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This question about the Flowing Monk's Redirection already lightens the mechanic when one combat maneuver is used. However the order of the actions and their interactions remains ambiguous to me when, at 8th level, the flowing monk can make both maneuvers:

At 8th level, a flowing monk can make both a reposition and a trip maneuver as part of a single immediate action with this ability.

Should both maneuvers be considered being done in the same time as they are both part of the same immediate action, making the order of execution irrelevant, or not? I think of two scenarios which would be impacted by the order of execution:

  • If the monk, having the Greater Trip feat, trips the opponent first and make an attack of opportunity, triggering his Unbalancing Counter feature. If the target fails its saving throw against the Unbalancing Counter, does that mean that the target is considered flat-footed and suffers a -4 penalty to its CMD for the just following Reposition maneuver?
  • If the monk wants to reposition the target adjacent to an ally who have the Vicious Stomp feat to trigger an attack of opportunity when tripping it, does that mean he must make the reposition maneuver first, then the trip?
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In this GM's campaign were a level 8 or higher monk that possesses the archetype flowing monk to take an immediate action to use the extraordinary ability redirection, this GM would allow the monk to pick the order: that monk could opt to use first the combat maneuver reposition then the combat maneuver trip or vice versa.

The game goes out of its way to avoid simultaneity, and this GM doesn't view the extraordinary ability redirection as an exception to that.

So, despite the monk taking only a lone immediate action to perform both maneuvers, if the order is important to the monk or her ally, allowing the monk to pick that order seems reasonable—especially in light of the Pathfinder bottleneck on immediate actions and the restrictions on the redirection ability. (The typical flowing monk is taking only one immediate action per turn and using the redirection ability only against a foe that attacks her in melee.)

Further, for much of the character's adventuring career, the extraordinary ability redirection is the main reason to play a flowing monk, so this GM doesn't see a problem with allowing the ability to be versatile and a little cool by letting the flowing monk pick which occurs first, either reposition or trip.


Note: While this reader would argue that the order in which the ability redirection presents the maneuvers could just be alphabetical rather than mandatory, this reader can imagine a stricter reader making the argument that because the redirection ability puts the maneuvers in the order reposition then trip, that's how the maneuvers should be executed. That would strike this player as strange as the resposition maneuver can move a creature to outside the monk's reach therefore eliminating the possibility of the flowing monk making the trip maneuver, tarnishing the tools in the flowing monk's toolbox. However, I suspect that only a GM that's watching in horror as flowing monk dominates his unusual campaign might offer such an argument.

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  • \$\begingroup\$ That player would be shrewd to listen to this player advice, as this player demonstrated wisdom time and time in the past. That player is humbled and grateful for the continuous presence of this player. \$\endgroup\$
    – Nyakouai
    Apr 19, 2019 at 13:54
  • \$\begingroup\$ @Nyakouai This user totally takes that in the spirit he hopes it's intended. :-) \$\endgroup\$ Apr 19, 2019 at 14:06

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