Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Athaal 08-24-07, 08:36 AM	I am very confused when comparing the two feats. Both grant the character AoO, but it would appear that karmic strike lowers AC by 4, whereas Robilar's Gambit raises the opponents attack bonus and damage rolls by 4. If i am correct then why take robilars? Is there something I am missing? Just for reference, Robilar's Gambit is PHB2, and Karmic Strike is CW
Incendius 08-24-07, 08:39 AM	Karmic Strike only works when you get hit and it has a feat as a prereq that not everyone will want to take. Robilar's gambit has no feat prereq and works anytime. whether you get hit or your missed.
Athaal 08-24-07, 08:55 AM	actually that makes sense so i am making a duelist BC (no need to say more, u know what they all are like) which is better
Nezkrul 08-24-07, 09:49 AM	Robilars will net you more AoO than Karmic Strike, and you save a feat.
StruckingFuggle 08-24-07, 10:20 PM	Plus, they work together (different acts trigger them!)... so if you want to take a net -8 to your defense... (hm. At the same time, I wonder if there's anything in the game that would cause (you have -4 to AC) and (opponents have +4 to attack) to behave differently...)
manick 08-24-07, 10:46 PM	Are you sure they work together? I read otherwise that they don't, and you have to choose to take the AoO from one or the other.
TheKeyofE 08-24-07, 10:55 PM	You only get one Attack of Opportunity per opportunity. That is to say, even though both Robilar's and Karmic can activate at the same time when you get attacked, you still only get one retaliatory AoO.
runestar 08-24-07, 10:56 PM	One triggers when you are attacked (but not necessarily hit), and the other triggers when you are hit. So they should stack - since they are 2 completely separate effects taking place at different timings. Thus, the sequence would go like this... You activate both robilar's gambit and karmic strike, taking -8AC. Someone attacks you. Robilar's gambit is triggered - you get to make an AoO against him, but only after his attack has resolved. He then hits you successfully, Karmic strike is then triggered, and you make another AoO. Slightly different from the original sequence I envisioned, but you should still get 2 AoOs this way. Throw in improved AoO feat and you are making 6 AoOs on the foe for every time he hits you. Great with the epic combat reflexes feat.:D
StruckingFuggle 08-24-07, 11:00 PM	Especially considering that AoOs happen before or in parallel with the attack, not after it... ... they attack you, this provokes an AoO. Your AoO resolves, then their attack resolves. If they hit you, then this second event provokes a parallel (I think?) AoO. One comes from the opportunity of them attacking, one comes from the opportunity of them hitting. Otherwise, you may as well say that Hold the Line and Robilor's Gambit don't stack!
manick 08-24-07, 11:06 PM	Throw in improved AoO feat and you are making 6 AoOs on the foe for every time he hits you. Great with the epic combat reflexes feat.:D What is this improved AoO feat you speak of and what book is it from?
runestar 08-24-07, 11:22 PM	What is this improved AoO feat you speak of and what book is it from? It is supposedly part of a 2-feat tree in dragon 340. The first feat lets you make 2 attacks/AoO, but the 2nd attack is at -5 to-hit, and this uses up 2 AoO attempts. The 2nd feat lets you make 3 attacks/AoO, but 2nd attack is at -5 to-hit while 3rd attack is at -10 to-hit, and you use up 3 AoOs in the process. Especially considering that AoOs happen before or in parallel with the attack, not after it... Actually, now that I think about it, doesn't robilar's gambit have a clause which states that your AoO is made after his attack is resolved? Would that affect the sequence in any way? I may need to go back and edit my post.:embarrass
Athaal 08-25-07, 10:29 AM	Robilar's Gambit Prerequisites: Combat Reflexes, BAB +12. Benefit: At the start of your action, you can adopt a fighting stance that exposes you to harm but allows you to take advantage of your opponents expoed defenses as the reach in and attack you. Anyone who strikes at you gains a +4 bonus on damage and attack rolls against you. In return, they provoke attacks of opportunity after your foe's attack. Karminc Strike Prerequisites: Dex 13, Combat Expertise, Dodge. Benefit: You can make an attack of opportunity against an opponent that hits you in melee. On your action, you choose to take a -4 penalty to your Armor Class in exchange for the ability to make an attack of opportunity against any creature that makes a successful melee attack or melee touch attack against you. The opponent hat hits you must be in your threatened area, and this feat does not grant you more attacks of opportunity than you are normally be allowed in a round. You specify on your turn that you are activating this feat, and the change to your Armor Class and your ability to make these special attacks of opporunity last until your next turn. From the books.
