D&D 5E Clarification - Opportunity attacks

Plaguescarred · Aug 27, 2014

FYI Jeremy Crawford confirmed on twitter that a creature with Polearm Master is attacked adjacent if with a quaterstaff, or 2 squares away with a polearm, meaning a polearm reach is not just when attacking with it. Mike Mearls also tweeted a similar question when asked about polearm reach property.

@JeremyECrawford

On the grid, the target is adjacent if you're using a quarterstaff, but 5 feet away with the other PM weapons.

Plaguescarred · Aug 27, 2014

Paraxis said:
There was in the playtest, it got changed a little.

The feat is now called Sentinel, and the important part is this.
Creatures within 5 feet of you provoke opportunity attacks from you even if they take the Disengage action before leaving your reach.

Ha thanks i see i misremembered.

Agamon · Aug 27, 2014

Lalato said:
So does this mean that an enemy creature would need to leave the entire 10 foot radius area in order for the AoO to trigger? Or do we treat reach like a ring and if a creature enters the ring, they're OK, but if they attempt to close in to be adjacent to you... they are then exiting the reach area and you get an AoO?

The KISS principle works here. When they are trying to get away from you, you get an opportunity attack.

Dausuul · Aug 27, 2014

Astrosicebear said:
My group was discussing the lack of "5ft step" action, and if it was needed for AoO. I argued it was not needed because you only provoke an opportunity attack when you LEAVE a hostile creature's reach. They argued that each square counted as leaving reach, I argued there are no "squares" in core rules, and reach was linked to creature/weapon size. They said this sounded silly because if you are a monk with 50ft of movement, you could literally dance around a creature/character, doing circles around them, without leaving reach and provoking.

You are correct. You can move wherever you like as long as you don't break contact. (As for the monk, s/he could indeed do that. So what? Real fighters circle each other all the time. It's not like there's some game-breaking advantage to be gained by it.)

If you're the DM, and you personally have no problem with the rules as written, I say just go with them. You can always house rule if you encounter problems in play. My group hasn't found any issues with the new rule.

Li Shenron · Aug 27, 2014

Astrosicebear said:
They said this sounded silly because if you are a monk with 50ft of movement, you could literally dance around a creature/character, doing circles around them, without leaving reach and provoking.

Tell them that they have to STOP thinking in 3e/4e terms of opportunity attacks being something caused by "lowering your defensive". That's just a faint explanation if they want to use that, but it is not really the ground of the OA mechanics. Perhaps it was in previous editions, and the consequence was that we had to deal with a long list of actions which provoke or didn't provoke. Every action you could think about needed to be checked for OA, and decided if it provoked or not.

Stop thinking in those terms, think of 5e OA as something else, mostly meant to simply give a penalty for running away from melee or for trying to get past an opponent guarding someone/something. (And the penalty is up to the player: either take an attack against, or waste your main action to "disengage").

Anything else is completely unrelated to OA in 5e (unless a specific character feature overrides the general rules). There are no matters of figuring out "am I provoking an OA if I do <this>"? Even if <this> = "turn your back, drop you pants and chair-pillow-talk to the orcs".

Andor · Aug 27, 2014

Li Shenron said:
There are no matters of figuring out "am I provoking an OA if I do <this>"? Even if <this> = "turn your back, drop you pants and chair-pillow-talk to the orcs".

I'm pretty sure that would count as an opportunity. Half-Orcs gotta come from somewhere.

Lerysh · Oct 20, 2014

This is by far my least favorite change to the combat mechanics. I've tried it the way it's written and I just hate it. Specifically the encounter in the Starter Adventure at Wyvern Tor, with a half dozen orcs and an ogre.

Here's my main problem with this: Large creatures are terrible at opportunity attacks. Their reach expands as they get bigger, making a much larger zone of free movement. At the same time, if an ogre wants to be at it's preferred combat distance of 10', he has to take OAs from all the players within 5' of it to move back 1 square. I am kinda ok with the whole zone of control free movement around a target thing, but the minute you turn your back to go from 5' to 10' distance on a large target, that should trigger an OA, and it currently doesn't. It's pointless for ogres to try and harass ranged spellcasters or bow users because they can simply move back 5 and shoot without disadvantage because that rule specifically mentions 5' distance instead of "being threatened" or "inside enemy reach". That makes this OA rule extremely weak for large creatures.

Edit: I am the DM, clearly since I'm arguing for fair treatment of ogres. It's just terrible, to me, that being large makes you suck at zone control when it use to make you better at it.

Tormyr · Oct 20, 2014

Lerysh said:
This is by far my least favorite change to the combat mechanics. I've tried it the way it's written and I just hate it. Specifically the encounter in the Starter Adventure at Wyvern Tor, with a half dozen orcs and an ogre.

Here's my main problem with this: Large creatures are terrible at opportunity attacks. Their reach expands as they get bigger, making a much larger zone of free movement. At the same time, if an ogre wants to be at it's preferred combat distance of 10', he has to take OAs from all the players within 5' of it to move back 1 square. I am kinda ok with the whole zone of control free movement around a target thing, but the minute you turn your back to go from 5' to 10' distance on a large target, that should trigger an OA, and it currently doesn't. It's pointless for ogres to try and harass ranged spellcasters or bow users because they can simply move back 5 and shoot without disadvantage because that rule specifically mentions 5' distance instead of "being threatened" or "inside enemy reach". That makes this OA rule extremely weak for large creatures.

Edit: I am the DM, clearly since I'm arguing for fair treatment of ogres. It's just terrible, to me, that being large makes you suck at zone control when it use to make you better at it.

??? The ogre's reach is 5 feet.

Lerysh · Oct 20, 2014

Huh... I did not notice that. Could have sworn I read 10' reach somewhere in that stat block. Still, it's a problem for say, a Pit Fiend. They have reach 10' on all of their attacks except Bite is 5'. That's another quirk with this OA system, what if a creature has multiple reach values? Can the Pit Fiend Bite as an OA when someone leaves 5'? They are still within claw reach of 10'.

Tormyr · Oct 20, 2014

Lerysh said:
Huh... I did not notice that. Could have sworn I read 10' reach somewhere in that stat block. Still, it's a problem for say, a Pit Fiend. They have reach 10' on all of their attacks except Bite is 5'. That's another quirk with this OA system, what if a creature has multiple reach values? Can the Pit Fiend Bite as an OA when someone leaves 5'? They are still within claw reach of 10'.

I believe it can use its bite as an opportunity attack at 5 feet. There are a couple sites, this one included, that have copied all of the rules clarifications that Mike Mearls & Co. have made. I believe this was in one of those lists.

I think a pit fiend can handle itself just fine, though.

D&D 5E Clarification - Opportunity attacks

Plaguescarred

D&D Playtester for WoTC since 2012

Plaguescarred

D&D Playtester for WoTC since 2012

Agamon

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Dausuul

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