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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DM_Blake" data-source="post: 3948238" data-attributes="member: 57267">So what is the answer?In 3.5, the current rules for AoO do, for the most part, just what they’re supposed to do. They punish people for dropping their guard (drinking a potion, concentrating on a spell, etc.), or overextending themselves (untrained disarm, grapple, or trip) during close personal combat. They motivate people to see to their own safety, such as getting out of range if they can, before dropping their guard. The penalty can be severe, but usually isn’t life threatening unless the guy dropping his guard is fairly close to death or his opponent is extremely deadly.Facing shouldn’t be an issue. I’m quite certain that in 6 whole seconds of life-and-death combat, every combatant will be at least scanning his flanks for additional threats, and reacting to them if he finds them.These rules don’t always make sense. Some cases have been pointed out here. But it is already deadly enough to be at –x HP, and almost equally deadly to be paralyzed or held in combat. Adding extra lethality to these situations only helps the monsters, not the players – only the player characters really suffer from being killed, since the monsters are expected, in a metagame sense, to be killed.How deadly do you want combat to be? Should Hold Person give every orc in reach a free shot at the unlucky PC? Most of them will hit, since his DEX is effectively 0 causing him to be -5 AC below his Flatfooted AC. Particularly intelligent and vicious bad guys might position themselves close to the paralyzed combatant so that they can attack one of his friends and enjoy the free AoO against the paralyzed guy – a free extra attack.And even then, if you do allow this condition, the case of “I want to spend my AoO this round to strike the door next to me” question comes into play. Should that, or shouldn’t that, be an attack the player makes on his own turn?********************The only real problem I see here comes from the stationary nature of D&D combat. We put our miniatures on the table, then we only move them on our turn. They move once every 6 seconds, then stand still, frozen in time on the battle mat. Each miniature spends the full 6 seconds stationary in a little 5’ square. No two creatures move at the same time – each miniature moves his full move, makes his attacks, then freezes in place for the next miniature to move.This gives us a warped perspective of what is really happening during that combat.An example was (given in a post above) of a wizard in reach of a dragon. If the wizard stands still, the dragon can’t attack him out of turn. But if the wizard begins casting a spell, the dragon gets a free attack. But this isn’t a mystery. If you look at the wizard’s miniature on the battle mat, that wizard is standing still. But if it were a real combat, that wizard would be ducking the dragon’s tail and wings, diving for cover from the dragon’s claws, scrambling to get out of the way when the dragon turns its bulky body around and almost squishes him. That wizard wouldn’t stay in a 5’ square, mysteriously rooted there until 6 seconds have gone by before he decides to act.No, if this were a real combat (as if wizards and dragons were real), that wizard would be all over the place. The dragon would too. Maybe the dragon would batter him, maybe not, but that wizard surely would not be standing there. Until he begins casting his spell, that is. The spell casting (at least per 3.5 rules), requires him to stand still while he casts. NOW the dragon can take his shot.But, a combat like this, on a battle mat with miniatures, where everyone is moving constantly, every PC, every orc, every dragon, always in constant motion (unless they stand still to cast a spell or drink a potion or reload a crossbow, etc.), would be impossible to manage. How could any player or DM adjudicate such a combat.So, D&D has turns. D&D has our miniatures standing frozen on the battle mat for 6 second intervals. It’s the only way we can track what’s going on and resolve a combat.And if you look at it THAT way, then the AoO rules make sense. Or at least, the part where they only happen when someone triggers them makes sense, because we assume that when he’s not provoking an AoO, then he is actively avoiding all attacks as best he can.********************Now, as for AoO rules against helpless characters, that actually makes sense, from a “reality” perspective. But do we really want our PCs rolling new characters that often? I guarantee that any intelligent combatant, in a world where healers abound, will absolutely take every AoO against a prone and dying opponent, just to insure one of his friends doesn’t heal him. Even orcs and goblins are smart enough for that. If we had such a rule, DMs would either have to ignore it, or players would have to expect that getting knocked to negative HP is a death sentence when fighting any sentient opponent.At least without such a rule, that sentient opponent is forced to make a decision. Should he hit the combatants who are currently a threat, or should he hit they prone and dying combatant? If he can only hit one of them, he will always choose to eliminate more threats. But, if he can hit them both, and doing so doesn’t interfere with his effort to eliminate more threats, then he will always choose to do both.So, even though it imposes a bit of loss of realism, it is much safer for the player characters if every opponent must decide between gorking a dying foe or eliminating a threat.We can even try to rationalize it by saying that an AoO is a quick backhanded attack you make when something catches your eye, or when a foe drops his guard. It’s instinctive. It’s a quick reaction you make with very little conscious direction. But a paralyzed or dying opponent doesn’t do anything to trigger that adrenaline surge, so no AoO. If you want to hit a paralyzed or dying opponent, you have to expend sufficient conscious volition that it counts as one of your actions on your turn.That’s a stretch, but maybe not too much of a stretch to justify a game where PCs can survive their first couple of levels.</blockquote>

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