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I know there is language about opportunity attacks that says:

You also don’t provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction. For example, you don’t provoke an opportunity attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe’s reach or if gravity causes you to fall past an enemy.

But Polearm Master seems to change that a bit:

While you are wielding a glaive, Halberd, pike, or quarterstaff, other creatures provoke an opportunity attack when they enter your reach

If I pulled someone to me, who is 15 feet away, do I get a Polearm attack as they enter my reach? Then they are 5 feet from me and take the lighting lure damage?

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2 Answers 2

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No.

Here are the relevant phrases in support of my answer, from the rules for Opportunity Attacks.

You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To make the opportunity attack, you use your reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature. The attack occurs right before the creature leaves your reach.

You can avoid provoking an opportunity attack by taking the Disengage action. You also don't provoke an opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone or something moves you without using your movement, action, or reaction.

1) Lightning Lure does not result in the target moving of their own volition. It moves them without using their movement, action or reaction, and a standard Opportunity Attack only occurs if a target moves of their own volition (or while under the effect of some charm or other condition that causes them to move by coercion as if they had done so willingly).

2) Polearm Master only explicitly extends the general rule that Opportunity Attacks happen when you leave a creature's reach with a specific extension that it can happen when you enter a creature's reach. The contrast of the words "leave" and "enter" implies that Polearm Master is only intended to alter the direction of intentional movement on the part of the target that triggers the Opportunity Attack, not other aspects of how Opportunity Attacks work. If that were not so, we would expect the Polearm Master description to state a special exception to the general rule by allowing this Opportunity Attack to trigger against a target that is unwillingly moved, but in the absence of such an exception the prohibition on unwilling movement in point 1 still applies.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ I guess, because its not explicitly said it doesn't change the rules at all. Thank you for the breakdown. My Bladelock will have to just find another way to game the system. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ian Kremer
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 16:33
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    \$\begingroup\$ This seems kind of ambiguous to me, one could interpret this using the specific over general principle to assume Polearm Master overrides the whole attack of opportunity system, or just that one part of it. Though I don't disagree with this answer, I could see a DM ruling either way. For example the part about disengage can no longer be sensibly applied, so I can't assume for sure the unwilling part does either. \$\endgroup\$
    – Vality
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 20:04
  • \$\begingroup\$ Wait a minute, if someone disengages, then enters the reach of a polearm master, are they immune to the AoO?!?! I guess they are, if this answer is right, because we should assume all properties of AoO's apply to the reaction attack! \$\endgroup\$
    – jerclarke
    Commented Sep 20 at 21:09
  • \$\begingroup\$ By the same logic, you could also have a friendly entity PUSH you into the reach of the polearm master to avoid the reaction attack! \$\endgroup\$
    – jerclarke
    Commented Sep 20 at 21:10
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Polearm Master only changes what direction of movement can trigger an attack of opportunity — it adds entering to the usual exiting. It doesn't alter the rule that forced movement doesn't trigger attacks of opportunity, so the movement still has to be voluntary.

If Polearm Master was trying to add involuntary movement to the triggers for attacks of opportunity, it would have to explicitly say that to override the general rule that involuntary movement doesn't.

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    \$\begingroup\$ Ah that makes sense. Oh well, it would have probabbly been a bit overpowered as a Bladelock to do that anyway. Thanks for the edit btw, looks a lot better now. \$\endgroup\$
    – Ian Kremer
    Commented Dec 30, 2016 at 16:32

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