Stay back! The joy of OAs.

[Ceylin]

I would argue that the monster's movement is interrupted and does not move adjacent toward the fighter. The polearm already has reach - so it *can* hit the monster in the square that it starts in. It then attempts to enter the square, and the OA fires, interrupting the action. If it is a hit, Combat Superiority kicks in and stops the movement. Since this is an interrupt, and OA's occur before the action is finished, this movement is stopped in the starting square. The monster can then use additional actions to keep moving - but this particular move has ended.

How does this play out? Well, no monster can strictly move up to a pole-arm gambit fighter and make an attack without risk. They have to risk taking the OA. If the OA misses, the fighter grants combat advantage - so there is a downfall of doing this. Tactics wise, all the mobs have to do is move in range, and then shift-attack the next turn to safely dodge the OA (since OA's specifically do not target shifts (pg290 - moving provokes).

 

[hamishspence]

or teleports.

Eladrins can teleport in close and put the smackdown on said polearm fighter.

the rules work as described: opportunity attacks are Interrupts, but aren't Immediate Interrupts. That is to say, you get as many as there are provocations. But only one per opponent per turn

(not one per provocation, I think, so you could move in, provoke, it misses, do something that would normally provoke in same turn, and no OA can be made.)

Remember Combat superiority says, Oppenents struck by OA stop moving. So if it misses, you can get in close.

if you say adjacent applies in 3D, a flying fighter with Polearm Gamble could stop as many as 26 flying enemies from moving adjacent. Imagine multiple flyers closing in from all sides, and fighter explodes into a blur of motion, resembling a ball of spikes.

 

[webrunner]

Actually, opportunty attacks aren't Interrupts. they interrupt, but they aren't Interrupts: the only type of Interrupt is an Immediate Interrupt, and the Immediate rules do not apply to Opportunity actions.. It simply says they happen during the action (particularly, before it finishes). It doesn't say whether it happens before or after the -specific- square of movement that triggered it, which basically means it's up to the DM.

 

[Lord Sessadore]

Actually, opportunty attacks aren't Interrupts. they interrupt, but they aren't Interrupts: the only type of Interrupt is an Immediate Interrupt, and the Immediate rules do not apply to Opportunity actions.. It simply says they happen during the action (particularly, before it finishes). It doesn't say whether it happens before or after the -specific- square of movement that triggered it, which basically means it's up to the DM.

I would disagree.

- An OA happens before the trigger completes. Therefore, if the trigger is "enter a square adjacent to you", you get your OA before they enter that square.
- If you hit and you're a fighter, you end their movement.
- Since the trigger occurred before they actually moved, once their action resumes they are in their original square still (they don't complete the move until after the OA is resolved), but they have no more movement left anymore, and so are stuck at reach.

At least that's how I see it.

 

[Stormtalon]

One thing to keep in mind; ultimately, it may not really matter if the enemy winds up adjacent to the fighter. This is a polearm we're talking about, and what are they best at? Shoving people all over the place.

Even if he does wind up next to the fighter, odds are he ain't gonna be there for long. "No, no, no -- I want you to stand..." *whack-shove* "...THERE!!"

 

[Big J Money]

PHB Pg 290

"Interrupts Target’s Action*: An opportunity action
takes place before the target finishes its action**.
After the opportunity attack, the creature resumes
its action. If the target is reduced to 0 hit points or
fewer by the opportunity attack, it can’t finish its
action because it’s dead or dying."

This* is what makes all this confusing. It uses the word interrupt, which has erroneously lead the OP to defer to the rules of immediate interrupt, which is a different class of action altogether. This doesn't necessarily invalidate the OP's tactic, however! Let's take a look to see if it's possible.

Look at what I underlined**. It says that the opp action takes place before the target finishes the action. In this case, we are talking about movement, which is trickier than a standard action, because a move action consists of a linear string of many events. To say that you interrupt an attack is easy -- you get to do whatever it is before the attack is over, which could prevent it entirely. To say that you interrupt movement also means that you get to do whatever it is before the movement is over. However, does it mean that you prevent the 1 specific square that triggered the move-based opp action? My interpretation, according to the ruling of both opportunity attacks and the specific opp attack from the feat, is that the target has already moved into the square that triggered the opp attack. If it had not, the opp attack would never have been able to take place in the first place! This is a legal interpretation. It provides the interruption to the move action as stated by the rules.

I may be wrong, but this is the point in contention for the thread. If I am wrong, these are the implications:

If an opp attack really does happen technically before the specific square-move that triggered it, that means that ALL opp attacks function in that way, not just the feat we are talking about. This means that if you get a successful, vanilla opp attack on an enemy, that enemy will be interrupted before he has left the square adjacent to you -- with Combat Superiority, they will be stuck where they are. My understanding is that opp attacks do not work like this, so I am led to rule according to the legal version of the rules I stated above. (Until further notice)

 

[Chen_93]

If an opp attack really does happen technically before the specific square-move that triggered it, that means that ALL opp attacks function in that way, not just the feat we are talking about. This means that if you get a successful, vanilla opp attack on an enemy, that enemy will be interrupted before he has left the square adjacent to you -- with Combat Superiority, they will be stuck where they are. My understanding is that opp attacks do not work like this, so I am led to rule according to the legal version of the rules I stated above. (Until further notice)

If it didn't interrupt him before he left the square adjacent to you, how did you hit him without a reach weapon? It would imply anyone without a reach weapon could only take very limited movement based OAs and never take OAs against someone who moved directly away from them. By this logic the OA HAS to occur while the creature is still in the adjacent square to you so you can actually hit him. By the same logic, the creature will still be one square away from you when you take your polearm gambit attack. As such, fighters WILL stop movement cold in cases where the creature tries to get away (or approach in the case of polearm gambit).

 

[hamishspence]

Opp attacks + Superiority

I think that is the whole point of describing the fighter as "sticky" he stops movement with opportunity attacks. Getting away from him is very difficult:

Obvious example: they are adjacent, enemy wishes to move directly away and attack something else. If the enemy had moved before the Opp attack went off, it wouldn't go off in the first place, because the fighter couldn't reach his enemy.

 

[Tony Vargas]

[*]The OA is triggered on enemy's "move adjacent", so people can run around you if they keep 1 square away. That makes it not as effective for crowd control as 3e's reach (or 4e's Threatening Reach), but as the title of the thread says, it also means that you can keep people from moving adjacent.

I don't think it actually lets you take the OA at reach. Polearm Gamble is worded very differently from threatening reach, at no point does it say you can make an OAs against a non-adjacent target. The general rule that OAs are taken against adjacent targets is not contradicted by the specific rule presented in Polearm Gamble, all it does is give you an additional condition under which you can take an OA (when an enemy moves from a non-adjacent square to an adjacent one). The OA still happens when he's adjacent, because you can't take the OA against a non-adjacent foe unless you have Threatening Reach - which PCs, aparently, can never get.

 

[hamishspence]

interrupts Movement

it says it interrupts movement, and combat superiority says it stops movement. so its not so much Move adjacent as "try to move adjacent"