Flyby Attack Question?

[Aluvial]

Does a flyby attack provoke AoO's?

Aluvial

 

[kreynolds]

NAFAIK. It mentions nothing about avoiding AoOs because of your movement. It just lets you take a partial action during your move, simlilar to Spring Attack, but without the AoO protection from the target you attack.

 

[Aluvial]

NAFAIK?

What's that?

 

[kreynolds]

What's that?

Not As Far As I Know.

 

[Dinkeldog]

Ride-by Attack protects you from attacks of opportunity, as does Spring Attack. I'd rule that Fly-by does the same, as it's really just a variation on the theme. That's a personal errata, though, unless official errata says the same.

 

[kreynolds]

You would think that Flyby would indeed function similar to Ride-By Attack and Spring Attack. To be honest, I don't know what the reason was for it not to. Perhaps because of Dragons, making them nastier than they already are?

 

[Staffan]

Fly-by attack has an advantage over Spring Attack and Ride-by Attack, because you can use it with *any* partial action. This means a dragon could fly on top of you, blast you with its breath weapon, and fly on. Or it could cast a spell. Or a beholder could use it to pop in and out of cover, blasting away with some eye-beams in the meantime. To balance out this advantage, it doesn't provide any protection from AoOs.
If you just want the ability to fly in, hit someone, and fly away, there's nothing in the description of Spring Attack that prevents it from being used with non-ground movement. There might be some trouble because it has harsher prerequisites.

 

[kreynolds]

Fly-by attack has an advantage over Spring Attack and Ride-by Attack, because you can use it with *any* partial action.

Ooo...now that's a very good point. Good eye.