AoO Triggers


Advice


So I'm working on a melee AoO lockdown build for my WotR group. Mostly standard stuff really. Extra reach, trip feats. Now I'm looking for other ways to trigger AoO's. This is what I'm working with so far:

Spell-Less Ranger 2 (dual style): TWF, and Weapon/Shield
- gains TWF and Shield Slam

Fighter 5 (Lorewarden)
- gains Combat Expertise, CMB boosts

Monk 2 (Many Style, Sacred Mountain)
- Toughness, IUS, and Wolf Style/Trip are the winners here

Feats of Import
- BodyGuard + Mythic Combat Reflexes
- Improved Trip/Greater
- Eldritch Heritage (Orc)
- Wolf Style/Trip

The idea is to boost my AoO hit and dmg in order to trigger the free trip using Touch of Rage (plus traits to increase duration), Mythic Ever Ready, and Retributive Reach. However, I'm not leery about trusting the whole thing to only having extra reach. I'm currently using a Dwarven chain flail one handed, and a Klar. This gives me threatening at reach, and close. I'm considering switching up to a bardiche/fauchard, and threaten with my monk unarmed attacks. The extra damage from using a weapon 2 handed could help me trigger trips through Wolf Style.

So my question is....what I'm I missing? Anyone who's played a reach/lockdown build have any tips/tricks? Suggested changes?

Silver Crusade

Flowing Monk is a strong Archetype to combine with Sacred Mountain for interrupt effect.
Inquisitor 3 gets you Solo Tactics which can be used to take AoO's when your friends get them using Teamwork feats. It's a powerful way to get more AoO's.
Dirty Trick is a brilliant choice for maneuvers. It is not limited by size, and has so many effects something is almost always applicable to your opponent. Like Blind. With some investment it can be done with any attack action and has greater duration.


Inq.3 is an interesting idea. Not a fan of an additional loss of BAB...but it could work. Starting to look like this weird amalgamation, dip monster though. Flowing Monk could be good, but we have a pure monk who went Flowing in the party already.


ErrantPursuit, Gregory Connelly, and I were working on a bull rushing character build that delivers AoO's to the wielder. You need Great Bull Rush and Paired Opportunist. Great Bull Rush gives AoOs to your allies, and with Paired Opportunist, you get them, too.

Normally, a bull rush takes a standard action, but you are already thinking of Shield Slam, which couples your shield bash with a bull rush. Teamwork feats only work if your allies have the same teamwork feat, or unless you have 3 levels in Inquisitor. An interesting thing about using Great Bull Rush this way is if you are flanking an opponent with an ally who also has Combat Reflexes, you can use your Shield Slam for the AoO, which will grant your ally another attack of opportunity, and then you'll get one too.

Snake Fang grants you an Attack of Opportunity whenever someone misses you in combat.

For a trip build, in addition to Greater Trip, consider Vicious Stomp. That gives you an attack of opportunity whenever your opponent goes prone. And yes, according to an FAQ, that does stack. If you have Great Trip and Vicious Stomp, if you trip your opponent, you get 2 AoO's: one for tripping him, and one for making him go prone! Get Fury's Fall, which gives you a tripping bonus equal to your Dex mod.

Punishing Kick is an important feat for trip builds, because it will let you knock opponents prone who are 2 sizes bigger than you. Felling smash lets you combine one of your regular attacks with a trip attempt.

I'm in the minority with my opinion on trip weapons. Most people like trip weapons with reach that do a lot of damage in their own right, but I favor cheap, small trip weapons like sickles and flails. It seems to me that the advantage of a tripping character using a tripping weapon is that in the event of a catastrophic trip roll, you will get tripped by your own trip attempt, or you can elect to just drop your trip weapon. If your trip weapon is a halberd or fauchard with lots of plusses, then you're going to miss that weapon. If its just a sickle in your off hand, you can just drop it and pull another one off your belt, or just pull out a different weapon or shield if you think this monster is too dangerous to trip. I'd have my tripping character use a sickle in one hand and a warhammer in the other: he'll be the Soviet Union!