Mr_Teapot 08-25-07, 10:51 AM	actually that makes sense so i am making a duelist BC (no need to say more, u know what they all are like) which is better If you're playing a low or mid-level game, Robilar's is totally unavailable, so a counterattack build would want Karmic Strike. If you're playing ahigher level and/or are strapped for feats already (I mean, you'll also want Combat Reflexes, Deft Opportunist and a few other feats) you take Robilar's. The question of whether they stack AoOs or not was answered by Customer Service as a no. But whether or not you take their word for it is a separate matter.
Athaal 08-25-07, 11:36 AM	thank you for clearing it up
StruckingFuggle 08-25-07, 01:30 PM	The question of whether they stack AoOs or not was answered by Customer Service as a no. But whether or not you take their word for it is a separate matter. Considering both their history and the fact that there's no logic, real-world or internally-consistant, to support their ruling... If you look at it on the grounds of what they say, and without the bias of "Oh I don't like people being able to get two AoOs per attack they take, so it must be wrong" - the rules are quite clear. If you go with CS's ruling, you may as well rule that you can't use Hold the Line and Karmic Strike in conjunction. Personally, I'd also bank on it being RAI until I hear or read otherwise - they were written in a way that would both clearly allow them to interact, and even to allow for each other. It's not a matter of language, of one using "hits" and the other "attacks" as words to mean the same thing ... "Anyone who strikes at you gains a +4 bonus on damage and attack rolls against you. In return, they provoke attacks of opportunity after your foe's attack" (which also is deliberately written as an exception to normal AoO timing) vs. "On your action, you choose to take a -4 penalty to your Armor Class in exchange for the ability to make an attack of opportunity against any creature that makes a successful melee attack or melee touch attack against you."
Athaal 08-25-07, 01:35 PM	very true, I think it will be RAI and up to the DM
aelryinth 08-25-07, 06:29 PM	It's considered a no-stack because the triggering mechanism is being attacked. The AoO analogue is movement out of a threatened square. No matter how many squares they move out of, you only get one AoO. Moving INTO a threatened square, via Hold the Line, is a different trigger condition. The analogy would be more clear if there were more feats that operated off the 'leaving the square' mechanic. As an example for trigger conditions, I'd say that 'leaving a threatened square and moving into a square you don't threaten' is like Karmic Strike, and 'leaving a threatened square and moving into a square you do threaten' is like Robilar's. It is ENTIRELY possible for a character to do both of the above with one movement. However, you still only get one AoO. That's what KS and Robilar's are doing. The 'distinction' people are putting on the triggers is not the reason why they don't stack. It's because the core effect is the same. Hold the Line works because it functions off an entering mechanic, not a leaving mechanic, something they were careful to choose. In the current game, both Karmic and Robilar's should simply be stances. But, you work with what you can. ===Aelryinth
runestar 08-25-07, 09:39 PM	The AoO analogue is movement out of a threatened square. No matter how many squares they move out of, you only get one AoO. Moving INTO a threatened square, via Hold the Line, is a different trigger condition. The distinction seems overly fine. You provoke 1 AoO for each separate action you do which normally provokes suc an AoO. You stand up from prone - you provoke an AoO. You move out of a threatened square, you provoke another AoO etc. And the cycle goes on. Nor is the core effect exactly the same. One attacks you, the other must successfully attack you. By your analogy, does this mean that even if a dragon hits you with all its 6 natural attacks, you still get to make only 1 AoO against it, since they are all the same kind of action - attacks? I doubt that is how it would work. I believe that say, if a dragon made 6 attacks against you, you would get to make 6 AoOs against the dragon. By this same reasoning, both karmic strike and robilar's gambit should stack with each other. You can argue that it would be overpowering, but that is another angle to be covered in another argument.:)
Bopple 08-25-07, 09:49 PM	Yeah, almost every ruleslawyer here would argue it would stack as RAW. But I've never seen a dm actually allow them to stack. I guess my experience is not much different from others'.
Nezkrul 08-26-07, 01:28 AM	I am a rules-lawyer, and I say they don't work together, not that they don't stack. Karmic Strike and Robilar's don't function together because each action can only provoke one AoO per opportunity. The opportunity is you being attacked (the trigger for both; KS just requires the attack to be successful). KS doesn't say "when you take damage from a melee attack from someone you threaten".
StruckingFuggle 08-26-07, 02:26 AM	But I've never seen a dm actually allow them to stack. *raises a hand* Yo.
Majick 08-26-07, 03:59 AM	Well, as far as rules go, i am some-what sceptical, but as far as fun goes, i see obsolutely no reason why these wouldn't. For someone who has made it their business to get as many attacks of opportunity as they possibly can, then their is nothing wrong with this as far as i am concerned. The way i think about it, and this is of course just me messing about with number but, whatever ;) Max dice rolls: 18 + 4 Racial bonus to Dex (Catfolk +1 LA): 22 + Gloves of Dexterity (+6): 28 + natural increased (1 every 4 levels) by which you can actually attain Robilar Gambit (probably at about lvl 16, so +4): 32 So that's a +11 modifier on Dex based stuff, and 11 AoO per round. Very nice indeed. But for most builds (and i do say most) you will probably not get to use most of those by the end of your turn. Hell, even if you do, i still wouldn't consider this ULTRA optimised as far as i am concerned :P
Optimator 08-26-07, 04:43 AM	That's 12 AoOs.
