Can I willingly provoke an Attack of Opportunity?

[Torg Smith]

I would also rule that to provoke an attack of opportunity would require a move or an action. I would not let it happen as a free action.

 

[Celebrim]

Any interpretation of the rules which creates an absurd result should be treated as incorrect.

An interpretation of a rule is a rule. A ruling is a rule. A rule that creates an absurd result is a poor rule.

Technically, at low levels, drowning a dying character is an excellent way of saving said character. This is because "a dying character has negative hit points" and "drowning sets hit points to zero".

Unstated but implied here is that you've mentally fixed the rule. At your table there is now an unwritten rule scrubbing out the RAW drowning rules and rewriting them to say, "if the drowning character's hit points are positive, drowning sets hit points to zero". That's well and good and I approve. Where I differ than many DMs on the board is that I suggest if you are going to mentally fix the rules, you might as well write down the fixes. Maintaining a huge mental space filled with unrecorded and informal rules is a lot of work and results in my experience at confusion at the table.

if a character really wants to provoke an AoO, they can... But then they will provoke an AoO from all applicable attackers, due to having let their guard down.

This is an absurd result.

 

[Random Bystander]

An interpretation of a rule is a rule. A ruling is a rule. A rule that creates an absurd result is a poor rule.



Unstated but implied here is that you've mentally fixed the rule. At your table there is now an unwritten rule scrubbing out the RAW drowning rules and rewriting them to say, "if the drowning character's hit points are positive, drowning sets hit points to zero". That's well and good and I approve. Where I differ than many DMs on the board is that I suggest if you are going to mentally fix the rules, you might as well write down the fixes. Maintaining a huge mental space filled with unrecorded and informal rules is a lot of work and results in my experience at confusion at the table.



This is an absurd result.

If you need to maintain a mental record of the ruling that drowning does not save a dying character, I submit that you are in dire need of the Old School Primer.

This is not even a speedbump. This is literally less than a second's thought should one of your players be so silly.

I fail to see how dropping your guard, allowing an AoO from any attacker who has means and opportunity, is absurd. In fact, it is implicit in the rules. If you do something that provokes an AoO, any applicable attacker may attack.

 

[Celebrim]

If you need to maintain a mental record of the ruling that drowning does not save a dying character, I submit that you are in dire need of the Old School Primer.

This is not even a speedbump. This is literally less than a second's thought should one of your players be so silly.

Sure, but its also less than a second thought to correct how the rule works. More to the point though, most edge cases created by poorly worded rules involve much more ambiguity regarding the intention of the rules and the way to handle them. I doubt the case you mention here would ever come up because it is so counter-intuitive. But you will run into plenty of cases of players planning actions based on their understanding of the rules where pulling the rug out from under them won't seem so reasonable.

I've played 'Old School'. I've been DMing since 1982. I submit that a lot of the people who wrote the 'Old School Primer' have rose colored glasses. 'Old School' involves hours long arguments between players and DMs because the rules are so opaque, inconsistent, poorly organized, contradictory, reliant on DM fiat, and difficult to apply consistently. 'Old School' assumes that every DM is a master rules smith that can craft on the fly, under pressure, new rules that are fair, interesting, and reasonable. The truth is that even many skilled DMs are terrible rule smiths. Just because your world building, characterization, pacing and plotting is excellent, doesn't mean you are a good rules designer (and vica versa).

I fail to see how dropping your guard, allowing an AoO from any attacker who has means and opportunity, is absurd. In fact, it is implicit in the rules. If you do something that provokes an AoO, any applicable attacker may attack.

It's an absurd result because it creates a binary situation where you try to screw the PC for proposing he act in a way that isn't explicitly allowed by the rules. Faced with this response to a creative non-rule proposition, the player will learn the lesson - don't try to imagine what your character is doing, simply follow the rules. It's an absurd result because it offers no granularity, no interest, little verisimilitude, not much in the way of game play and the only time you'd see it actually occur in game would likely be abusive.

 

[Random Bystander]

Sure, but its also less than a second thought to correct how the rule works. More to the point though, most edge cases created by poorly worded rules involve much more ambiguity regarding the intention of the rules and the way to handle them. I doubt the case you mention here would ever come up because it is so counter-intuitive. But you will run into plenty of cases of players planning actions based on their understanding of the rules were pulling the rug out from under them won't seem so reasonable.

I've played 'Old School'. I've been DMing since 1982. I submit that a lot of the people who wrote the 'Old School Primer' have rose colored glasses. 'Old School' involves hours long arguments between players and DMs because the rules are so opaque, inconsistent, poorly organized, contradictory, reliant on DM fiat, and difficult to apply consistently. 'Old School' assumes that every DM is a master rules smith that can craft on the fly, under pressure, new rules that are fair, interesting, and reasonable. The truth is that even many skilled DMs are terrible rule's smiths. Just because your world building, characterization, pacing and plotting is excellent, doesn't mean you are a good rules designer (and vica versa).

I recommend the Old School Primer. I do not recommend, for the most part, the old school rules.

It's an absurd result because it creates a binary situation where you try to screw the PC for proposing he act in a way that isn't explicitly allowed by the rules. Faced with this response to a creative non-rule proposition, the player will learn the lesson - don't try to imagine what your character is doing, simply follow the rules. It's an absurd result because it offers no granularity, no interest, little verisimilitude, not much in the way of game play and the only time you'd see it actually occur in game would likely be abusive.

I think this is a difference in reading. You, perhaps, read it as the player saying "I feint to draw an attack from a specific opponent". In that case, I would simply have the player roll his Bluff skill versus the opponents' Sense Motive plus Attack Bonus as normal, and, if successful, the opponent uses an AoO on the character if possible.

I read it as "The character drops their guard as a general-purpose distraction."

 

[Celebrim]

I recommend the Old School Primer. I do not recommend, for the most part, the old school rules.

Well, at least we mostly on the same page. Though I'd also recommend taking much of the Old School Primer with a grain of salt.

I think this is a difference in reading. You, perhaps, read it as the player saying "I feint to draw an attack from a specific opponent". In that case, I would simply have the player roll his Bluff skill versus the opponents' Sense Motive plus Attack Bonus as normal, and, if successful, the opponent uses an AoO on the character if possible.

I read it as "The character drops their guard as a general-purpose distraction."

Again, we are mostly on the same page. But, note that from what you said earlier, one of your players would have no way of knowing that you'd differentiate the two propositions/situations in that way.

The rule you earlier proposed was: "if a character really wants to provoke an AoO, they can... But then they will provoke an AoO from all applicable attackers, due to having let their guard down."

The rule reads as if you can't feint an opening from an individual, but only leave yourself helpless against all attackers. It's an all or nothing situation. You could have easily as written, "If a character really wants to provoke an AoO, they can provoke an attack from any attackers that they want to, by pretending to drop their guard. However, to do so, they must win a contest of Sense Motive versus Bluff."

That rule isn't absurd. I could still find fault with it, but it wouldn't be absurd.

One of the things the old school primer says that is absurd is: "Rulings not rules." Silly, GM, rulings are rules. Just as with the rules, your rulings have to be clear in their intent and clearly communicated. Otherwise, your players are playing in a world that is so unpredictable, they won't be able to make reasonable plans. This will lead us back into the old school conundrum of players trying to draw out of the GM outcomes because they don't trust that their understanding of the situation remotely matches how the GM will handle it, which leads to game time wasted arguing about what the proposition and ruling should be to match the intended outcome. This is based on the false idea that having consensus on realism is easy, and especially again, that GM's will intuitively know how to rule for that effect.