Another inexpensive AoO trigger build I have found is Broken Wing Gambit combined with Paired Opportunist. Broken Wing Gambit grants your opponents a +2 to hit you, but if they try, your allies get attacks of opportunity, and if you have Paired Opportunist, so do you. You might need to take a level in Cavalier for the Tactician ability to really grant your allies Broken Wing Gambit. A DM might disallow Solo Tactics by itself to make it happen. And since a level in Cavalier gives you a bonus Teamwork Feat, it might be a good idea anyway. If you join the Order of the Seal, you get a free bull rush or free trip attempt with every full attack directed against your dodge opponent.


I'm working on something similar right now using Holy Tactician. At level 3 I can give others Paired Opportunist (via a Bonus Feat). At level 5 Greater Bull Rush (or Reposition, still debating which I will use) will give everyone an AoO, and I will get one too due to Paired Opportunist. At level 7, I will be able to Bull Rush during a full attack with Quick Bull Rush.

I plan on doing all this with a reach weapon for extra potential AoOs (for me and and others). Interestingly, this FAQ entry says that you only need a weapon for the disarm, sunder, and trip maneuvers meaning I can Bull Rush an adjacent opponent while wielding a reach weapon and then make left over attacks with Quick Bull Rush.


You can have some fun playing keep away with a reach weapon and Pushing Assault. It is a way to go that doesn't involve Shield Slam and TWF.


Houngan wrote:

I'm working on something similar right now using Holy Tactician. At level 3 I can give others Paired Opportunist (via a Bonus Feat). At level 5 Greater Bull Rush (or Reposition, still debating which I will use) will give everyone an AoO, and I will get one too due to Paired Opportunist. At level 7, I will be able to Bull Rush during a full attack with Quick Bull Rush.

I plan on doing all this with a reach weapon for extra potential AoOs (for me and and others). Interestingly, this FAQ entry says that you only need a weapon for the disarm, sunder, and trip maneuvers meaning I can Bull Rush an adjacent opponent while wielding a reach weapon and then make left over attacks with Quick Bull Rush.

Greater Bull Rush at Level 5? How do you get GBR without a BAB of +6?

Clearly, there are times when you use a weapon for Bull Rushing, like when you use Shield Slam, for instance. But the Dev. Team can't think of everything.


Scott Wilhelm wrote:
Houngan wrote:

I'm working on something similar right now using Holy Tactician. At level 3 I can give others Paired Opportunist (via a Bonus Feat). At level 5 Greater Bull Rush (or Reposition, still debating which I will use) will give everyone an AoO, and I will get one too due to Paired Opportunist. At level 7, I will be able to Bull Rush during a full attack with Quick Bull Rush.

I plan on doing all this with a reach weapon for extra potential AoOs (for me and and others). Interestingly, this FAQ entry says that you only need a weapon for the disarm, sunder, and trip maneuvers meaning I can Bull Rush an adjacent opponent while wielding a reach weapon and then make left over attacks with Quick Bull Rush.

Greater Bull Rush at Level 5? How do you get GBR without a BAB of +6?

Clearly, there are times when you use a weapon for Bull Rushing, like when you use Shield Slam, for instance. But the Dev. Team can't think of everything.

I'm working on a level 7 build. I would retrain my level 5 feat at level 6.

I didn't say you couldn't Bull Rush with a weapon. What I am saying is that you don't need one.


Gregory Connolly wrote:
You can have some fun playing keep away with a reach weapon and Pushing Assault. It is a way to go that doesn't involve Shield Slam and TWF.

If you push your opponents back, Errant Pursuit pointed out on another thread that there was a danger of your opponent suddenly able to Charge back at you. I have been wondering if you couldn't put together some sort of anti-charging Attack of Opportunity build, then you'll want to finesse your opponent into charging so you can skewer him on your devastating counter.

In 3rd edition, there was a feat called Hold the Line. The prereq was Combat Reflexes. If someone charged you, they provoked an attack of opportunity. There was another feat called Pike Hedge, with a prerequisite of Hold the Line. That made your weapon do 2x damage when you were being recharged. If your weapon already did double damage, it goes up to triple damage. You can find those on the Crystal Keep webpage.

There is a Dwarven feat, Let them Come, that lets you make any weapon a Brace Weapon. That has the advantage of your opponents maybe not realizing that charging into Dwarves with their War Axes is as dangerous as charging into a Swiss square of pikes and halberdiers.

