Devoted Defender Drudgery

[godfear]

Isn't alliteration fun?

Anyway, a couple players of our group are reading way too much into the abilities and mechanic ramifications of this PrC (or are they?). Take the first level ability which reads:

Harm's Way: Beginning at 1st level, the devoted defender may elect to place herself in the path of danger in order to protect her single charge. Any time that you are within 5 feet of your charge, and your charge suffers an attack, you may switch places with your charge and receive the attack in his place. You must declare this before the attack roll is made. You select your charge when you roll initiative, and it is a free action to do so. You may not change your charge for the duration of that combat.

Now... Assume your charge had a higher initiative than you (the devoted defender), and that he moved during his turn in combat this round, and ended up within 5 feet of you. The enemy engages your charge in melee combat, throwing an attack at him. You declare harm's way, and switch places. Our wayward players argue that the charge's movement provokes an AoO from the enemy because the charge had previously moved in the round and thus moved more than 5'. Then they state that the defender could just go ahead and declare harm's way on the AoO (it is still an attack). So now the defender has both the original attack and the AoO which had been intended for the charge, aimed at him instead. No problem, charge is protected, the defender has a respectable AC and so isn't too worried about the attacks, and all is good.

I disagree with this on a couple of points. I don't think that the 'movement' from the use of harm's way should provoke an AoO on the charge. That kind of defeats the purpose of the ability in my mind, but admittedly nowhere I've read has precluded it. Secondarily, can the defender jump in front of every attack thrown the charge's way in the combat? At first, we're dealing with at most a 5' step, so it's pretty simple. If the enemies have different initiatives, that movement is going to add up. At which point, perhaps the defender would start provoking AoO's from enemies that threaten them. Or maybe not. It's the movement when it's not your turn that's causing all of this, I'm certain.

Hrmm... I've just had another thought. Perhaps no actual movement takes place when this ability is employed. Maybe they're just forced to redirect their attack at you, but you retain your square on the combat grid. My god, that would make things much easier. Is this the case?

So yea... harm's way. Any thoughts?

 

[FANGO]

It seems pretty obvious to me that no "movement" takes place. They do change spaces, exactly as the ability says, but this is not a move and does not provoke an attack of opportunity. The movement from using this ability multiple times isn't something to worry about either, because at the very most it could add up to 5 feet of movement per round.

 

[Pielorinho]

Strictly as the rules are written, I'd say this does provoke an AoO; if the devoted defender wants to absorb the AoO, she needs to switch places with her charge a second time, so they both end up right back where they started.

However, I also think the DD first-level ability is crying out for houserules. Technically, if 30 archers fire at your charge, you can switch places with your charge 30 times -- 150 feet of movement as a bunch of free actions. Make it 1000 archers, and you can come close to breaking the sound barrier.

I'd suggest a couple of fixes:

1) Absorbing an attack doesn't switch places with your charge.
2) You can absorb a number of attacks equal to your DD level each round.
3) this is a pure RP concern, but you can't choose the big hairy barbarian as your charge. This is a sound tactical idea, according to the rules (since it allows the DD to be on the front line, where her abilities are most useful), but it breaks the mood of the class. I don't know how to keep this imposition in the rules, though, so I think I'll enforce it in my game by scowling and saying, "C'mon, man, don't be cheesy!"

Daniel

 

[dcollins]

My understanding is very much the same as the first two posters.

- I see no reason why this ability would provoke an attack of opportunity (it doesn't even count as an action of any sort, since it occurs off the defender's turn and doesn't need to be "readied").

- The abstract nature of combat shouldn't be interpreted to mean that multiple swaps indicate "faster than sound" cumulative movement -- over the course of a round, either the defender & charge end up in the exact same place, or 5 ft. displaced at most. (Maybe the defender's crouching over the charge as attacks rain down -- not totally prone -- so there's no penalty when their turns come back around again.)

- If any defender wants to be the recipient of 1,000 arrow shots, that "problem" should be fixed by itself shortly.

 

[Pielorinho]

Consider that if you're bull-rushed and it's not your turn, your movement provokes AoOs. Similarly, I'd think the movement from DD would provoke AoOs.

And while combat is an abstraction, the rules are not: strictly speaking, by the rules, you can break the sound barrier but you provoke AoOs.

Naturally, as I said, I houseruled the way this ability works.

(A DD could reasonably take 1000 arrows, BTW: assuming that the archers are low-level and the DD has a decent AC, both of which are reasonable assumptions, 50 arrows will hit and 2 will critical. That's 54d6 damage, or about 189 points of damage. Slap a stoneskin and/or protection from arrows on your DD, and the damage is reduced to 89 points or 39 points.)

Daniel