Removing AoO from D&D

[IceBear]

Hmmm - never noticed that CoC and Spycraft didn't use it, but I guess if the feats, classes and combat weren't designed to use it from the get-go it would be a lot easier to remove.

What I noticed as interesting was that the original priniting of Star Wars didn't have AoO either, but they added it back in in the second printing.

For the amount of times that AoO have come up in my games, I don't see removing them as speeding up combat that much. In my case, most players just tend to avoid doing things that would draw an AoO (which, I think, is the main reason they exist).

IceBear

 

[Petrosian]

[/B][/QUOTE]

AoO's allow you to act reactively to various circumstances. If you remove the AoO system, you could make Readying more flexible to make up for it.

I can tell a boat was missed somewhere.

First question... would you play this game... you place $5 on the table and i flip a coin. on a heads i take your $% and on tails you keep it?

If your answer is yes, we have nothing further to discuss. if the answer is no, then you are capable of understanding the error.

For example, you could allow Readying for a ...

snip the rest as useless to the discussion.

strolling past someone you are fighting, casting a spell while someone is attacking you with a sword, stopping to take a drink while someone is trying to bash your skull in, firing a bowshot when someone has a dagger to your back... these are all examples of actions that SHOULD, in at least some people's eyes, become a problem for you to attempt. It should be more difficult for you.

Now for the complicated part...

these are not more difficult if the result of you doing them is... if the fallout...the penalty... the downside is... the enemy gets the swing he would have gotten anyway.

Example 1: i am fighting dirk the dastardly. dirk swings at me. i whack at him with my sword. Then he whack at me. then i whack back. two rounds saw 2 swings each. Write that down.

Example 2: i am fighting dirk the dastardly. dirk swings at me. i stroll around him and swing from the other side, whackwith my sword. Then, Dirk uses the new and improved ready and waits... I stroll around behind him and... he gets a swing at me. Then i swing at him. Over two rounds, we both swung twice.

Example 3: Same as 2 but i do not stroll. Dirks loses his ready so over two rounds its 2 swings for me and 1 swing for him.

For those who lost count, the result is the ready allows for the guy to misjudge or at best judge right and get exactly what he would have gotten without readying. The best he can do is break even.

Net result, stolling lah-lah-lah by him is no penalty at all.

The reason AoOs are a penalty is they grant EXTRA swings.

So, typing slowly, allowing you alternatives ways to lose you main action, is not gonna even out vs making enemy flounderings grant you EXTRA actions.

 

[Teleri_mm]

AoO do slow the game down... but they make it a hell of a lot more fun to play... at least to me

One thing you might try is to decrease the amount of foes you fight and increase the CR of the ones you leave in... Stuff will go tons faster if you have 4 orcs with 2 levels of warrior than 8-10 normal orcs. But in the long run once everyone at the table fully understands how combat works it flies by with little difficulty. The rules I have a problem with are the grappling rules… those REALY slow stuff down no matter how well you know them.

Teleri_mm

 

[Spatzimaus]

In my experience, AoOs don't slow down combat significantly. After all, each character is only getting one, unless they have Combat Reflexes, and even with that Feat they still can't use more than one on a specific person. I have a person with a DEX of 20 and Combat Reflexes, and I almost never take more than 2 or 3 AoOs per turn.

Added to this is that it's not automatic. You have to CHOOSE to take the AoO. There are plenty of reasons why you wouldn't; maybe you want to save it for the spellcaster. Maybe you just forgot. So, you just won't see many of them, unless the character was designed to create them. Or, maybe the guy used Tumble or Spring Attack to avoid the AoO.

But, they're important when they do happen, especially at low levels. A high-DEX fighter with Combat Reflexes and a polearm can get 5 or 6 attacks from AoOs at a time when they still can't get more than one attack from their normal actions.

As for Chthulhu and Spycraft: ranged weapons don't get AoOs since they don't threaten an area; ranged duels almost never involve AoOs. D&D, to me, has a lot more melee combat than other games. It's pretty much a given that someone on your side will charge the other side's casters to disrupt them, and that causes a lot of AoOs on both sides.

 

[Conaill]

Petrosian: I found your reply quite patronizing. I would appreciate if you tried to stay civil on these boards. At least Icebear's response was polite and to the point. Yours was just condescending.

Many games do without an AoO-like mechanism and work just fine. So apparently AoO's aren't a necessary component of any combat system.

I agree that the D&D combat system has been designed for a large part with AoO's in mind. So IF you ARE going to remove AoO's, you should probably add some mechanism to cover at least part of what AoO's provided to the combat system. My suggestions were made under the assumption that AoO's would be removed.

I'm not advocating whether or not you or anyone should do this in your own game. Although I do think the AoO system is the single most difficult part of the core rules for beginning players to grasp, and I do think removing or seriously reworking them in a possible next edition would be a good idea.

 

[dcollins]

Way back in AD&D there was a rule, or perhaps house rule, that let you take a free swing at fleeing enemies... AoO seems a fleshing out of that rule.

