Ditching OA's, replace with....?

[Breaks]

I'm relatively new to dnd, but have been heavily involved in the virtual table beta, so have been playing several campaigns at once for the last few months....

And I have to say, other than the one campaign I'm in that has a knight as the defender, it's really, really rare for either the monsters or the players to ever provoke OAs, so I'm so far from having this problem that it's entirely foreign to me.

One of the VT campaigns has been going for 3 months, playing weekly, and my leader has used his "an ally is hit by an opportunity attack" triggered immediate interrupt exactly once.

If player OAs are wrecking your game table, maybe talk with your DM about how often he's provoking. Sometimes it's the best option, but a lot of the time it's sort of silly.

 

[Spatula]

Do OAs really serve a purpose anymore?

It seems like they came about after casting times and weapon speeds were removed to allow people to interup other actions. Since we have powers that do that already now, do we really need the OA?

I don't believe that was the original purpose of OAs, which have been around in one form or another since the beginning of the game. Although I suppose 3e expanded their scope in order for spellcasting to be interrupt-able. In any case, OAs do serve a purpose, which is battlefield control. A serious OA threat punishes foes for moving through an area on the battlefield, in the same way that a wall of fire might.

 

[Scribble]

I don't believe that was the original purpose of OAs, which have been around in one form or another since the beginning of the game.

Were they? I can't remember them being a part of 2e or 1e.... But maybe it's just faulty memory?

Although I suppose 3e expanded their scope in order for spellcasting to be interrupt-able. In any case, OAs do serve a purpose, which is battlefield control. A serious OA threat punishes foes for moving through an area on the battlefield, in the same way that a wall of fire might.

I just could have sworn they were a new thing in 3e... Just like the idea of declaring your action on your initiative was technically a new idea...

Either way- can't the same thing be done though with utility powers and baked in class abilities?

 

[mudlock]

...the fact that they have triggered tends to start the clusterf*** of 4e action resolution, the trigger of a trigger of a...

You're the second (third?) person to say this now, and I still cannot even conceive what could possibly cause this sort of cascade. The worst I've seen is: ally moves; monster attacks ally with OA; fighter punishes monster via Combat Challenge.

I think you've either got some fundamental aspect of the rules wrong (creatures taking opportunity or immediate actions on their own turns maybe?) or are seriously overstating the difficulties you've encountered (for rhetorical effect?) Please give me an example, from your play experience, of what you're talking about.

 

[Crazy Jerome]

The purpose of OA (and same with 3E AoO) is to make certain actions occasionally tempting, but somewhat more rare than if there were not restrictions. This is explicitly to put choice into the players' hands without bogging down the flow of the game.

If you make the restrictions too onerous, then the effect will be that no one will provoke. At that point, you might as well simplify everything by banning those actions outright, and save time.

If you make the restrictions too gentle, then the effect will be that people don't care about provoking, except at the margins (e.g. close to zero hit points or when the provoke is several monsters or something like that). At that point, people will provoke all over the place, and it will slow the game down. You might as well remove the restrictions, since they aren't changing the behavior.

Or, if you aren't getting the expected result--player choice that occurs rarely enough to keep the main turn structure going--then you can change the restrictions to skew towards the expected result. Someone seeing "too much provoking"--however you define that for your group--could simply double the damage from all OAs. That might get them to the point where provoking became more rare, but still viable--for that group.

Note that all of the above is assuming that one is not playing the game as a series of opportunities for tactical "gotcha" moments. That is, the players are expected to move cleverly to avoid provoking the OA while still getting what they want. This will also slow down the game, but is more about system mastery and tactical insight than player decision making. In any case, if you value this aspect, then you want OAs to occur as often as you can stand, but with relative minor effect. I don't want that aspect at all, and thus will always give a player a chance to change their mind if they didn't realize an OA would be provoked. If they decide to go ahead, then we are back to "making a decision", which is the part I value. 3E leans slightly towards this mode of play by through more complicated AoO than the 4E OA, but I think this is an accident rather than design. I'm fairly certain that the 3E design is intended for the same purpose, and should be relatively rare.

Handling time is thus directly proportional to how often an OA occurs, or is at least considered. Since I think that frequent OAs are a sign that the consequences aren't severe enough, I'm more likely to increase the consequences than try to muck with the handling time by changing how OAs work.

However, I might try the penalty route, since it seems to have roughly similar severity of consequences with modest handling time improvement for when it is invoked. I'm all for those things that keep the round flowing freely around the initiative order, and thus keep the players involved in the narrative of the combat.

 

[TwoSix]

You're the second (third?) person to say this now, and I still cannot even conceive what could possibly cause this sort of cascade. The worst I've seen is: ally moves; monster attacks ally with OA; fighter punishes monster via Combat Challenge.

