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5E - Time for Attacks of Opportunity to die?
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<blockquote data-quote="MerricB" data-source="post: 5810140" data-attributes="member: 3586"><p>Historically, in the early versions of D&D, when you moved out of combat, the opponent got a free swing at you. In addition, if you lost initiative (alternatively some arcane system involving weapon speeds and casting time) and got hit, you lost the spell you were casting. Ranged weapons just couldn't be used once you were in melee.</p><p></p><p>Once 3E came along, with cyclical initiative, the second point - being hit spoils the spell - no longer worked as originally designed. Thus, the free swing of moving away got adapted for 3E and the more general "attack of opportunity" was born. Likewise, you could use ranged weapons in melee, but provoked an AoO for doing so.</p><p></p><p>Of course, then 3E made the spell-casting AoOs mostly irrelevant with the Concentration skill!</p><p></p><p>4E kept the Opportunity Attack, removed Concentration (but added special abilities to avoid it), and made a more consistent terminology (Area, Ranged, Close, Melee) to show when they apply.</p><p></p><p>That's the history of the AoO until now - it's always been part of D&D, but it's been made more encompassing due to the adoption of cyclical initiative, even though a lot of things allow you to get around it!</p><p></p><p>Cheers!</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="MerricB, post: 5810140, member: 3586"] Historically, in the early versions of D&D, when you moved out of combat, the opponent got a free swing at you. In addition, if you lost initiative (alternatively some arcane system involving weapon speeds and casting time) and got hit, you lost the spell you were casting. Ranged weapons just couldn't be used once you were in melee. Once 3E came along, with cyclical initiative, the second point - being hit spoils the spell - no longer worked as originally designed. Thus, the free swing of moving away got adapted for 3E and the more general "attack of opportunity" was born. Likewise, you could use ranged weapons in melee, but provoked an AoO for doing so. Of course, then 3E made the spell-casting AoOs mostly irrelevant with the Concentration skill! 4E kept the Opportunity Attack, removed Concentration (but added special abilities to avoid it), and made a more consistent terminology (Area, Ranged, Close, Melee) to show when they apply. That's the history of the AoO until now - it's always been part of D&D, but it's been made more encompassing due to the adoption of cyclical initiative, even though a lot of things allow you to get around it! Cheers! [/QUOTE]
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