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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DracoSuave" data-source="post: 5376110" data-attributes="member: 71571">Clearer than putting 'Opportunity Action' in bold letters with those powers and attacks?No, I just know how to use an index.  Seriously- If I'm presented with some game rule I'm not sure about, the first thing I do is go to the index and go... oh.  And if that rule references something else I'm not sure about, I go to the e index and go... oh.Case in point:  Opportunity Attacks.  The first thing under that says:  Opportunity Action. So I go 'What's an opportunity action?' and I go there it it tells me and says Opportunity Attacks are one type of them everyone gets.Obtuse would be if I had to look for some sidebar in some secondary source that explains the difference.Has anyone tried the simple 'One is a type of action, the other is a specific action' explanation?I mean, if the group can grok the difference between a move action and a Walk action... they should get this; it's the same difference. I have actual observational evidence of the fact it's not that difficult, and a god damn index.   Other things are confusing.  This is not. Of course they are similiar.  Opportunity Attacks are members of the subset of Opportunity Actions, and of those that end in an MBA.  But they're not the same thing.  Most Opportunity Actions have different triggers, or different effects.  Only one Opportunity Action, however, has the same trigger Opportunity Attack does, and ends in an MBA: It's name is Opportunity Attack.  I just don't understand what you mean here:  Opportunity Action is a kind of action.  Your statement is as logically equivalent as saying that it's hard to distinguish between a Standard Action and a Melee Basic Attack because they both tend to involve attack rolls and so it's confusing.Both are completely different KINDS of concepts. Other than the fact that one describes a general class of action, distinguished for the purposes of the action economy the game is based on, and the other is a specific action with a specific trigger and a specific result that also happens to be a member of the first type? This is the part where I begin to believe you do not understand the difference as well as you think you do.It's not a meaningless distinction.One is a very simple construct:Opportunity Actions are actions that have triggers, cannot be used on your turn, interrupt the trigger, and can be used once per turn.Opportunity Attack is a type of opportunity action that has the specific trigger 'When an enemy uses a ranged power, uses an area power, or leaves a square, while adjacent to you' and has the effect 'Make a melee basic attack.'One is a template, and the rules that govern said template.  The other is filling in the template.  One is the superset, the other is an element of that superset.  One is a resource, a currency in the action economy, and the other is an action that costs that currency.  The difference between five dollars, and a five-dollar milkshake.</blockquote>

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