Hi! I am new to this board (first post), and will be contributing various house-rules I've experimented with and their results in the future, but for now I have a question :
Just so you know, I've been playing and DM'ing RPG's for several decades.
Several years ago I played for some time in 3.5, and learned all about the AoO rules.
Now I'm a DM in a group with 3 players who are long-time RPGer's, but *brand new* to 3.5/d20/Pathfinder (we're using Pathfinder, FWIW). None of them are power-gamers, thankfully!
I have always felt that the AoO rules turned a fun role-playing game into a *strategy* game, and the players were having a particularly hard time with movement, which slowed things way down.
So I implemented this house rule : movement between squares does not provoke any AoO's. All other actions that normally provoke AoO's (casting, standing, etc.) still do. Moving thru an enemy's square is still handled as normal. This has sped-up melee quite a bit, which is what I hoped for.
My question is this : can anyone see ways in which this could seriously imbalance the game, perhaps at higher levels or with certain creatures? Keep in mind that any argument you make applies to PC's and bad guys equally!
What I'm not looking for is the ways in which things change, but if anything becomes unbalanced. So yes, the evil sorcerer could dash right between two PC's on either side of her to get far enough away to cast a spell, but so could the PC's wizard when stuck between two bad guys - so no imbalance.
Thanks in advance!
Just so you know, I've been playing and DM'ing RPG's for several decades.
Several years ago I played for some time in 3.5, and learned all about the AoO rules.
Now I'm a DM in a group with 3 players who are long-time RPGer's, but *brand new* to 3.5/d20/Pathfinder (we're using Pathfinder, FWIW). None of them are power-gamers, thankfully!
I have always felt that the AoO rules turned a fun role-playing game into a *strategy* game, and the players were having a particularly hard time with movement, which slowed things way down.
So I implemented this house rule : movement between squares does not provoke any AoO's. All other actions that normally provoke AoO's (casting, standing, etc.) still do. Moving thru an enemy's square is still handled as normal. This has sped-up melee quite a bit, which is what I hoped for.
My question is this : can anyone see ways in which this could seriously imbalance the game, perhaps at higher levels or with certain creatures? Keep in mind that any argument you make applies to PC's and bad guys equally!
What I'm not looking for is the ways in which things change, but if anything becomes unbalanced. So yes, the evil sorcerer could dash right between two PC's on either side of her to get far enough away to cast a spell, but so could the PC's wizard when stuck between two bad guys - so no imbalance.
Thanks in advance!