Does this fairly eliminate Attacks of Opportunity?

[nnms]

Thanks for the explanation. I had another design meeting with the players of the campaign and they really like your ideas and approach and what we ended up hammering out was very much a sequence that looks like this (using your terms):

Someone declares an attack
the target chooses to defend or not defend
--If yes, then a contest happens
----Attack value must beat the defense value and the attempt value
--if no, then an attempt happens
----Attack value must only beat the attempt value

We decided against the round long flat bonus to defense for "fighting defensively" and opted for a parrying system more like you described.

We also hammered out some turn order/initiative issues. We're going to go with a PC turn and a enemy turn where everyone replenishes their actions. When it's the PC's turn they can spend as many actions as they like in any order they like with any times when it matters who goes first to be resolved in the order chosen by the player with the highest dexterity equivalent. Once everyone is happy and has spent or saved all their actions, play passes to the GM's forces. If there are more than two sides, another GM turn will follow. If a given combatant wants to move outside of their turn, that'll be unlocked with feat-like things they can pick to allow them.

We talked about maintaining a per-combatant initiative order, but we figured with the ability to save attacks and blocks for later and even eventually save moves for later with the right feat that it would be okay to do side vs side rather than individual initiative.

We decided that for readied actions, you had to spend all the actions in advance and when the trigger happens, it interrupts and resolves. This is one way anyone can move during the opposition's turn, but you won't be able to choose to do so or not on the fly like you will be able to if you take a feat to spend saved actions on movement, but will need to be preplanned and actions spent.

Do you do readied actions?

 

[GMMichael]

No readied actions. At least, not in name, because a "readied action" in Pathfinder requires its own sub-rules. The motivating force behind eliminating Attacks of Opportunity is the same one for readied actions: simplicity.

So Arthorn the ranger is in big trouble: he's patrolling the woods for signs of ill-fortune when ill-fortune finds him. Three big orcs come charging through the foliage. Arthorn 1) draws his sword, 2) reserves two actions, and 3) tells his hound to attack.

Arthorn doesn't need to ready an action - he can just use a reserved action when it's necessary. He also doesn't need attacks of opportunity - reserve actions can be used in response to ANY enemy actions. So here's what happens in the first round:

Orc1: bounds down the hill with two movement actions and attacks with his last action. (The orcs decided to neglect defense because they had good odds of killing or scaring away Arthorn on the first round).
Arthorn: Uses one reserve action to attack Orc1. This is like his readied action. If Arthorn's attack roll is much better than the Orc's attack roll, the GM can decide that the orc's attack is less effective due to Arthorn getting the jump on him.

Orc2: bounds down the hill with two movement actions. One of his movement rolls is piss-poor, and the GM decides that bounding through foliage, downhill, is not exceptionally easy, so the orc falls. He can use his last action to stand up but...
Arthorn: Uses another reserve action to attack the orc while he's down. This will get Arthorn a bonus, but it will also be his last action for the round.
Orc2: chooses to Parry from the ground, rather than get whacked while standing up.

Orc3: charges downhill to find an Arthorn who is way too busy with other orcs to be able to devote time to him. Orc3 can use his last action to attack, and his only opposition is 1) Arthorn's armor (reduction) and 2) the difficulty of making an attack against an overwhelmed opponent - an easy attempt, unless Arthorn has cover from two other orcs and maybe some bushes at his back.

 

[nnms]

So that's attacks going on during the orc's turns, but what about movement? Or waiting in ambush until someone walking hits a certain point and then shooting them with a crossbow or pulling a lever to trigger a trap, or a hundred other things you might want to do in response to a certain condition?

I understand how this system replaces attacks of opportunity, but I don't think it gets there in terms of making readied actions unnecessary. And if you can literally do anything with any action at any time, then you might end up with a bit of a convoluted turn where people are reacting to reactions to reactions to actions.

 

[GMMichael]

Here's the idea:

- Characters get three actions at the start of their turns, which can be used for any type of action.
- Characters with high ability scores get extra actions tied to those ability scores.
- Characters with feats get special actions, usually reserve actions.
- During a character's turn, he can use as many actions as he wants. If he wants to reserve some for later, he can do so.
- When it's not a character's turn, he can use one reserve action per action of the character whose turn it is. If an enemy attacks on his turn, a character can use one action (to defend), but not two actions (to move away, and then counter attack).
- If several characters want to use reserve actions at the same time, characters with higher initiative get priority.
- If a character wants to do something complex in response to an opponent, he can delay his turn.

