Within limits..
AoO's, within the rules, already exhibit common sense. One must remember that the D20 combat rules are simulations of a flurry of activity, artificially broken down into stages and events in order to 'play' better. These stages seem 'unreal' mainly because they are. Attempting to 'play' a real time sword-fight would be very rule intensive and take alot of time to adjudicate.
Many people make the error of thinking that since you only roll 1 attack roll that the character only swings the sword once...that is not the case.
D20 combat rules do not have an active parry as it is assumed that a plethora of feints, parries, and attacks happen in a round. It assumes that of these manuevers, a 1st level fighter has the chance for making one effective strike against an opponent. This would be the normal attack roll.
It is also assumed, that if an opponents defenses are lowered, there exists a chance for an attack that is normally ineffective, due to the opponents defenses, to become effective. This would be the AoO.
Advantages of using AoO's: Polearms, creatures with Reach, more tactical attention to the battlefield. Players pay more attention when the combat round is not on thier turn as an AoO may present itself.
Advantages of not using AoO's: All combat happens within 5' of the opponent. Battlefield tactics matter little.
So.. if you prefer a more tactical battlefield were weapons of various makes can be utilized in various different ways...go with AoO's. If not, scratch them and all the Feats and abilities.. and dont forget to scale down the CR of some encounters.
Funny, (kindof), I regularly see threads where the comment of "AoO's suck" arises, but never any suggestion of how to improve the game shy of just scrapping the whole idea.
Hong.. I agree.. definately no spoon here.