I think you've either got some fundamental aspect of the rules wrong (creatures taking opportunity or immediate actions on their own turns maybe?) or are seriously overstating the difficulties you've encountered (for rhetorical effect?) Please give me an example, from your play experience, of what you're talking about.

1) Cleric use Inspire Fervor, a daily weapon attack with an Effect that all allies within 2 squares can shift 2 and make an MBA.
2) Rogue shifts 2 to flank with cleric, makes MBA.
3) MBA makes enemy bloodied.
4) Enemy uses power that, when bloodied, can make claw attack on 2 enemies within melee 1.
5) Fighter (who had ability to shift from cleric power, but hasn't yet) says "Wait, can I also shift next to the monster? If I take my MBA, and he claws someone else, I can get Combat Challenge since he violated my mark."
6) Cleric says "No, don't do that...I'm getting combat advantage from the rogue, and I can kill it with the attack I haven't taken yet."
7) DM says, "Wait, another monster is using a triggered encounter power since his ally was bloodied to shift 3 behind the rogue and make a basic attack, with extra damage for having combat advantage."
8) Rogue says, "Wait, I'm going to use Second Chance on the claw attack, if it goes off. Otherwise, I'll use it on the attack by the monster that moved up."

While I'm sure that's there a proper rules way to figure this out, the rules are not so clear-cut that this kind of situation doesn't happen even with well-meaning players.

 

[Spatula]

Were they? I can't remember them being a part of 2e or 1e.... But maybe it's just faulty memory?

In AD&D, you get a free attack if a foe moves away from you - basically the movement-triggered OA. IIRC, 2e added the withdraw action to allow for safe retreat, but I could be getting different rulesets confused there.

 

[Scribble]

In AD&D, you get a free attack if a foe moves away from you - basically the movement-triggered OA. IIRC, 2e added the withdraw action to allow for safe retreat, but I could be getting different rulesets confused there.

Ah- I guess my memory is faulty. My 1e DMs guide has been packed away for the past year and a half.

 

[MarkB]

The major issues I've seen around Opportunity Attacks tend to be about when you can take them and what kind of action they are, primarily consisting of players trying to game the system via Readied actions either to have multiple characters move past a monster on one character's turn, or to move during the monster's turn.

If that's also the case for the OP, then just strip out those limits. Make Opportunity Attacks a free action, with no limitations as to how many you can make or when you can make them. Absolutely any time a creature moves out of your threatened square or makes an area or ranged attack from within that square, you get to hit them with a melee basic attack, whether it's your turn or not.

Maybe include a line saying that you can't hit someone multiple times for a single move action that exits multiple threatened squares, but most or all of the other limitations can probably be trashed without causing any major imbalances.


If you're dead set against any form of OA, here's an suggestion: Opponents consider threatened squares difficult terrain except when shifting, and grant combat advantage to the threatener until the start of their next turn if they move or ranged-attack from within them.

As for an alternative for fighters, one thing which some Essentials defender builds have already explored as alternatives to marking is auras. If you use something like an aura system, it becomes its own closed-off ruleset which is managed by that character's player, and doesn't have to worry too much about locking into the general movement rules.

 

[technoextreme]

1) Cleric use Inspire Fervor, a daily weapon attack with an Effect that all allies within 2 squares can shift 2 and make an MBA.
2) Rogue shifts 2 to flank with cleric, makes MBA.
3) MBA makes enemy bloodied.
4) Enemy uses power that, when bloodied, can make claw attack on 2 enemies within melee 1.
5) Fighter (who had ability to shift from cleric power, but hasn't yet) says "Wait, can I also shift next to the monster? If I take my MBA, and he claws someone else, I can get Combat Challenge since he violated my mark."
6) Cleric says "No, don't do that...I'm getting combat advantage from the rogue, and I can kill it with the attack I haven't taken yet."
7) DM says, "Wait, another monster is using a triggered encounter power since his ally was bloodied to shift 3 behind the rogue and make a basic attack, with extra damage for having combat advantage."
8) Rogue says, "Wait, I'm going to use Second Chance on the claw attack, if it goes off. Otherwise, I'll use it on the attack by the monster that moved up."

While I'm sure that's there a proper rules way to figure this out, the rules are not so clear-cut that this kind of situation doesn't happen even with well-meaning players.

You picked a bad example because if anyone is likely to bloody the enemy its the cleric because he has to attack first. Riders on powers always resolve in the order they read which means that the cleric attacks and then everyone else does. There are actually a few powers where this interpretation really comes into play. There is a battlemind power where you swap places with someone, make an attack, and then swap places back with that person. The power reads in order Effect->Attack->Effect.