D&D 5E Question about Attacks of Opportunity

[Li Shenron]

Do creatures with a reach of say, 10 feet, gain an AoO when you travel from 10 feet out to 5 feet out and vice versa?

What if the enemy has multiple different reach attacks? (Say one attack 10 ft reach and another a 5 ft reach?) Is the reach of the enemy equal to the highest reach attack? Is he able to OA with only a specific reach attack in each situation?

IMHO you have to keep in my the original reason for having Opportunity Attacks in the game in the first place. That reason was to punish a character who tried to:

- run away from melee
- rush past an enemy's defensive line

Older editions of D&D had simpler rules that gave your opponent a free attack at you, if you tried those ideas. Opportunity Attacks are just the evolution of such rules.

3e and 4e brought in a lot of BS'ing about attacks of opportunity, as combat became highly tactical and lots of players were just interested in exploiting rules bit, and game designers jumped into the mess because it gave them lots of design space for special abilities etc.

But if you go back to the roots of Opportunity Attacks, you see that it makes a lot of sense to stop worrying about the exact wording and possible loopholes of the RAW, and just allow one opportunity attack per enemy. It doesn't even matter exactly when you make it happen, 5ft or 10ft, it's more important why you make it happen i.e. the PC is trying one of the two moves above.

 

[basilforth]

But if you go back to the roots of Opportunity Attacks, you see that it makes a lot of sense to stop worrying about the exact wording and possible loopholes of the RAW, and just allow one opportunity attack per enemy. It doesn't even matter exactly when you make it happen, 5ft or 10ft, it's more important why you make it happen i.e. the PC is trying one of the two moves above.

Li - thanks this makes sense.

So, I assume that Opportunity Attacks only make sense while an opponent is retreating not while they are advancing?

Also, what is RAW?

 

[Li Shenron]

So, I assume that Opportunity Attacks only make sense while an opponent is retreating not while they are advancing?

That was the original intent IMHO. You are retreating if your purpose is to flee from melee, and you are retreating (after advancing) if you are trying to get past your opponent (passing close by).

It was different in 3e where the RAW mentioned also moving inside the "threatened area", and people got used to see a grid in combat all the time, and so the situation was assessed one 5ft-step at a time. This implied for instance that if the opponent had 10ft reach, you'd provoke an AoO also while advancing towards him (when exiting a square 10ft away to enter a square 5ft away). But Attacks of Opportunity in 3e represented A LOT MORE, they were more generally about "dropping your guard", and lots of actions provoked AoS. This is not the case anymore in 5e!

The 5e RAW is this (emphasis mine):

Moving Around Other Creatures
...If you leave a hostile creature’s reach during your move,
you provoke an opportunity attack, as explained later in
the chapter

Opportunity Attacks
In a fight, everyone is constantly watching for enemies
to drop their guard. You can rarely move heedlessly past
your foes without putting yourself in danger; doing so
provokes an opportunity attack.
You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile
creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To
make the opportunity attack, you use your reaction to
make one melee attack against the provoking creature.
The attack occurs right before the creature leaves
your reach.
You can avoid provoking an opportunity attack by
taking the Disengage action. You also don’t provoke an
opportunity attack when you teleport or when someone
or something moves you without using your movement,
action, or reaction. For example, you don’t provoke an
opportunity attack if an explosion hurls you out of a foe’s
reach or if gravity causes you to fall past an enemy.

Note how the last part implies you are moving voluntarily. IMHO this is back to the roots of OA as a punishment for fleeing or running past an enemy, even if there's still a mention about dropping your guard.

(edit) In summary, I don't think this rule is meant to cause detailed adjudications... It simply says that an OA is triggered when someone voluntarily moves out of an opponent's reach. If you have 2 different "reaches", I really think you should provoke only once, even if some special abilities lets you take 2 reactions.

 

[5Shilling]

Li - thanks this makes sense.

So, I assume that Opportunity Attacks only make sense while an opponent is retreating not while they are advancing?

Also, what is RAW?

RAW is Rules As Written. You will see it a lot when discussing 5E, probably because there are more interpretations possible for the DM than in other recent editions.

You are correct in general about retreating and advancing, although as Li Shenron noted Opportunity Attacks are also important if one creature is trying to rush past another eg an attacker tries to run past the armoured footsoldiers in order to get to the squishy mage they are protecting. That's technically an advance, but a very risky one.

In both cases the creature provoking an Opportunity Attack is at some point assumed to turn its back on an opponent (either retreating or ignoring them in favour of another target). If you don't turn your back on them you are taking the Disengage action. You can circle around an opponent without turning your back on them, hence no opportunity attack.

 

[Ganymede81]

Also, what is RAW?

RAW is a rules interpretation philosophy that privileges consistency of result over other concerns, such as preservation of balance or adherence to author intent.