There is a feat in Kolbold Press in Advanced Feats: The Cavalier's Creed alled Reflexive Brace, "When you are charged while holding a weapon with the brace feature, you may brace your weapon as an immediate action and make an attack of opportunity before the charge attack is made."

One advantage of using Mr. Connolly's reach weapons is that even getting past your reach may provoke attacks of opportunity. If your reach weapon is a brace weapon too, and if you have Reflexive Brace you can get 2 attacks of opportunity, and they both do double damage. When you get your turn to make your regular melee attack, that attack will do double damage, too. Pretty cool. If you took Combat Patrol in addition to Let them Come and Reflexive Brace, your opponent might not even realize that you have reach, too. I'm starting to almost feel sorry for those Goblin Wolf Riders.

Now how can you finesse your opponent into charging? The Goad feat? A Command Spell? Getting to juuuust inside your opponents range if he double moves and harass him with a shortbow, then be ready with Quick Draw?


If you charge someone with a polearm, Pushing Assault and Combat Reflexes you are gonna get slaughtered. The charging character moves from 10 ft away to 5 ft away and provokes an attack of opportunity. This happens before the triggering event so you swing with your polearm, if you hit you use Pushing Assault to move them back to 15 ft away and they then move from 15 ft to 10 ft. If they try to keep going forward it counts as a new triggering and you start the process over until you run out of AoOs, miss with an AoO or they go down.


I'll go ahead and toss this warning out, and I'm pretty sure it's not a spoiler, everyone knows, you're going to be fighting demons. Demons.

Just for extra added effect; Demons

If you're wanting to trip, push, or pull something like a demon around, not only are you having to worry about pumping feats into giving you those AoO's, but you need to find a way to heavily boost your CMB. Even with the best CMB possible at Level 20/Mythic 10 you can't trip a number of monsters from the bestiary.

I'd recommend something like Stalwart Defender, they have a stance power that allows you to stop a monster dead in it's tracks just by hitting them. No need for a CMB check.

There's also the Order of the Shield Cavalier. (that's what I'm using in our WotR game.) At 8th level he gets the Stand Still feat for free, and he can instead of making the CMB check the feat normally requires, all he has to do is hit and do damage.


I find maneuver builds are hard to carry out. Trip is great but so many things are immune, same with grappling. I like Pushing Assault so much because nothing is immune to it and it ignores CMD. Don't get me wrong trip and grapple builds work just fine for what they work against. I think you need another shtick to go with them is all, because at the higher levels they don't work as often.


Gregory Connolly wrote:
If you charge someone with a polearm, Pushing Assault and Combat Reflexes you are gonna get slaughtered. The charging character moves from 10 ft away to 5 ft away and provokes an attack of opportunity. This happens before the triggering event so you swing with your polearm, if you hit you use Pushing Assault to move them back to 15 ft away and they then move from 15 ft to 10 ft. If they try to keep going forward it counts as a new triggering and you start the process over until you run out of AoOs, miss with an AoO or they go down.

Are you sure? Movement only provokes once per round, so even if you cause an enemy to re-enter a threatened space, you only get one AoO.

PRD: combat chapter wrote:
Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent.

Even by pushing him back, you wouldn't get another AoO. As neat as the idea is, I don't think it actually works by RAW.


Sindalla wrote:

I'll go ahead and toss this warning out, and I'm pretty sure it's not a spoiler, everyone knows, you're going to be fighting demons. Demons.

Just for extra added effect; Demons

If you're wanting to trip, push, or pull something like a demon around, not only are you having to worry about pumping feats into giving you those AoO's, but you need to find a way to heavily boost your CMB. Even with the best CMB possible at Level 20/Mythic 10 you can't trip a number of monsters from the bestiary.

I'd recommend something like Stalwart Defender, they have a stance power that allows you to stop a monster dead in it's tracks just by hitting them. No need for a CMB check.

There's also the Order of the Shield Cavalier. (that's what I'm using in our WotR game.) At 8th level he gets the Stand Still feat for free, and he can instead of making the CMB check the feat normally requires, all he has to do is hit and do damage.