Egres 08-26-07, 05:00 AM	Karmic Strike and Robilar's don't function together because each action can only provoke one AoO per opportunity. What if you have the Hold the line feat and a reach weapon? Would an opponent charging you provoke 1 or 2 AoOs from you?
aelryinth 08-26-07, 01:59 PM	The trigger conditions are different. ONe is entering a square you threaten while being charged, the other is (presuming you have reach) him leaving a square you have threatened. That's 2 AoO. Add that to a Ready action against a charge, and you get 3 Attacks. Death to Uber Charger builds. A dragon coming at you with six attacks would be analogous to the dragon making six rounds worth of movements to trigger AoO...or being threatened by six different people as it moved out of their threat areas. The rules specifically say you only get 1 AoO for movement out of threatened squares. Robilar's/Karma's triggers per attack. That's not a valid comparison. You are trying to define the feats as stacking because of the triggers per attack, not because of the attack itself, which is the important thing. ===Aelryinth
Egres 08-26-07, 05:41 PM	You are trying to define the feats as stacking because of the triggers per attack, not because of the attack itself, which is the important thing. My argument is that each feat creates an AoO where none existed before, so each one allows you an AoO.
aelryinth 08-26-07, 08:55 PM	And yet both use the same trigger - the attack - with a different trigger mechanism, which is moot. The attack itself is the trigger effect. Seriously, I think Karmic Should just be stricked. Robilar's was basically put into the game to replace it after the confusion of wordinig people were trying to pull off with the feat. Robilar's is much more clear, higher level, and amounts to the same thing. ===Aelryinth
EpicEvokerElf 08-26-07, 10:42 PM	One trigger is declaring an attack, the other is hitting. I'd say they stack.
Vrellum 08-26-07, 11:12 PM	They don't stack. As has been said before, the trigger for karmic strike is to get attacked and the attacker hits. That is a subset of the trigger for Robilar's Gambit, which is to simply be attacked. Therefore the triggers are the same and you only get one AoO per triggering event and thus you wouldn't get two AoO if you had both of them. BTW Robilar's Gambit is quite a bit better than Karmic Strike because it still works well if you have a good AC and it gives more AoO.
Egres 08-27-07, 04:27 AM	They don't stack. As has been said before, the trigger for karmic strike is to get attacked and the attacker hits. That is a subset of the trigger for Robilar's Gambit, which is to simply be attacked. There's no subset. If they were the same thing, a missed attack would activate both of them. But this is not our case. Not to mention that by your reasoning an unarmed character attacking with his unarmed strikes without the IUS feat would provoke only one AoO for each attack, no matter if you have Robilar'sG or not.
Vrellum 08-27-07, 07:43 AM	Explain how "attack that hits" is not a subset of "attack".
Egres 08-27-07, 08:25 AM	Explain how "attack that hits" is not a subset of "attack". They are two entirely different conditions. This is proved by the fact that you can have one and not the other (i.e. missed attack). If they were the same thing, both feats would trigger in the same condition. Not to mention that nowhere in the rules you'll find something like a "subset of an attack".
Vrellum 08-27-07, 10:27 AM	All apples are fruit, but not all fruit are apples. Apples is a subset of fruit. All "attacks that hit" are "attacks", but not all "attacks" are "attacks that hit". "Attacks that hit" is a subset of "attacks". Can you provide an example of an "attack that hits" that is not an "attack"?
Nezkrul 08-27-07, 11:34 AM	Not to mention that by your reasoning an unarmed character attacking with his unarmed strikes without the IUS feat would provoke only one AoO for each attack, no matter if you have Robilar'sG or not. That isn't "his" reasoning, thats RAW, Egres. If you don't like it, feel free to houserule. How many times do I or someone else have to quote the "only one AoO per opportunity" line from the rules? The opportunity, in this case, is you were attacked in melee, and both Robilar's and Karmic have to wait until the trigger event is over to function so they don't stack. To the OP: Robilar's is better than Karmic.
Egres 08-27-07, 06:21 PM	Can you provide an example of an "attack that hits" that is not an "attack"? I don't need to do it, cause, as said before, they don't trigger in the same time and in the same conditions. How many times do I or someone else have to quote the "only one AoO per opportunity" line from the rules? As many times as you like, since the two feats open two different opportunities.
