Attacks of Opportunity Provoking Attacks of Opportunity?

[slaughterj]

Here's another section of the FAQ I just noticed... I really wish I had noticed this earlier...

Is sunder a special standard action or is it a melee
attack variant? It has its own entry on the actions table, but the text describing it refers to it as a melee attack. Is sunder a melee attack only in the sense of hitting something with a melee weapon, or is sunder a true melee attack?

Sunder is a special kind of melee attack. If it were a special standard action, its description would say so (as the descriptive text for the Manyshot feat says). If you make a full attack, and you have multiple attacks from a high base attack bonus, you can sunder more than once, or attack and sunder, or some other combination of attacking and sundering.

Sunder does indeed get its own entry in Table 8-2: Actions in Combat in the Player’s Handbook. It needs one because unlike a regular melee attack, sunder provokes an attack of opportunity (although not if you have the Improved Sunder feat)
.
You can also disarm, grapple, or trip as a melee attack (or attack of opportunity).

Hope this helps as well.

That appears to resolve one issue, based on the last line all those actions appear to be an option for an AoO, which makes sense when you think about it as I mentioned in my post just above.

 

[Sutek]

My problem is that AoO description says that it's an attack at "normal attack bonus" and that's not how Sunders, Grapples and so on are conducted. There's more to it than that. Plus, since Combat Reflexes is effectively granting multiple attacks, although they are AoOs, but these atacks are ALL at normal attack bonus (not diminishing bonuses as are normal multiple attacks due to high level or extra weapons) then there's no penalty really for waiting to do all of these "special attack types" like Sunder and Grapple and so on.

 

[Foxworthy]

So if someone is flanked and provoked a AoO you wouldn't give the flanking bonus tot he attacker cause it's not thier normal attack bonus?

The point of the normal attack bonus comment is so people don't think of AoO as the same as iterative attacks. That's why it's mention only after talking about how people can get multiple attacks.

BTW way which melee attack option doesn't use your melee attack bonus? All the ones I read like grapple, Sunder, trip, and what not use an attack roll based off your normal attack bonus. Though circumstancial bonus apply. Though some of the special attack do give the defender a special defense in exchange of being damage.

 

[slaughterj]

My problem is that AoO description says that it's an attack at "normal attack bonus" and that's not how Sunders, Grapples and so on are conducted. There's more to it than that. Plus, since Combat Reflexes is effectively granting multiple attacks, although they are AoOs, but these atacks are ALL at normal attack bonus (not diminishing bonuses as are normal multiple attacks due to high level or extra weapons) then there's no penalty really for waiting to do all of these "special attack types" like Sunder and Grapple and so on.

Well, I found a cite in the Conan book that addresses this subsequently arising issue in this thread. On page 155, footnote 8 (PG p. 235), it refers to Disarm, Grapple, and Trip (but notably not Sunder, if it matters), and states "These attack forms substitute for a melee attack, not an action. As melee attacks, they can be used once in an attack or charge action, one or more times in a full attack action, or even as an attack of opportunity." Therefore, it is a clear rule in Conan that one can Disarm, Grapple, and Trip as an Attack of Opportunity.

 

[jadrax]

Well, I found a cite in the Conan book that addresses this subsequently arising issue in this thread. On page 155, footnote 8 (PG p. 235), it refers to Disarm, Grapple, and Trip (but notably not Sunder, if it matters), and states "These attack forms substitute for a melee attack, not an action. As melee attacks, they can be used once in an attack or charge action, one or more times in a full attack action, or even as an attack of opportunity." Therefore, it is a clear rule in Conan that one can Disarm, Grapple, and Trip as an Attack of Opportunity.

So that's that cleared up beyond a shadow of a doubt then.

 

[Sutek]

So if someone is flanked and provoked a AoO you wouldn't give the flanking bonus tot he attacker cause it's not thier normal attack bonus?

The point of the normal attack bonus comment is so people don't think of AoO as the same as iterative attacks. That's why it's mention only after talking about how people can get multiple attacks.

BTW way which melee attack option doesn't use your melee attack bonus? All the ones I read like grapple, Sunder, trip, and what not use an attack roll based off your normal attack bonus. Though circumstancial bonus apply. Though some of the special attack do give the defender a special defense in exchange of being damage.

The phrase "normal attack bonus", as you say, is in terms of defining an AoO as not being one of the attacker's iterative series of multiple attacks.

So, in those terms, the flank bonus is and adjustment to a character's normal attack bonus, and you'd get to use it. Flank bonus has nothing to do with Sundering though. Not sure why you bring it up, actually.

I'm saying that I don't think it should work that way. AoOs work fine being just a simple strike. I've already said that if you want to do otherwise, knock yourself out, but I still feel it's rules lawyering and trying to make more out of what AoOs are inteded to be. That's just my opinion and it doesn't make either of us bad, evil people. :lol:

The real point is that slaughterj found the real stated place in the book that supports "stacked AoOs", we'll call them. I, however, will not run it as anything other than AoO = strike. So I'll keep playing it the way I've always done adn you guys can call it a house rule.

Good eyes slaughter. That's the citation I was needing to convince me otherwise. 8)