Well, there are demons and there are demons. Not all demons are Balor Demons, the DM has some responsibility to make things CR appropriate for the story that he is creating in collaboration with the players.

Meanwhile, most demons have a DR, and most Combat Maneuvers bypass DR in at least some ways. So the search for the high CMB is a worthy one.

I have a grappling character who on different occasions between level 7 and 8, took down a hezrou demon, a rhemoraz, and an allosaurus in 1 round each. She's been keeping up so far.

You have a point, though, nothing works on everything, so it is a good idea to always have something so you can be ready for anything.


Jorshamo, It looks like it shouldn't but it does.

This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity). Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent.

They aren't moving out of more than one threatened square. They are moving out of the same threatened square multiple times. They could prevent the second trigger by simply moving one square over, but the charge action makes them go in a straight line.


@Gregory, If that does in fact work that way, fantastic, but you're gonne need beaucoup Combat Reflexes to keep up with that, no?

And Scott Wilhelm, your allosaurus-grappler is my hero. Just seeing those words strung together as a sentence makes me giddy.

Ghorrin

Liberty's Edge

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Sorry @Gregory, but unless you can provide some rules to support that interpretation, RAW disagrees with you. No where does it state a stipulation about which square they leave, simply that movement only provokes once, period. That is wishful thinking otherwise.

So many people tout that value of reach builds... and they are useful, granted... but seem to ignore or misread the limitations. One person advances, charge or otherwise, and you get one shot to put him down (two if you have all the groovy trip stuff), but if you don't succeed, he is in your face... and then every one of his buddies gets to follow in behind him and step into your non-threatened spaces as well, since reach weapons use the ranged rules for cover, and you get no AoOs against targets with cover.


Pushing Assault is something to build around, I agree you need a MAD strength and dexterity build. It doesn't let you use the bonus damage from Power Attack, so you need some other way to pump damage. You also need a reach weapon in practice because by the time you have Lunge so does everyone else. It is also the best thing I have found for stopping charges in Pathfinder.


@Fomsie
You are wrong. Until you show me where it says moving only provokes once I will use the sentences that are written in the PRD (and my hardcopy CRB, they haven't changed.)


I can see a legal interpretation where the Pushing Assault stops the charge after the first push. I can see a legal interpretation where they keep running into the polearm until the polearm wielder runs out of AoOs, misses, or the charger goes unconscious. But it would be a houserule to nerf Pushing Assault into not giving a second AoO for the continued movement out of the same threatened square.


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Gregory, this is what I think Formsie was referring to.

"Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent." I found this under the subheading Combat Reflexes and Attacks of Opportunity, under the subheading Attacks of Opportunity, under the Combat heading on d20pfsrd.com.

So if someone charges you with your reach weapon, they move through your threatened reach square, you take an AoO which also pushes them back 5 or 10 feet. If that round, they return to the same square, they do indeed provoke again. If they run around that square and enter via another square, they don't. At least that's my interpretation of the RAW.

But now there's the question of what if you did this to someone charging at you: does that break there charge? Conceptually, I'd certainly think getting repulsed by a 10' pole should break the charge and end the turn, but what of the RAW? Under the d20pfsrd, it says under Combat, under Special Attacks, under Charge,

"You... may move up to double your speed directly toward the designated opponent... You must have a clear path toward the opponent, and nothing can hinder your movement (such as difficult terrain or obstacles). You must move to the closest space from which you can attack the opponent. If this space is occupied or otherwise blocked, you can't charge. If any line from your starting space to the ending space passes through a square that blocks movement, slows movement, or contains a creature (even an ally), you can't charge.... If you don't have line of sight to the opponent at the start of your turn, you can't charge that opponent."

It seems a pikeman with Pushing Assault constitutes the very essense and spirit of an obstacle that would break a charge. That is why pikemen were invented.

That's not so bad, though: Someone is charging at you and you just skewered them on your polearm, broke their charge, and probably prevented their attack. If it was a brace weapon in addition to a reach weapon, you did double damage. If they don't have reach, too, you can keep spearing them, and they can't reach you. It doesn't give you multiple AoO's/round, but overall, this is a solid tactic. If someone with a lot of movement was approaching a lone pikeman cautiously, not charging, then he'd provoke 1 AoO, jibe to 1 side or another, then attack again. If the pikeman was in a formation there's be no such other square uncovered by his brothers.

