Complete Adventurer (merged)

[Glyfair]

Well, this wasn't in the quote above. I thought that was the whole feat description, but maybe it's not.

I'll note that in a standard game that alignment shifting is required with the character. You need both Smite Evil ability and Bardic Knowledge. Unless there is a way to get smite evil without being lawful (it seems to me there might be, but I can't think of it), you have to start as a bard and switch to paladin for at least one shift of alignment.

You can then take the feat, and gain levels in both bard & paladin.

 

[Psion]

I'll note that in a standard game that alignment shifting is required with the character. You need both Smite Evil ability and Bardic Knowledge. Unless there is a way to get smite evil without being lawful (it seems to me there might be, but I can't think of it), you have to start as a bard and switch to paladin for at least one shift of alignment.

You can then take the feat, and gain levels in both bard & paladin.

It's sticky to be sure, but class precedes feat, so it seems to me you could be a bard 2, and upon taking your third level, take paladin and the feat. You might need a lenient DM to let you wave off the sudden alignment shift, though.

 

[Hypersmurf]

"You're attacking, but you're not using the attack action."

Right.

That sounds pretty niggly to me.

I don't see it

It's like how someone using Fly-By Attack can move, cast Scorching Ray, and move... but someone using Shot on the Run can't. The two feats are defined differently, and thus allow different things.

I don't see it as niggly; just as the effects of the rules.

-Hyp.

 

[Hypersmurf]

No, it makes its own "action" it seems.

Right.

No, because now you have a whole new action which is technically not an attack action, it is a "attack as a standard action." Which, as is being clearly demonstrated, has implications beyond what is clearly spelled out in the feat description.

Yup. The feat doesn't need to spell them out, because the effects can be found in the existing rules.

The rules describe how to resolve an attack and a full attack; all variations should spring from those. We should NOT have to create a new sort of attack for every feat that lets you deviate from the rules.

Check footnote 7 on the Table of Action Types - "These attack forms substitute for a melee attack, not an action." A melee attack isn't an action. There are several actions that allow you to make a melee attack.

Spring Attack doesn't apply when you make a melee attack; it applies when you take the Attack action. There are more actions than just Attack and Full Attack that allow one to make an attack; Charge is one, Cast a Spell (with a touch spell) is another, to pick just two examples.

All of a sudden we are expected to make assumptions about how these special attacks are resolved, but find that we cannot assume it operates like an attack action in all ways...

We resolve them as attacks. Just not as the Attack action.

Think about it: I can't even make an assumption about whether or not I suffer an attack of opportunity when performing a dual strike.

For what reason would you suffer one?

-Hyp.

 

[Psion]

Yup. The feat doesn't need to spell them out, because the effects can be found in the existing rules.

Those existing rules exist under the headings of "Attack" under "Standard action" and "Full Attack" under "Full Round Action", which the FAQ clearly demonstrates we cannot trust to be a default for the rules for this, since it deviates from those rules in ways not defined in the feat.

Check footnote 7 on the Table of Action Types - "These attack forms substitute for a melee attack, not an action." A melee attack isn't an action. There are several actions that allow you to make a melee attack.

That would be an example of the right way to do it -- clearly delineate how the action/feat can be used in the action/feat description, and we explicitly know how, in the rules, to handle these actions without relying on some FAQ that is, in effect, de facto missing rules text.

Dual attack -- and manyshot -- lack any such clarification.

Spring Attack doesn't apply when you make a melee attack; it applies when you take the Attack action.

You will not find the phrase "attack action" in the rules section on combat actions, except preceded by the word "full". The FAQ admits this much.

That makes it apparent to me that the word "action" is implicit after the standard action "attack" and the full round action "full attack".

You will find the phrase "attack (melee)" and "attack (ranged)", listed under action types.

There are more actions than just Attack and Full Attack that allow one to make an attack; Charge is one, Cast a Spell (with a touch spell) is another, to pick just two examples.

And both of those are fully defined by the rules. I know explicitly that charging does not afford the enemy an attack of opportunity, for example, because the rules spell it out.

We resolve them as attacks. Just not as the Attack action.

That's insufficient under the rules. Attacks are only performed as part of one of several clearly defined actions, like attack (melee), charge, full attack, etc.

For what reason would you suffer one?

I would not assume you would. But the only way that I could *technically* come to this conclusion is by referencing boilerplate text in the rules of another action. Which again, the rulings on these feats demonstrate is clearly not a safe thing to do.

 

[drnuncheon]

I don't see it.

So...nothing about that sounds even just a little off to you? It doesn't seem, I don't know, backwards to attack when not using an attack action?

For what reason would you suffer one?

For the same reason you would suffer any other one - because that's what the rules say. There's no measure for determining whether something would provoke an AoO in the real world - if there were, then they wouldn't have changed standing up from not provoking in 3.0 to provoking in 3.5.

J

 

[Hypersmurf]

So...nothing about that sounds even just a little off to you? It doesn't seem, I don't know, backwards to attack when not using an attack action?

Not at all. The Attack action allows you to make an attack. It's not the only action that does so.

For the same reason you would suffer any other one - because that's what the rules say.

With Dual Strike? No, they don't.

With Manyshot? Yes, they do indeed, because the text for Attacks of Opportunity states that attacking with a ranged weapon provokes an AoO.

-Hyp.

 

[RonYon]

Shadow bane Night stalker...

Does this Prc reqiure a good alignment? Does it advance turning?

 

[Kai Lord]

How about more details on the Beastmaster and Ghost-Faced Killer?

 

[Hypersmurf]

Dual attack -- and manyshot -- lack any such clarification.

What clarification is needed? It says you use a standard action, and it says what you can do with that standard action.

You will not find the phrase "attack action" in the rules section on combat actions, except preceded by the word "full". The FAQ admits this much.

That makes it apparent to me that the word "action" is implicit after the standard action "attack" and the full round action "full attack".

Right. You can take any of the entries in the table, and put 'action' after them. The Bull Rush action. The Charge action. The Cast a Spell action.

Which action do you use to take a wand out of its sheath? The Draw a Weapon action.

That's insufficient under the rules. Attacks are only performed as part of one of several clearly defined actions, like attack (melee), charge, full attack, etc.

And Manyshot and Dual Strike both allow you to take a standard action to attack in the fashion described by the feat.

Contrast this with Whirlwind Attack, for example, where the action is not 'a full round action', but 'the Full Attack action'. Thus, you can use Combat Expertise in conjunction with Whirlwind Attack.

-Hyp.