Nightshade 08-27-07, 07:28 PM	I don't need to do it, cause, as said before, they don't trigger in the same time and in the same conditions. As many times as you like, since the two feats open two different opportunities. 1. Someone Attacks you 2. Robliar's is triggered 3. Karmic Strike is irrelevant because Robilar's is always triggered before Karmic Strike could possibly be triggered, (it doesn't matter whether you're hit or not). 4. One AoO per trigger. The trigger being the attack (whether it hits or not).
StruckingFuggle 08-27-07, 09:54 PM	4. One AoO per trigger. The trigger being the attack (whether it hits or not). See, that's the problem. A bunch of us (or at least, some of us) remain unconvinced that they share a common trigger. One triggers when someone attacks you, the other triggers when they hit you. "Initiating an attack" (in the pre-ToB sense - got a better word to use there?) and "striking someone with a successful attack" sure seem to be two seperate things to me...
Egres 08-28-07, 04:16 AM	The trigger conditions are different. ONe is entering a square you threaten while being charged, the other is (presuming you have reach) him leaving a square you have threatened. But the action is the same: my opponent just moved. Entering a square and leaving another square happens at the same time, and it's only a different view of the same action: an opponent's movement. This shows that the same action leads to different triggering conditions.
Psion_3 08-28-07, 04:18 AM	But the action is the same: my opponent just moved. Entering a square and leaving another square happens at the same time, and it's only a different view of the same action: an opponent's movement. This shows that the same action leads to different triggering conditions. True. The same goes for the Heedlong Rush feat. This feat would be without drawbacks if the charge movement would be considered as only one trigger. Another thing to notice is that the rules say: This feat does not let you make more than one attack for a given opportunity They don't state anything regarding an action. Now, since we are talking about opportunities, it's clear that we are talking about different triggering conditions. This shows that the two feats we are talking about allow two AoOs, unless you can prove that Karmic Strike and Robilar's Gambit have the same triggering condition.
Vrellum 08-28-07, 08:20 AM	Entering a threatened square is not a subset of leaving a threatened square, nor is the converse true. Thus this example is not the same as an "attack" and "attack that hits"
Egres 08-28-07, 09:37 AM	Entering a threatened square is not a subset of leaving a threatened square, nor is the converse true. Thus this example is not the same as an "attack" and "attack that hits" Unfortunately this "subset" of an attack is made out of thin air. I'm not challenging you: I'm just underlining that you are supporting your point with something that is not in the rules.
sparkster4242 09-03-07, 09:58 PM	i have a proposal which might help us: show me the rule. if it is indeed actions and not events which trigger an attack of opportunity, then show me the rule that tells us this. if it is instead events which provoke, then again - show me the rule that says so. direct quotations with source references (links or page numbers) are appropriate. if it is actions that provoke, then the creature will only be subject to one AoO per attack, successful or otherwise. if it is events that provoke, then both Robilar's and Karmic Strike should trigger, as their triggering events are not identical. i suspect that the answer will also resolve another question - if a creature is not taking any actions, but is being moved by some outside force (say being dragged by a rope, or falling), do they provoke attacks of opportunity for leaving a threatened square? if so, how many? one per creature, or one per square?
aelryinth 09-04-07, 01:10 PM	i have a proposal which might help us: show me the rule. if it is indeed actions and not events which trigger an attack of opportunity, then show me the rule that tells us this. if it is instead events which provoke, then again - show me the rule that says so. direct quotations with source references (links or page numbers) are appropriate. if it is actions that provoke, then the creature will only be subject to one AoO per attack, successful or otherwise. if it is events that provoke, then both Robilar's and Karmic Strike should trigger, as their triggering events are not identical. i suspect that the answer will also resolve another question - if a creature is not taking any actions, but is being moved by some outside force (say being dragged by a rope, or falling), do they provoke attacks of opportunity for leaving a threatened square? if so, how many? one per creature, or one per square? This question already exists in the standard rules...yes, they provoke AoO. Look at Bull Rush...if a character moves through threatened squares by outside force outside, his turn, he provokes. A nice way to fricasee someone is bull rush him along a line of people with weapons. Chopchopchopchop dead. ==Aelryinth
Egres 09-04-07, 01:10 PM	if a creature is not taking any actions, but is being moved by some outside force (say being dragged by a rope, or falling), do they provoke attacks of opportunity for leaving a threatened square? I don't see how this question is related to the topic, but I'll give it a try. Bull Rush Results If you beat the defender’s Strength check result, you push him back 5 feet. If you wish to move with the defender, you can push him back an additional 5 feet for each 5 points by which your check result is greater than the defender’s check result. You can’t, however, exceed your normal movement limit. (Note: The defender provokes attacks of opportunity if he is moved. if so, how many? one per creature, or one per square? What do you mean by "one per creature"? Are you assuming that there are more opponents? However, the rules say: 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. There's no distinction about moving by yourself or being moved. Edit: aelryinth was faster than me.