Bringing common sense to AoOs

[Crothian]

Against the opponent who is mobile, actively defending himself, but leaves two gaps in his defence when he attempts to disarm me and then run away, my expected damage is 6.75 (three attacks - my normal attack plus two AoOs - at a 50% chance to hit each).

Did they change the rule or are you still limited to only one AOO per person each round?

 

[sfedi]

Did they change the rule or are you still limited to only one AOO per person each round?

Normally, you have only one AoO per round.
But you can get more with Combat Reflexes.
The new rules (3.5) changed in that you can make one AoO per opportunity that presents.
Thus, a creature moving through several of your threatened squares provokes only one AoO. But a creature quaffing a potion and getting up from prone, provokes two AoOs (you could only take advantage of both if you had more than one AoO per round).

 

[Scion]

For those of you that play combat as a large amount of swings and parries which amount to a great deal of attacks but only a couple of rolls, how do you work ranged combat?

Both give a certain number of rolls and can be over a number of opponents. Do you make someone lose a random number of arrows each round? Or do these attacks somehow work differently than the others?

I definately prefer the 1 attack = 1 attack view, it makes the rest of the system work much better.

At that point an aoo isnt just an attack that happens to make it through the defenses at certain times, it is actually a real attack and a decission (whereas if it was just randomly making it through the defenses more then you wouldnt get the choice of where to apply it or only get one per round without a special feat). The decission here is very important in my eyes. If you attack everyone all of the time but certain actions make those attacks go through then you get lots of inconsistancies, as are seen here. However, going the other way there arent any problems.

I also feel that the base rules support this.

SRD:
ATTACK ROLL
An attack roll represents your attempt to strike your opponent on your turn in a round.
ATTACKS OF OPPORTUNITY
Sometimes a combatant in a melee lets her guard down. In this case, combatants near her can take advantage of her lapse in defense to attack her for free. These free attacks are called attacks of opportunity.


So, with this I dont think there are any real problems with aoo's except that certain things that should make them happen do not, but then that is a problem no matter how they are interpreted

I guess CDG was their compromise for how things should work. Makes sense in some ways and not in others. But, letting someone take a bunch of aoo's against a helpless target would probably just be too good. Hence the limitation.

 

[Laman Stahros]

What I have a problem with is cleave on an AOO. I summon a kobold next to my allied 10 level fighter with cleave and move the kobold to allow the fighter an AOO. The kobold almost definitely drops, and the fighter
cleaves into the baddies. Or have we been playing this wrong?

Well, while there is no wrong, in my game that tactic would not work. The summoned creature is an ally, and therefore can not draw an AOO from the fighter. YMMV.

 

[Hypersmurf]

For those of you that play combat as a large amount of swings and parries which amount to a great deal of attacks but only a couple of rolls, how do you work ranged combat?

Both give a certain number of rolls and can be over a number of opponents. Do you make someone lose a random number of arrows each round? Or do these attacks somehow work differently than the others?

Ranged attacks work differently... which is why you don't threaten with a ranged weapon.

With a sword, if someone leaves a hole in their defences, one of those 'extra' cinematic swings can become a mechanical attack roll - an AoO.

With a bow, if someone leaves a hole in their defences, nothing happens, because there are no 'extra' arrows flying around. No AoO.

I also feel that the base rules support this.

Check the PHB rather than the SRD. It actually states that a single attack roll is not a single swing of the sword, but represents a series of lunges, parries, thrusts, etc. (I'm away from my books, so I don't have the wording exact.)

At that point an aoo isnt just an attack that happens to make it through the defenses at certain times, it is actually a real attack and a decission (whereas if it was just randomly making it through the defenses more then you wouldnt get the choice of where to apply it or only get one per round without a special feat).

[shrug] I consider the "Spend an AoO to convert a cinematic swing into a mechanical attack roll" decision to be a metagame one on the player's part, not an in-game one on the PC's part... much like the decision to use the Luck Domain power to reroll a die after the number is known, but before the effects are revealed.

In 3E, there was no protection from AoOs for total concealment (as there is in 3.5). So if an invisible creature provoked an AoO in a threatened square, I would inform the player of the threatening character "An AoO has been provoked. Do you want to take it?"

He doesn't know who's provoking it. He doesn't know what action provoked it. For all he knows, it might be the Pixie Hero Brigade coming to the rescue.

If he chooses to take the AoO, he crosses off one allowed AoO for that round, picks a square, rolls a miss chance, and makes an attack roll.

If he chooses not to, that's fine.

-Hyp.

 

[sfedi]

Hyp. you put it well.
I couldn't make it clearer.

I used the rule that beeing helpless provoked AoOs all the time (as Hyp explained before) and it made the combat more deadly, for everyone.
Once you dropped, you were practically dead.
There were rare occasions that an enemy wouldn't take the AoO because he didn't want to loose all of his AoOs.
Note that under this rule, all inanimate objects draw AoOs as well, such as doors, walls, etc.
Thus, breaking a wall/door/etc. was much more quick than under normal rules.

