AoO: How are they so confusing?!

[greywulf]

This annoys me no end. Here’s how most threads which get sucked into the Big AoO debate tend to develop:

A: We don’t use AoO in our games. I understand them, but choose not to use them.
B: Why don’t you understand AoO? They’re easy to understand and I’m clearly posting this to show how much clever I am than you. Even though I didn’t read your original post properly.
A: No. We understand AoO. We don’t use them because they break the flow of combat, have strange exceptions to their implementation and encourage meta-gaming thinking. And they do more to disolve the game into rules arguments than anything else in the game. So, we don’t use them.
C: You clearly don’t understand them. Ergo, I’m also cleverer than you too.
A: …sigh…

For the record: we don’t use the AoO “rules” at all. We just use common sense. If you’re going to do something right in front of a hobgoblin that lets your guard down, he’s going to get a free whack at you. That doesn’t need a diagram, table or endless rules debate to figure out. AoO, is seems, does.

 

[Delta]

I'm betting that you are an experienced player who knows the rules fairly well. As a DM I also know the rules well. But for beginning players and for casual players, AOO add complexity that they have no time or desire to understand.

My wife plays D&D and has been for three years but she still rolls her eyes at AOO. I could say, "suck it up and read the book" but that just doesn't work in human terms. I'm not going to kick her out of the game just because I have to walk her through it each time.

Complete agreement here; I could say the exact same thing about my long-time girlfriend when she tried to play. Her impression was that (as DM) I never said the same thing about AOO's twice, what with all the exceptions and counter-exceptions.

The AOO rules are simply too complex for for casual or even medium-experience players; it requires expert-level knowledge, sitting down and literally studying a bunch (what? 20?) of different fairly common cases. What I've noticed is that engineers and programmers pick up the system pretty well (not without glitches) but artists absolutely can't get the idea down even after long stretches of play.

Perhaps the very idea of "this space is safe to stand in but not to leave" is counter-intuitive to a lot of folks.

 

[hexgrid]

This annoys me no end. Here’s how most threads which get sucked into the Big AoO debate tend to develop:

A: We don’t use AoO in our games. I understand them, but choose not to use them.
B: Why don’t you understand AoO? They’re easy to understand and I’m clearly posting this to show how much clever I am than you. Even though I didn’t read your original post properly.
A: No. We understand AoO. We don’t use them because they break the flow of combat, have strange exceptions to their implementation and encourage meta-gaming thinking. And they do more to disolve the game into rules arguments than anything else in the game. So, we don’t use them.
C: You clearly don’t understand them. Ergo, I’m also cleverer than you too.
A: …sigh…

Okay, but...

That doesn’t need a diagram, table or endless rules debate to figure out. AoO, is seems, does.

This is just asking for it!

 

[greywulf]

This is just asking for it!

:grin:

Just because it's unnecessarily complicated doesn't mean I don't understand it!