AoOs and Combat Maneuvers

[Reynard]

One thing I have noticed is that the threat of AoO from various combat maneuvers (like grappling, bullrushing and the like) makes players avoid these maneuvers unless they have the "improved" feat for the action.

As a fix for this -- I want dynamic combats -- I was thinking about changing the AoO rules for these kinds of maneuvers so that an AoO is only provoked if the maneuver fails. For example, if an attacker fails the touch attack or grapple check of a grapple attempt, thwe defender then gets to take an AoO. Note that movement related AoOs provoked as part of the action would stay RAW.

Thoughts?

 

[The Levitator]

That sounds like a totally reasonable adjustment to me, considering some groups play without AoO's and seem to get along fine. I seem to remember reading about this approach a while back and the responses being generally positive. I had actually thought about doing this a couple years ago when we first started changing our gamestyle from Core, but got distracted by the other changes we were making and never implemented it. I am going to suggest this at our session on Sunday and see what the group thinks!

The more I think about this, the more I wish I would have implemented it before we started our current campaign. It makes a lot of sense!

 

[Reynard]

That sounds like a totally reasonable adjustment to me, considering some groups play without AoO's and seem to get along fine. I seem to remember reading about this approach a while back and the responses being generally positive. I had actually thought about doing this a couple years ago when we first started changing our gamestyle from Core, but got distracted by the other changes we were making and never implemented it. I am going to suggest this at our session on Sunday and see what the group thinks!

The more I think about this, the more I wish I would have implemented it before we started our current campaign. It makes a lot of sense!

Mostly I want players to be willing to do more than stand-and-swing in combat, and I think this change will make them at least a little more willing to go out on a limb.

 

[Griffith Dragonlake]

I like this house rule a lot!

 

[Infiniti2000]

Unless you have 5 ranks or more in Balance, then going out on a limb provokes an AoO.