Opportunity Attacks??

[jtrowell]

Start by reminding them that in 4th edition, they will fight much more monsters than ever.

Do they really want each monster (including minions) to be able to make an OA each time a PC move into melee ?

OA are supposed to make it harder to leave a melee, not to give a free attack to the defender when charged.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Especially if the defender = a fighter ... combat superiority would then get to stop 'em before they get into melee.

 

[Oompa]

I got an quick question, no books here at the moment..

Does someone with reach also get OA when someone leaves an square within reach or do only adjacent squares count? I thought i readt somewhere about reach didnt have it..

Thanks for the replies..

 

[jdpacheco]

I got an quick question, no books here at the moment..

Does someone with reach also get OA when someone leaves an square within reach or do only adjacent squares count? I thought i readt somewhere about reach didnt have it..

Thanks for the replies..

99% of the time, Reach doesn't apply to OAs. Reach only applies on your turn, unless you (or, much more commonly, the monster) have "Threatening Reach". Because of this fact, only adjacent squares count. If you have Threatening Reach, you get your OA against anyone who leaves a square you threaten, as normal.

 

[eamon]

Since monsters have more reach than players, usually, this will be to the detriment of the party, largely. It will make defenders much, much less effective, since they'll have to consider not approaching at all - but that makes their marks much less effective (not to mention the fighter's Combat Superiority). Monsters will just swarm over the squishies, then.

Also, it's likely to completely throw the balance of MM monsters out of whack. Monsters with reach, good OA's, push-abilities, shifting abilities and ranged attacks will dominate, whereas monsters without those will be less effective.

It makes str-based builds disproportionately powerful.

Only if you somehow manage a ranges build with high strength. Merely being able to make good OA's won't be enough, since you'll need to avoid those of others as well - say, by being a ranged attacker.

A ranged ranger with high strength will be great, a fighter, less so.

 

[Syrsuro]

Since monsters have more reach than players, usually, this will be to the detriment of the party, largely.

Not really.

It is within the player's control the degree to which they have reach. If you give reach weapons the ability to do OAs at reach, you make reach weapon the only kind of weapon worth having (since they got rid of the 'can't attack at close range with a reach weapon' rule). Especially for fighters who could then stop their opponent 1 square away and attack with impunity if they lacked reach.

As a result, all or nearly all characters (and certainly all melee classes) will arm themselves with reach weapons and have reach all the time - thus making your statement false.


And that is the point.

In 3.x, it made sense for reach weapons to have reach Attacks of Opportunity because benefit was balanced (except in rare cases) by the inability to attack close targets. You were choosing between attacking reach targets with regular and AoO or attacking close targets with regular and AoOs.

In 4E you have the full ability to attack adjacent targets with both regular and OAs AND you have the ability to attack reach targets with regular attacks. Adding in the ability to attack reach targets with OAs is thus overpowering (relative to non-reach weapons).

Aside: The only places I know of where you triggered OAs by entering an adjacent square (rather than leaving) were computer games such as Neverwinter Nights where it was reversed for ease in programming.

Carl

 

[eamon]

Not really.

It is within the player's control the degree to which they have reach. If you give reach weapons the ability to do OAs at reach, you make reach weapon the only kind of weapon worth having (since they got rid of the 'can't attack at close range with a reach weapon' rule). Especially for fighters who could then stop their opponent 1 square away and attack with impunity if they lacked reach.

As a result, all or nearly all characters (and certainly all melee classes) will arm themselves with reach weapons and have reach all the time - thus making your statement false.


And that is the point.

In 3.x, it made sense for reach weapons to have reach Attacks of Opportunity because benefit was balanced (except in rare cases) by the inability to attack close targets. You were choosing between attacking reach targets with regular and AoO or attacking close targets with regular and AoOs.

In 4E you have the full ability to attack adjacent targets with both regular and OAs AND you have the ability to attack reach targets with regular attacks. Adding in the ability to attack reach targets with OAs is thus overpowering (relative to non-reach weapons).

A bit of thread-necro here eh? Regardless of the argument, you seem to conclude that granting an OA on entering a threatened square would be unbalancing, and that's the core issue here. Certainly I agree that in some situations this change would be beneficial to the players. On the whole, I don't, but it's not really important - it definitely throws balance completely out of whack.

 

[Syrsuro]

A bit of thread-necro here eh?

Not intentionally. I never bother to look any deeper than the top two pages in this forum so I don't have a clue what brought this thread to the top of the heap.

Carl

 

[Chen_93]

An OA upon entering a square doesn't even work unless you have reach. The OA is an immediate interrupt which occurs BEFORE the action complete. Therefore the person would be 2 squares away from whoever it provoked the attack from. This means it would by large not affect monsters at all but WOULD detrimentally affect players against monsters with reach.

 

[PrinceZane]

I can just see any 1v1 brawl/gladiator competition now.

1: "I ready my action for him to come within reach and knock him in the head."
2: "I ready my action for him to come within MY reach and try a trip."

...3 days later...