Posting interrupted - so let me know if I missed something.

 

[nnms]

So I had a pathfinder one off in which we tested this system and it worked fine. We didn't have any of the feats or special abilities that might be appropriate for giving a character extra actions or anything. Just basic 1st level characters from the core rulebook, the APG and the ultimate books and everything worked fine. I ran them through a Free RPG Day adventure from a couple years ago.

 

[GMMichael]

Coolio. It worked fine, but was there anything you wanted to change? Was it the actions-for-defense version, or free-defenses?

One sticking point of mine is still the beginning of initiative: the first attackers can use three attacks, and if a defender wants to defend all three attacks, then he doesn't have actions left with which to attack. (This is a bigger issue with a no-map combat system.)

 

[nnms]

Well, we kept it simple and used a grid. We used a version where each sacrificed action could improve your AC by a couple until your next turn and you can do it to as a reaction to interrupt a successful hit. So if someone really pressed the attack well and you wanted to block it, you could give up your whole round to really concentrate on defense. It also gave something else to do for those who already went rather than maybe getting an out-of-turn attack.

We used a simple "if you are surprised, you get no actions, otherwise you get three." And initiative meant that it was your turn to do the actions that could only be done on your active turn. There was somewhat of the "I attack with all three of my actions, so you'll full defense and then not attack back" in the first combat or two, but it's important to remember that they were level 1 characters who were doing what they could to protect their meagre hit points. So when wild dogs attacked and the PCs largely lost the initiative, they spent a few actions blocking as needed until the initial charge was stalled and then more and more actions were dedicated to attacking.

The grid really helps with using actions for other things as you can maneuver a bit more intelligently than without it. It also meant that more actions were spent on movement than they likely would be in "theatre of the mind" style play.

Another thing that helped was that we had free choice on when a PC wants to attack out of turn. So in a later fight, a spider descended on a PC who interrupted the charge by slashing it with his two handed sword. Another time, the PC waited for a lizard man's attack to reach the attack roll, saw that it wasn't good enough to hit and then riposted after the miss.

It meant attacking someone who was not totally distracted (having used all their actions) meant you could be the one getting stabbed if you weren't skilled enough with your attacks.

 

[nnms]

Just wanted to add that our "each action spent on defense gives an effective +2 to AC" and the ability to spend them as a reaction really makes heavy armour more valuable. There was one character in some sort of good medium or heavy armour with a shield and he would love receiving the first attacks from the monsters. He'd move up into a good position to protect those behind him and then sit on two actions. With an AC of 18, a monster might hit him by a few and he'd just burn actions as needed to block it. If the attack didn't hit his already high AC, he'd use the saved actions to attack.

 

[Ralts Bloodthorne]

Where do mages, druids, and clerics fit into this?

 

[GMMichael]

[MENTION=83293]nnms[/MENTION]:
You might create more of a need for strategy by requiring a defense boost to be announced in advance, like in D&D 3's fight-defensively and full defense. I'm using a homebrew system that doesn't have AC, so when my PCs reserve actions, they can use one to try to completely avoid an attack. If they fail, their armor reduces the damage that they failed to dodge.

I notice the problem of avoiding three attacks with three defenses, and then having none for your turn, goes away with grid movement. If you respond to an enemy attack by withdrawing, maybe you get hit, but your opponent needs to spend two more actions to hit you again - one to move up, and one to swing.

Regarding heavy armor - my homebrew uses damage reduction. So heavy armor can make dodging moot in many cases, since the heavy armor will reduce many attacks to just 1 point of damage. However, characters generally get only 1 health per level, so 1 damage can mean a lot.
[MENTION=6390]Ralts Bloodthorne[/MENTION]:
Mages, clerics, and druids, depending on your game system, can get some very interesting choices under a 3-action system. On the bright side, they can cast 3 spells in a round! But they'd better make those spells count, because enemies can respond to each action with a disrupt action for each spell - effectively giving them 3 attacks of opportunity. This is with a D&D 3 foundation.

In Modos RPG, increasingly difficult spells require more actions to use. So a caster could use his 3 actions to cast 3 simple spells, or 3 actions to cast one more complex spell. Since simple spells use only one action, a caster can cast a spell as a reserve action, using it as an opportunity attack, saving throw, or however he chooses. The rest remains the same.