hypersmurf said:
I also saw a hypothetical abuse of the Elusive Target tactical feat, where the PC fighter with ET attacks an opponent, and declares his Dodge bonus against the PC rogue standing behind him (who therefore flanks the fighter with the opponent).
The rogue attacks the fighter... but since the fighter has ET, the rogue's attack strikes the opponent, who is denied Dex bonus and therefore takes sneak attack damage...
AuraSeer said:
I guess you could call that abusive, but I don't know that it's any better than regular flanking. The rogue only gets one attack per round this way; neither PC gets the flanking bonus to hit; and the opponent gets +2 to hit the "flanked" fighter.
About the only upside is that it lets the rogue sneak attack somebody with Improved Uncanny Dodge, without having to be four levels higher. Even then I'd be inclined to allow it, since it does have those drawbacks, in addition to requiring three feats to pull off.
5' corridor with bad guy holding the part yoff at one end. Using Elusive Target, the fighter engages the bad guy and designates the rogue behind him as his dodge target. Now, the rogue can sneak attack without flanking, in a situation that would have made it difficult for the Rogue to flank at all.
Meh - sure it is something that won't come up very often. So, probably not abusive. Still, it is something that DM's should be aware of.
Really, the only thing that keeps adventuring parties together is trust. Each adventurer trusts that his friends will not take advantage of him when he is in a fight. The rules begin to get vague beyond this because there are many situations where what-if scenarios can be constructed.
Rogue steps back off frontline to get healing, fighter steps in place to shield his rogue buddy, cleric step up to heal rogue. The assumption is that the rogue will not threaten the fighter, thus flanking him, and that the rogue will not take the AOO if the Cleric does not defensively cast his, presumably beneficial, spell on the rogue. It's an issue of trust.
But, what if the rogue finally takes this opportunity to betray the fighter who mocked him a year earlier for being weak? What if the rogue is dominated? What if the Cleric has suddenly become possessed and casts inflict serious wounds instead of cure?
These are story points that make the game interesting because they exploit the implied trust within the adventuring group.
What if the BBEG is holding a little 10-year old girl hostage?The Party desperately wants to fry the BBEG with fireball & flamestrike, but the hostage makes it difficult. In a clever move, the PC's create an illusion that distracts the BBEG so the little girl gets away and goes running past the fighter.
- key question -
Does the fighter get an AOO as she moves by?
Is the little girl friend or foe? I contend that it doesn't matter. The language of enemy or ally is convenient because it allows you to keep the game moving faster. Instead of stopping each time a PC moves past an ally to see if the ally will take the AOO, you make assumptions that the ally won't. It is about pacing and not letting the game get bogged down into resolving each opportunity in each 5' square, you assume that allies will generally be friendly to each other. Exceptions crop up due to unusual circumstances.
So, the fighter makes a decision about the little girl. Is she really just a 10-year old girl? Is she an evil halfling rogue with good disguise working with the BBEG? Is she shape-changed in some way? This critical turning point is not dictated by the rules, it is dictated by decisions. The rules simply provide the opportunity to attack, and likewise for a turning point in the story.
The fighter lashes out, sure that this is yet another ruse that the BBEG has used. The girl got away too easily, she must be something bad. *whack* She goes down in one shot, the BBEG laughs, promises to tell everyone how the PC's cut down a little girl and teleports away. The story advances. The PC's feel terrible about cleaving down such innocence.
Or
The fighter lashes out, misses the "little girl" who continues running up to the wizard. *flick of the wrist* and the wizard goes down with a dagger up under his ribcage.
Or
The fighter hardens his resolve to take the head off the vile person that would threaten a little girl. The girl crashes into the wizard, sobbing and nearly grappling him in her fear and relief. Sure, it will be hard to cast spells, but he has a lot of concentration and a bit of guano with the BBEG's name on it.
Or any number of other possibilities. The rules do not dictate who an enemy is because it would be hard to have these situations crop up. The term enemy is used in a general sense to speed the game along with the exceptions to the enemy/ally assumption being the times it is important to specify the results.
Play the game to your style. But, I see no rule reason why the rouge could not have tripped the fighter. Maybe it was metagaming, maybe it wasn't. Houserule it if you must for your group, but keep in mind that you might be eliminating some interesting situations you hadn't thought of yet. (Just like all houserules really.)