Currently we are not using this rule, and although the players are relieved, it feels REALLY AWKWARD when someone drops and you can't make an AoO to make sure he's dead. In fact, this has caused a lot of headaches to the PCs, as some enemies could be cured and restored to full hps thanks that they were not killed previously.

 

[spacecrime.com]

Y'all are missing something.

Attacks of opportunity do not exist to bring greater realism to combat. They exist to force decision points in combat.

The fundamental idea behind an AoO is, "I can take an action to help my character gain an advantage, but that action puts me (and possibly my allies) at risk from my opponent. I must deal with that risk, either by not taking the action, by using tactics or abilities to negate the risk, or by letting the opponent swing and hoping the dice fall my way." The decision is what's important, not the verisimilitude.

If you want to unleash AoO's on a helpless person, it's your game. Go you. But I think there are better tactics available in the rules as written, starting with coup de grace attacks.

cheers,

 

[Scion]

Ranged attacks work differently... which is why you don't threaten with a ranged weapon.

Unimportant. They dont threaten for a different reason, not because you arent constantly shooting arrows in every direction.

With a sword, if someone leaves a hole in their defences, one of those 'extra' cinematic swings can become a mechanical attack roll - an AoO.

With a bow, if someone leaves a hole in their defences, nothing happens, because there are no 'extra' arrows flying around. No AoO.

Again, unimportant.

Besides if someone leaves a whole in their defenses one has to actually choose whether or not to get this extra flurry of swings or whatever people wnat to call it. It makes much more sense useing the rules I posted.

Check the PHB rather than the SRD. It actually states that a single attack roll is not a single swing of the sword, but represents a series of lunges, parries, thrusts, etc. (I'm away from my books, so I don't have the wording exact.)

Flavor text which is removed and the actual rules remain for the srd.

There are times when the flavor text is simply wrong or confusing. In this case that seems to be the case.

Making 3 or 4 swings in a single round is pretty hard already, pretending like there are dozens of swings going on, and yet all of them having the full benefit of their respective str bonus, just doesnt make any sense. However, being able to strike when the player likes, at whichever opponent they like, follows the rules I posted much better and makes a whole lot more physical sense (as I have done quite a bit of actual weapon training I feel qualified to make that statement ). Given the abstractions present already I feel that the die roll itself represents enough without having to worry about making a few dozen swings but only one actual roll happening and only one 'hit' occuring.

Again however, it simply makes more sense with the rest of the system. No worries about the problems presented in this thread other than the helpless guy, which is apparently just a way to keep certain thing from being abused.

[shrug] I consider the "Spend an AoO to convert a cinematic swing into a mechanical attack roll" decision to be a metagame one on the player's part, not an in-game one on the PC's part... much like the decision to use the Luck Domain power to reroll a die after the number is known, but before the effects are revealed.

Of course, I consider these real in game effects. Hence being able to have extra training in it. The combat reflexes feat allows one to do something real more often, not just allow metagaming more often

In 3E, there was no protection from AoOs for total concealment (as there is in 3.5). So if an invisible creature provoked an AoO in a threatened square, I would inform the player of the threatening character "An AoO has been provoked. Do you want to take it?"

Of course I would do no such thing, as you have to know an opponent is there in order to do anything about it. No 6th sense about aoo's happening within the area around you for no apparent reason. If you have absolutely no way to know something is going on, then you dont know it is going on. Just like if your character doesnt have any ranks in a skill and something with a dc 30 pops up they just dont know. No real difference there.

He doesn't know who's provoking it. He doesn't know what action provoked it. For all he knows, it might be the Pixie Hero Brigade coming to the rescue.

If he chooses to take the AoO, he crosses off one allowed AoO for that round, picks a square, rolls a miss chance, and makes an attack roll.

If he chooses not to, that's fine.

This is even sillier than the not being able to get aoo's against someone who does nothing. In this case, as it is metagaming anyway, then with your aoo for the round every round the player should just be able to choose to take it at any time against any square. After all, they are making a flurry of attacks, why not make a flurry of attacks into 'every' square all of the time? It fits within the flavor text, but not within the rules text. In this case the flavor text is pretty silly and leads to problems, just following the rules text fixes the problem.

1 attack = 1 attack.
1 aoo = 1 aoo.

Works out in playing perspective, doesnt have to worry about any 6th sense coming into play, makes nearly everything fit together smoothly, I've no idea why people prefer to do it the, in my eyes less reasonable way

 

[Ridley's Cohort]

Wasn't AoOs introduced only as to set up the flank-mechanic? Thinking about it, without AoOs it would be redundantly simple to get flank opportunites every round. So by all means, scrap AoOs but remember to scrap sneak attack at the same time.

Not really. I think the point of AoOs is too allow you the freedom to do tactically reckless things if you are willing to pay an appropriate tactical cost. An AoO is just the standard cost for most reckless things.

 

[Hypersmurf]

Flavor text which is removed and the actual rules remain for the srd.

It's under the definition of 'Attack Roll'.

After all, they are making a flurry of attacks, why not make a flurry of attacks into 'every' square all of the time?

Certainly. If nobody's provoking one, they miss. Where's the problem?

-Hyp.