Frequency of Opportunity Attacks

[Mengu]

Forked from the AC thread:

I am DMing 2 games at the moment and playing in 1. I was playing in 2 not so long ago.

In none of these games do I see PCs doing OAs often.

I suspect that people who claim that they do OAs a lot are doing them a lot less frequently then they are. I do not think that my experience is that uncommon due to the fact that it repeats regardless of which group of players I am with.

Rather, I suspect that people remember the OAs because they are rare. It seems like they happen a lot because people remember them as special.


So, I challenge you and keterys to keep track of how many DM OAs and PC OAs that you have in your next 10 encounters. Just have a small slip of paper and put a tiny line on it each time it occurs. Don't tell the other players and/or DMs what you are doing. And, keep your OAs separated from the OAs of other players (since you know about the experiment, we want to see how it plays out vs. people who do not know about it).

Just to be scientific about it. I'll do the same if you will.

Are you up to the challenge? Are you willing to see if your opinion matches reality?

Or do you think that you are exaggerating and that the challenge will illustrate that your POV is in error and you are unwilling to find out?

And, anyone else here can play along. Let's see if our opinions match reality.

So how often do opportunity attacks happen in your games?

I haven't kept track in any large scale, but this is very much dependent on DM style, kinds of creatures faced, kinds of scenarios, player style, and even type of game as there will be variance between home campaigns, LFR, or one shot delves.

In the last session of my game, we played through one combat encounter, there were a total of 7 opportunity attacks, 6 provoked by monsters, 1 provoked by a PC. But it was a rather unusual scenario where monsters were trying to break through a defensive PC line. So this is by no means average.

As DM, I would say I provoke opportunity attacks about once an encounter on average.

As a player, it largely depends on the character I'm playing. My warlord provokes about 1 in every 2-3 encounters. My barbarian rarely provokes, maybe couple times in his 5 level career (badge of the berserker, lots of shifting powers). My avenger and invoker also don't provoke much.

Looking at other PC's, I frequently see defenders provoking opportunity attacks to get in the right position, or to save someone else's bacon. But aside from that, for the players in our regular groups, I don't know any non-defender that's ever willing to provoke opportunity attacks. In the game I'm playing the warlord, I sometimes used to talk the artful dodger rogue to get in position and provoke an attack, which she reluctantly did, but since she got distant advantage, I don't think she ever needed to provoke an opportunity attack.

So what's your experience with opportunity attacks? And if anyone wishes to take up KarinsDad's challenge, please discuss here.

 

[Enclave]

Totally dependent on the DM and also the encounter itself and party positioning and a ton of other factors. I've seen encounters where there are plenty of Opportunity Attacks and others where there hasn't been a single one.

That said, as a player I personally have avoided them with my Sorcerer I used to play. However before that I was playing a Rogue and I'd provoke them fairly regularly since I was an Artful Dodger.

 

[Markn]

In our last session, we had 2 encounters and 6 opportunity attacks split between monsters and PCs - 3 each.

 

[Destil]

Players in my games provoke them all the time, generally from marked enemies who the defenders can punish. I often wonder about how meta-gamey is is to take them, but most opportunity attacks are taken unless I have a specific reason not to.

Monsters I run provoke a lot too, though it depends on the monster. It speeds up battles and lets me do fun things like put brutes with reach on top of the ranged party members. It's rare for me to go through a fight without a few AoOs on the players side (one player, our archer ranger, has actually killed two non-minion opponents with critical unarmed strike AoOs for 5 damage).

 

[Mort_Q]

My chain fighter has the Blade Opportunist feat, and an Opportunistic Spiked Chain, so naturally, my DM has never had a createure provoke an OA. Almost level 4.

Sometimes I don't think he gets it.

 

[Enclave]

Players in my games provoke them all the time, generally from marked enemies who the defenders can punish. I often wonder about how meta-gamey is is to take them, but most opportunity attacks are taken unless I have a specific reason not to.

Monsters I run provoke a lot too, though it depends on the monster. It speeds up battles and lets me do fun things like put brutes with reach on top of the ranged party members. It's rare for me to go through a fight without a few AoOs on the players side (one player, our archer ranger, has actually killed two non-minion opponents with critical unarmed strike AoOs for 5 damage).

Actually that's another thing. The DM has to not play too much into metagaming.

For instance, if you're the DM and the party is up against say zombies. Well, the zombies aren't going to be smart enough to not provoke opportunity attacks. They're going to do what their very basic instincts tell them to.

In this manner, they could very well ignore the squishy Wizard directly in front of them to go attack some Warrior who marked them who's a few squares away. Why? They don't know any better and while on their way to the Warrior they may well provoke an opportunity attack from some Avenger or something that they are shambling by on their way to the Warrior.

This is something I've noticed a lot of DM's have trouble with. They don't have their monsters react the way that specific monster would react.

Now sure, this can lead to some fights becoming much easier for the players, but I think that's a trade off for immersion. Not to mention, when the players come up against a monster that does think on a fairly high level they may be thrown off their game some which would make the epic fight all the more epic.

 

[Kingreaper]

My chain fighter has the Blade Opportunist feat, and an Opportunistic Spiked Chain, so naturally, my DM has never had a createure provoke an OA. Almost level 4.

Sometimes I don't think he gets it.

To play devils advocate here:

Your opportunity attacks are likely so punishing that it's really freaking hard to find a monster that SHOULD take the hit from you in order to get out of there.


Especially as, being a fighter, taking the OA won't even get them out of there.

If you've been facing mindless creatures though, it does seem a bit silly.

 

[DarkLord Of DForce]

We had a guest DM come in one evening, who set up an apparently deserted village with a central building (church).

We came into the village and every time the clock in the church would ring, the DM had one of our party roll a d6. Whatever they rolled was the amount of Zombies that appeared. We had 27 at one time. That sounds really OP - but he played them like mindless "nom nom" machines. When they locked on to a target, they wouldn't release until either the target or they were dead. It was hairy for our party until we realized that. Our ranger, with a speed of 7, aggro'ed about 10 of them, then led them past a couple of our party who then OA'd them to death, turn after turn. I dropped a couple of glowstones in their path to help. I personally led 4 or 5 into a single lane alley where they could only come at me one at a time and wailed on them. Our AOE people nailed the groups as they trailed us.

It was really pretty fun - like playing a "Night of the Living Dead" movie.

 

[Mort_Q]

To play devils advocate here:

Your opportunity attacks are likely so punishing that it's really freaking hard to find a monster that SHOULD take the hit from you in order to get out of there.

Especially as, being a fighter, taking the OA won't even get them out of there.

If you've been facing mindless creatures though, it does seem a bit silly.

My opponents should have to suffer my Combat Superiority before learning that it should be avoided.

Now, granted, we've been fighting mostly intelligent foes, but it is still no fun.

It reminds me of 3e Favored Enemies.... which you never ever encountered.

 

[Enclave]

My opponents should have to suffer my Combat Superiority before learning that it should be avoided.

Now, granted, we've been fighting mostly intelligent foes, but it is still no fun.

It reminds me of 3e Favored Enemies.... which you never ever encountered.

This is also very much the case. Enemies shouldn't know what you're capable of until they've either seen it or experienced it for themselves.