Reach vs. Combat Maneuver-provoked AOOs

[Elethiomel]

[edit too slow.

 

[Cabral]

Your opponent doesn't threaten the square you are in so, while you technically provoke an AoO, your opponent can't make an AoO. On a failed disarm/trip attempt, he may still try to disarm/trip you (or you can drop your weapon to avoid it).

 

[PallidPatience]

By the way, and I didn't even realize this until a while ago, you don't provoke an AoO anyway if you're using a trip-viable weapon to trip an opponent.

Avoiding Attacks of Opportunity
If you have the Improved Trip feat, or if you are tripping with a weapon (see below), you don’t provoke an attack of opportunity for making a trip attack.

 

[Inigo Carmine]

Just curious. To all who allow an AoO on the weapon: Do you also allow sunder/disarm attempts on a weapon anytime someone uses a ranged weapon against you? Afterall, it is a ranged attack (provokes an AoO) and the weapon (be it arrow, bolt or javalin, etc) passes through your threatened area before it hits you.

 

[hong]

Just curious. To all who allow an AoO on the weapon: Do you also allow sunder/disarm attempts on a weapon anytime someone uses a ranged weapon against you?

No.

Afterall, it is a ranged attack (provokes an AoO) and the weapon (be it arrow, bolt or javalin, etc) passes through your threatened area before it hits you.

Tough.

HAW HAW!

 

[Ranes]

Yes, but IIRC you can make a 5' step each round before or after any of your actions, provided you haven't moved yet. So is an attack (of opportunity or otherwise) an action ? I'd be inclined to say yes, since you can 5"-step between any of your iterative attacks. Would make for some tricky scenarii, though.

It's interesting that the rules on 5' step don't specify that the step must be taken on your turn. That's why I used the caveat, "I don't think you can..." If you can take a 5' step at any point in the round (because you haven't moved), it makes no difference whether an AoO is an action or not. But it would make for some tricky situations, could be a nightmare to remember for all the participants in a large combat and, I can't help but suspect, isn't what the designers had in mind.

Legildur, the PHB says that the 5' step is not an action.

 

[Alpha Polaris]

Just curious. To all who allow an AoO on the weapon: Do you also allow sunder/disarm attempts on a weapon anytime someone uses a ranged weapon against you? Afterall, it is a ranged attack (provokes an AoO) and the weapon (be it arrow, bolt or javalin, etc) passes through your threatened area before it hits you.

No, but you're being playful here: we both know melee and ranged combat are completely different things. Otherwise I would be deflecting and snatching spear thrusts until hell freezes over.

 

[jasin]

By RAW it's A. I would allow disarming and sundering on the weapon, though.

I thought that was RAW.

If it isn't...

 

[jasin]

Do you:

A) Get to do your sunder/disarm/trip without incurring the AoO, laughing in your opponent's face because you didn't have to invest in a feat to get the benefit

B) Take the AoO as normal, explaining it as the opponent striking out at your hands or something

C) Watch as a logic error rips the fabric of space and time around you until you end up at a chilling blue screen with white text

D) None of the above

D) Watch in dismay as the opponent uses his Evasive Reflexes feat from Book of Nine Swords to take 5 ft. step either away from you or towards you, ruining your attack since now it is you who cannot reach him.

Bo9S characters can be so annoying.

In the typical case, I'm with the sunder/disarm crowd. Of course, if the opponent doesn't have Improved Sunder or Improved Disarm, they'll provoke an AoO from you... but as long as both of you don't have Combat Reflexes, it should all be manageable.

 

[Hypersmurf]

This differs from A in that you claim that you don't provoke. You do provoke, they just can't use it.

I disagree - you don't provoke an AoO.

"Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing an action within a threatened square."

If you are not in a threatened square and you attempt to disarm, are you performing an action within a threatened square? No; the square in which you are performing the action is not threatened; therefore no AoO is provoked.

-Hyp.