Hyp is going to love this: All About AoOs 2

[Sammael]

Attacks of Opportunity (Part Two).

You can use any special attack that you can use as a melee attack as an attack of opportunity. That includes disarming, grabbing someone to grapple, sunder, or trip.

(emphasis mine)

Although the rules don't mention it, letting go of a two-handed weapon with one hand or putting a free hand back on the weapon is a free action for you.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Meh on the Sunder thing. It's the same as he said in the FAQ.

Bwa-ha! on the changing hands thing It's the same as he said in the 3E Main FAQ, and completely different to what Andy Collins just said in the 3.5 FAQ.

Sage Fight! Sage Fight!

When You're Out of Reach

When no foes threaten you (that is, when you're not in any area that a foe threatens) you can get away with an action that normally provokes an attack of opportunity without actually provoking one. For example, if you have greater reach than your foe, you could try to sunder that foe's weapon or shield or disarm that foe without provoking an attack of opportunity provided that you stand outside the area the foe threatens while doing so.

Good. From memory, in 3E, he said that they could take the AoO, but only against your weapon. This ruling actually follows the rules, and it's what I've said all along

If you're unarmed, you do not threaten an area, even if you have the Quick Draw feat, because you can take a free action only during your turn.

Heh. While this is true, I'll be interested to see if he addresses certain other free actions.

Like a wolf's Trip ability, or the opposed grapple check to establish a hold after making a touch attack to initiate a grapple, for example.

I'm also looking forward to seeing if he addresses the effects of TWF on AoOs, and what exactly a hydra's Combat Reflexes does

. In the case of a trip attack, you must make the trip attack with whatever weapon you're using to threaten the area where you're making the attack of opportunity.

Huh. That's new.

Given that an unarmed strike isn't actually a trip-capable weapon (a trip without a trip weapon is made as an unarmed melee touch attack, but it doesn't strictly use the weapon 'unarmed strike'), I wonder if that means that nobody can trip unarmed as an AoO...?

-Hyp.

 

[Li Shenron]

Although my general opinion about this Sage article is definitely very positive, I still find the chain-of-AoO concept disturbing

So you're making a manoeuvre to disarm your opponent, and by doing so you open yourself to the opponent's which therefore makes an AoO (let's say sunder) on you, but still you can react enough to the opponent's AoO by quickly interrupting your own disarm attempt to get an AoO (you choose trip), but the opponent interrupts his own sunder attempt to react to your tripping attempt by getting an AoO and tries to grapple, so before you complete your tripping attempt in the middle of the foe's sundering in the middle of your own disarming, you choose a second disarm which he's then going to counter-disarm... good grief

What happens to all the previous actions if one of the attempts is successful? For example if the final disarm attempt from the foe succeeds, are you disarmed NOW? So you cannot complete the previous disarm yourself? Does he get the previous AoOs? Do you get your previous AoOs?

Thank got it's a very rare situation, because this is everything except an elegant rule.

 

[hong]

Isn't AoOs 2 one of the sequels to Age of Empires? I can never remember.

 

[Henrix]

Heh. While this is true, I'll be interested to see if he addresses certain other free actions.

Like a wolf's Trip ability, or the opposed grapple check to establish a hold after making a touch attack to initiate a grapple, for example.

But there's no problem, except that he quotes wrongly. You can take a free action when you are entitled to another action, not just during your turn.

If you have no weapon ready you do not threaten and thus get no action, so no free action either.

If you start a grapple (with improved unarmed, obviously) you have an action, and thus can establish the hold. Same goes for the wolf's trip.

 

[dcollins]

Good. From memory, in 3E, he said that they could take the AoO, but only against your weapon. This ruling actually follows the rules, and it's what I've said all along

Not quite. There was a ruling that one could Ready an action to attack a weapon or limb of a Reach-creature when it leaned in to attack you.

Some were extrapolating this to say you could AOO on a creature with reach in these situations. In particular, Caliban strongly resisted the notion that Reach could negate AOOs on a Disarm, Sunder, or Grapple attempt.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Some free actions can take place at any time, of course... speaking and featherfall are specially called out as such.

It is... interesting... that you technically can't do a free action like drop a weapon at any time in the round but you CAN get a whole attack off against an enemy at any point in the round via AoO

 

[Klaus]

Plane Sailing -> Those are called Immediate (sp?) actions now.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If you start a grapple (with improved unarmed, obviously) you have an action, and thus can establish the hold. Same goes for the wolf's trip.

If you start a grapple with an AoO, you do not have an action. An AoO is not an action.

For example, would you allow this?

"I get an AoO on the goblin? Okay, I drop my dagger (free action), cast Quickened Magic Missile at the ogre (free action), Quick Draw my greatsword (free action), and hit the goblin with it (AoO)"?

-Hyp.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Plane Sailing -> Those are called Immediate (sp?) actions now.

Yep, I know that in the XPH and other recent stuff they've broken free actions into swift (free action on your turn) and immediate (free action at any time), but that hasn't been back-propagated to the standard 3.5 rules AFAIK. Have you seen anything that maps all the existing stuff onto swift/immediate?

Cheers