Using a special attack as an attack of opportunity?

[PrGo]

I know this is a newbie question, but it has bugged me and my group for a while now. Is it possible to use trip (if you have the Improved Trip feat) as an attack of opportunity?

Thanks in advance :smallbiggrin:

[Twilight Jack]

Yup, you can use a trip as an AoO.

The trick to figuring out the answer as applies to any other possible combat maneuver is whether the description of the maneuver describes it as a melee attack or a standard action.

If it's a melee attack, you're in the clear. If it requires a standard action, you can't use it as an attack of opportunity.

To put it another way, if you can use the manuever as part of a full attack action (i.e. an 11th level fighter using 3 melee attacks to disarm, trip, then swing), then it's viable as an attack of opportunity.

[PrGo]

Oh! Thank you very much! Just what I needed to know :smallbiggrin:

[T.G. Oskar]

Of course you can. Heck, there are builds devoted to tripping your opponent with attacks of opportunity.

But without delving further: whenever you are granted an attack of opportunity by an enemy, you can attempt all special attack options that involve attacking with a weapon or natural attack (or even a touch attack), that do not involve running, and that can be done as a standard action. In a nutshell, that means either a normal attack, Disarm, Grapple, Sunder and Trip. You can also do touch attacks if you have a held spell charge or if a feat requires you to (like Stormguard Warrior's Combat Rhythm in the Tome of Battle book), but no maneuvers.

The only doubt would be on the terms of smiting; I cannot say if you can smite or not as part of an action (I incline towards not). Any effect that would apply to a normal attack would apply to an attack of opportunity depending on the rules (so if an opponent provoked an attack of Opportunity to an invisible Rogue, or a Rogue with the Opportunist special ability, the sneak attack dice count)

[Twilight Jack]

As an aside, it's unclear in the rules as written but can be easily inferred that a melee attack which provokes an attack of opportunity may not be used as an attack of opportunity. By which rationale you could not use a trip attempt as your attack of opportunity unless you had a weapon that allowed tripping or the Improved Trip feat.

[Tehnar]

Also a special case regarding tripping AoOs. It is important to know that a AoO happens before the action that provoked it occurred. So if what provoked a AoO is a enemy rising from a prone position, you can use the AoO to trip the said enemy, but since it happens before the enemy uses his move action to rise, you are in fact tripping a already prone creature (which still can get up from prone using the same action that provoked a AoO).

Thus you can't use trip combined with AoOs to keep a creature prone.

[Talic]

However, you CAN use trip + AoO's to chainlock someone.

Let's say you're enlarged, with 20 foot reach. You have improved trip. Something provokes, and you trip it. It falls down, you take your bonus attack, and damage it.

It then stands up, and you attack it again as an AoO. That's its Action.

On your action, you full attack the creature. You attack once, then use your second attack and trip. You get a free attack for tripping.

It's action, it gets up. You get a free attack. It then tries to move out of your zone, provoking an attack. You use this to trip, and get a free attack of opportunity.

In other words, you get an obscene number of AoO's, attacks for damage, and bonus attacks. The above action is 1.5 rounds (2 rounds for opponent, 1 for you). You've made a total of 9 attacks, 6 of which have been damaging, three of which have been to trip. And all you needed was a base 16 str (14 after enlarge), which is reasonably obtainable.

The above assumes a level 6-10 character.

[lesser_minion]

I'm pretty sure I recall hearing that RAW has nothing against an attack that provokes an AoO being used as an AoO.

So a fighter could try to disarm a barbarian, only for the barbarian to try and grapple the fighter, only for the fighter to trip the barbarian.

As you can see, there really should be a rule against using an AoO which provokes an attack of opportunity, but at the moment that only applies to unarmed attacks. I think that passes the "how should it work?" test though.

As for the Op's question: the attacks to which you refer are described as 'attack actions', meaning that they may be used any time you are allowed to make an attack, no matter what.

If something is explicitly called out as a standard action or a full-round action, then it isn't an attack, and it can't be an attack of opportunity.

[Talic]

I'm pretty sure I recall hearing that RAW has nothing against an attack that provokes an AoO being used as an AoO.

So a fighter could try to disarm a barbarian, only for the barbarian to try and grapple the fighter, only for the fighter to trip the barbarian.

As you can see, there really should be a rule against using an AoO which provokes an attack of opportunity, but at the moment that only applies to unarmed attacks. I think that passes the "how should it work?" test though.

As for the Op's question: the attacks to which you refer are described as 'attack actions', meaning that they may be used any time you are allowed to make an attack, no matter what.

If something is explicitly called out as a standard action or a full-round action, then it isn't an attack, and it can't be an attack of opportunity.

Actually, the "nested" AoO example you brought up is specifically addressed in rules of the game: AoO's. Use the search tool on www.wizards.com to search for "Rules of the Game". Useful stuff.