclemancer]

Say I wanted my opponent to hit me with an AOO. Could I just say "Come at me bruh" and open my defenses, or do I need to use an action to dig out a rock out of my pocket to provoke it manually?

 

[delericho]

Strictly speaking, I think the answer is "no".

In practice, though, the DM might as well allow it, because there are plenty of easy ways for the player to have his character provoke an AoO if that's what he really wants to do.

 

[Torg Smith]

Now the attack of opportunity does not force the unit to take the opportunity. If you have a better AC and want to get an intelligent mob to use its only attack of opportunity on you so your buddy can move away without getting attack with his low AC, the GM could let the mob hold off on the attack. A less intelligent mob would be more likely to fall for tricks though.

 

[GMMichael]

An AoO simulates the window that a melee attacker has against opponents who drop their guard. (Why it's only a window for weapon attacks, we might never know...)

So if your character "stands flat footed," "lowers his shield," or "turns his back on an enemy," you should be provoking an AoO. An Torg brings up the good point: provoking one doesn't mean the opponent takes it.

 

[Celebrim]

Say I wanted my opponent to hit me with an AOO. Could I just say "Come at me bruh" and open my defenses, or do I need to use an action to dig out a rock out of my pocket to provoke it manually?

The ability to do this is written into my house rules, but strictly speaking in RAW, no you can't.

DISTRACT
Distract is an unusual maneuver, which is in some ways quite similar to a feint except that instead of faking an attack, you fake an opening in your defenses to draw out an attack which you are actually well prepared for. You can use distract to protect a comrade that needs to withdraw from combat, or to set up a different special maneuver (such as a grapple) against a foe that will hopefully still be off-balance and therefore unable to respond.
Distract is a free action that carries its own penalty – regardless of the outcome, your opponent will get a chance to attack you. To distract, make a Disguise check opposed by a Sense Motive check by your target. The target may add his base attack bonus to this Sense Motive check. If your Disguise check result exceeds your target’s Sense Motive check result, you immediately draw an attack of opportunity from your opponent and the opponent must spend an available attack of opportunity if he has one. However, because you are actually prepared for the attack and less vulnerable than you feign, you have a +4 circumstance bonus to your AC versus this attack. If you fail the opposed check, you still draw an attack of opportunity, but since your opponent has seen through your subterfuge he may choose whether or not to follow up with an attack depending on how advantageous the opponent believes such an attack would be and you only have a +2 circumstance bonus to your AC versus this attack.
When using the distract maneuver against a non-humanoid you take a –4 penalty. Against a creature with intelligence less than 3, you take a –8 penalty. Against a non-intelligent creature, you cannot attempt the distract maneuver.

 

[Unclemancer]

So the consensus is you couldn't do it RAW, but should be able to in common sense. I went through the actions in Player's to see if there was a free action that'd expose my character - unfortunately there aren't any.
I'm actually not planning on using this as a rescue for the misplaced Psion, but as a way to proc a counter from ToB's setting sun.

To distract, make a Disguise check opposed by a Sense Motive check by your target.

Why not bluff? But thanks, I'll suggest this to my DM if he's less than amicable about the self-provoking version.

 

[gamerprinter]

Pathfinder has a barbarian rage power called "Come and Get Me" which is by RAW and its purpose for existence is to invoke Attacks of Opportunity against you by your opponents. Of course it is Pathfinder and as a rage power it is only available to barbarians. I used this tactic with a high level NPC invulnerable rager barbarian who had plenty of damage reduction, such that after 2 rounds of responding to every attack of opportunity with massive return blows, the PCs avoided AoO altogether since the exchange was not equal. Unless you did a level dip in PF barbarian, I doubt if you can get this to work with non-barbarian characters.

 

[Celebrim]

Why not bluff? But thanks, I'll suggest this to my DM if he's less than amicable about the self-provoking version.

If you are using rules closer to RAW than mine, bluff would be appropriate. However, in my rules Bluff is used for all skill checks involving deceptive mental actions, whereas disguise is used for all skill checks involving deceptive physical actions. Thus, Feint and Distract depend on Disguise rather than Bluff.

 

[TarionzCousin]

You could try taunting your opponent(s).

 

[Random Bystander]

Any interpretation of the rules which creates an absurd result should be treated as incorrect. Technically, at low levels, drowning a dying character is an excellent way of saving said character. This is because "a dying character has negative hit points" and "drowning sets hit points to zero".

With respect to gamers who like to discuss meta, drowning does not save you from dying in my games, outside of some theoretical absurdist comedy setting, and if a character really wants to provoke an AoO, they can... But then they will provoke an AoO from all applicable attackers, due to having let their guard down.