[3.5] Deft Opportunist + Improved Trip

[HalfQuart]

I'm hoping someone can clear something up for me. I'm currently playing a 3.5 spiked chain tripper with Improved Trip and Deft Opportunist (CAdv). The way I've been playing it is if I make an AoO and use it to make a trip attack, I get the +4 to hit from Deft Opportunist on the touch attack, but not the follow-up attack given by Improved Trip.

But then I re-read the feats today and am wondering if I've been playing it wrong all this time.

Improved Trip says: "If you trip an opponent in melee combat, you immediately get a melee attack against that opponent as if you hadn’t used your attack for the trip attempt. "

Deft Opportunist simply says: "You get a +4 bonus on attack rolls when making attacks of opportunity."

So does the melee attack granted by Improved Trip count as an AoO since it says "as if you hadn't used your attack" -- the trip was an AoO so the follow up attack is too? The FAQ has a bit about Improved Trip with effects like True Strike that explicitly say they only apply to the next attack... but Deft Opportunist doesn't have any of that language: it just applies to AoOs.

Perhaps that would just be too powerful... getting +4 from Deft Opportunist on top of the +4 from being prone would make missing pretty rare.

Thoughts?

[limejuicepowder]

Hmm...I can see arguments for both sides, but I'd fall in the "it's an AoO" group. Improved Trip does have the "as if you hadn't used it to trip" language, which is fairly convincing to me.

As far as +8 to the attack goes, remember that you are spending a feat to get, in the overall scheme of things, a +4 bonus to a situational attack. Sounds reasonable to me.