Also, if Connelly's pikeman had readied an action against his charging opponent, then he could take his readied attack and his attack of opportunity. He gets 2 attacks: it's just that they're not both AoO's.


Dotting to read later

Silver Crusade

Here's a link to the source material.

Relevant passages:

Provoking an Attack of Opportunity wrote:
Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing certain actions within a threatened square.
Combat Reflexes and Additional Attacks of Opportunity wrote:
If you have the Combat Reflexes feat, you can add your Dexterity modifier to the number of attacks of opportunity you can make in a round. This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity, but if the same opponent provokes two attacks of opportunity from you, you could make two separate attacks of opportunity (since each one represents a different opportunity). Moving out of more than one square threatened by the same opponent in the same round doesn't count as more than one opportunity for that opponent. All these attacks are at your full normal attack bonus.

+Moving out of any individual square threatened by an opponent provokes an opportunity.
+You can only make one attack per opportunity.
+Moving out of any other square threatened by an opponent does not provoke a new opportunity during the same round.
-----------------------------------------------------
=Hence, movement provokes only once from any specific opponent.

Using Teamwork feats you can take attacks when your allies are allowed, or other situational and feat related exceptions.


So from what I'm seeing, there are a few suggestions out there that I'll try to summarize and comment on. I apologize if I miss one. I'm kinda new at the manual forum coding (not sure how you guys make such nice looking posts).

Teamwork Feats (Outflank, Paired Opportunist):

Can take individually and hope the group does as well, or "other" solutions:
- Solo Tactics, Inq. 3 (Interesting choice, but means a loss of BAB and 3 lvl dip in an already multi-dip build)

- Tactician, Cavalier (An outright amazing choice, although limited in uses/day. Essentially requires a rebuild for stats, and majority of lvls in order to fully capitalize)

Other Maneuvers:

In order to not become a one trick pony and utilize further "Greater" feats.
- Bull Rush tree (Overall not a bad idea, allows for more positioning shenanigans, and already have Shield Slam. Requires continued use of shield)

- Dirty Trick (Although an amazing option, doesn't really mesh well with current build or flavor. Heavy investment needed)

Other Feats:

Other feats that can enable some form of additional AoO or maneuver trick, etc.
- Felling Smash (Requires Power Attack use, but very little else. Good overall synergy with rest of build. Noted as Standard Attack only however.

- Pushing Assault (Requires Power Attack, and use of two handed weapon. Would require changing up to different weapon selection.)


Brol, don't forget Broken Wing Gambit! Broken Wing Gambit + Paired Opportunist over a few levels in Inquisiter and Cavalier = lots of attacks of opportunity for everyone.

Also there are feats that give you extra uses of Tactician.

And, if you have a tripping or bull rushing build, you should give a long, hard think about what you will do when you run into a creature for whom you are 2 sizes too small. But if Santa could do it, then so could the Grinch. Enlarge Person, Punishing Kick, levels in Maneuver Master or Punishing Adept, or just having a variety of strategies up your metal sleeves. Don't charge the pikemen, shoot them first.

Sczarni

As his arcane caster I can do enlarge person...but he normally doesn't like me to :)

Grand Lodge

Shfish wrote:
As his arcane caster I can do enlarge person...but he normally doesn't like me to :)

He does understand that Enlarge Person is often the best way to get lots of AoOs, right?

Sczarni

He has a reach and close weapon...
I think at the time I did it he said something like "You just dropped my AC by 2!!"....admittedly I think it was during an oh sh*t moment of mass enemies...


I'm pretty sure the moment you're speaking of was because we were in a dungeon room that didn't really have the space for my 10x10 butt.

@Scott. Oh I haven't forgotten about Paired Opportunist at all.

The Exchange

I personally don't like the concept of enlarge person for my characters at times, because I rather accomplish things while keeping my body the way it does. Just a personal preference.

This alias that I'm posting with right now is an exception, and is a reach trip build. Background and personallity are all ridiculous, and becoming a giant man will just let him role play even better, whereas before I wouldn't want it for those characters.

The Dex loss and other factors are definitely something to consider for the big picture for the battle.

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