Absolutely. The AD&D 1st Ed. DMG had different rules to handle each of the following:

(1) Retreating from melee gave a free attack against your back. (p. 70)
(2) Unarmed attacks gave a free attack which spoiled the punch if successful. (p. 73)
(3) Spellcasting in range of a melee fighter had a practically-indecipherable rule for determining if the spell went off before the melee attack (while any melee hit automatically spoiled the spell). (p. 65-67)

To a certain extent, AOOs fold all 3 of these into a neater single rule mechanic, plus they deal with the "walk around me in combat problem". As a long-time AD&D player, I personally wish that all of these items were more dangerous to the provoker, as they were in AD&D, but that's a secondary quibble on my part.

If you must remove AOOs, an AD&D-style solution would be to assert that: (1) once you're in melee you cannot move tactically in any way until one combatant is dead, (2) unarmed attacks are simply banned against armed foes, and (3) spellcasters are prohibited from casting in range of a melee fighter. No, I'm not joking -- I actually consider doing this myself sometimes as a real streamlining (I do see new players having real difficulty understanding AOOs, and some older RPG's actually used rules like these).

Finally, I'll point out that the newer d20 Modern game does provide AOO's to handgun-wielders in a 10 ft. radius.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Removing AoO would:

- Nerf skills like Tumble and Concentration

- Force feats to be changed/deleted like: Combat Reflexes, Combat Casting, Improved Unarmed Strike, Ride-By-Attack, Sunder, Mobility, Improved Bull Rush

- You'd have to change all the unarmed combat mechanics, and modify most of the special mechanics like Bull Rush

- You make the concept of a 5' step irrelevant

- Neuter reach weapons -- an enemy would just wander right up to the fighter with the longspear, who now can't attack, since he doesn't threaten the square immediately in front of him.

Never mind the flavor effects of people drinking potions, casting spells, and using bows in the middle of melee with impunity.

I counsel against it. The effort to fix the system after AoOs are removed is greater than the effort to thoroughly underatnd how they work. I've found that once you understand how they work, they have minimal impact on play time.

 

[celtonline]

IMO in D&D 3E one of the most important elements for hand-to-hand combatants is the Attack of Opportunity and the additional attack it can provide them when opponents leave themselves vulnerable. To remove this element of the system causes ripples throughout the system. The hand-to-hand fighter immediately loses an edge when fighting a spellcaster or ranged weapon specialist. He can't control the area around him, standing at the forefront of the party to keep the monsters at bay by the threat of being able to perform an AoO. Add me to the list of folks who don't think this is such a good idea.

 

[Petrosian]

[/B][/QUOTE]

Yours was just condescending.

thats inaccuracy number 1...

if all my post was was condescending, if there were no points in it, then why do you continue typing beyond this point.

Many games do without an AoO-like mechanism and work just fine. So apparently AoO's aren't a necessary component of any combat system.

Defense against unfired shot #`1...

I do not think i ever said they were.

I agree that the D&D combat system has been designed for a large part with AoO's in mind. So IF you ARE going to remove AoO's, you should probably add some mechanism to cover at least part of what AoO's provided to the combat system. My suggestions were made under the assumption that AoO's would be removed.

That was understood. You were fairly clear.

the problem is, you seemed to see allowing someone more lattitude with their primary attack (with some risk of losing it) as somehow compensating for a free extra attack You seeemd to not grasp that the PENALTY for allowing an AoO is that your enemy gets to do MORE attacks, not that he gets to risk his primary attack.

I felt that difference needed to be clearly pointed out, as obviously, some missed it.

I'm not advocating whether or not you or anyone should do this in your own game.

Considering you have 0 say in how i run my game, thats good.

Although I do think the AoO system is the single most difficult part of the core rules for beginning players to grasp, and I do think removing or seriously reworking them in a possible next edition would be a good idea.

I found the more complex rules procedures such as grappling and sunder and bul rush and turning, which involves PROCESSES used nowehre else, to be more confusing to my nerw players. Since they understand how to-hit and how to-damage, the only thing needed for AoO was to get used to FREE SWINGS out of sequence. they caught that right away.

 

[Plane Sailing]

What changes need to take place to remove Attacks of Opportunity from D&D? Is there a comprehensive list of WoTC feats and skills (PH & splatbooks) that effect or rely on Attacks of Opportunity?

The first set of Star Wars d20 rules eliminated AoO and worked fine.

The simplified rule which they used was that you simply couldn't perform any activity which would otherwise draw an AoO - thus you couldn't run past an enemy, you had to take 5ft steps. You couldn't run past the reach of someone with a spear, you have to take 5ft steps. You wouldn't (in D&D) be able to cast a spell while you were in a threatened area without casting defensively.

The Mobility feat allowed you to move through threatened areas freely (and became a powerful and useful feat!). The Combat Reflexes feat disappeared. Tumble could still be used to move past someones zone of control.

In many ways I think this reflects real life behaviour more than the AoO rules, since a high level character can normally ignore AoO with impunity ("so what if he hits me? I've got oodles of hp").

I'm happy running D&D with AoO. I'm equally happy playing SWd20 without AoO.

It is a simple modification to play D&D this way, as I've outlined above. WotC have already done all the hard work on this one!

Cheers