Frequency of Opportunity Attacks

[Gruns]

Not very often.

I've only DM'd 4E, and when I do I try to have the creatures act as I think they would. For example, zombies will basically attack whoever is closest or whoever hit them last. Hobgoblins will rarely ever fall victim to an OA. Big dumb ogre types will take a few OAs if their commander tells them to "Get the caster!" etc etc.
That said, OAs didn't come up often enough to matter all that much.
Later!
Gruns

 

[the Jester]

Depends on the monsters, their motivations, etc.

On average, I would guess that OAs come up about once per combat, but if a pc works tactically to encourage them, it can be more. My last campaign, the fighter and cleric worked together, and the cleric would trigger mad OAs to let the fighter whack his marked dudes. And they'd encourage the monsters to have to move around and trigger more OAs from the pcs. So like I said, it really depends; that group, there were prolly 5+ OAs per combat on average.

 

[Mirtek]

Sadly, my gm plays with the "Critters know what happens cause of effects on them." interpretation that lets them know more or less exactly what the downside of violating a mark or walking past a person is. Makes sorcerous blade channeling never get used for AoO's too...

While it is correct that a creature knows the exact effects of any power used against it, the effect of the fighter mark is -2 to attack and nothing more. All other fighter tricks are separate features in their own right and not actually part of the mark (unlike a swordmage or paladin mark, in which the mark and the mark violation result are part of a single power). A creature can't know them until they have experienced them for the first time.

To the initial question of this thread: I play in various RPGA games and OAs are very rare, both from players and monsters. Entire mods go by without a single OA

 

[Hejdun]

In the group I play in, monsters almost never provoke OA. I'd wager we get 1 every 4-5 combats at most. I'm playing a fighter who focuses on defense, so I'm ok with eating an OA to give flanking to our party rogue. Likewise, our Artful Dodger rogue will happily suffer an OA to get into flanking position. Between our party of 5, we probably provoke 1-2 OAs per combat.

In the group I DM in, the only OAs are usually ones that I have the monsters provoke. It makes the combats go faster to give out free attacks, and I like cinematic combats, so I'm willing to provoke an OA to do something interesting or cool.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Our group has recently finished fighting monsters who were gaining significant bonuses from an action that consisted as a move: so they would routinely provoke AOs from every member of the party, simply because it was worth it.

Normal foes typically don't provoke from our fighter in order to move unless things are getting desperate, but they will provoke in order to smack a striker or controller.

My character provokes from foes all the time, because I'm a rogue. Getting sneak attack off is simply that important. The fact that I'm an artful dodger doesn't hurt either.

Other members of the party can usually avoid provoking: typically the only time they provoke is if they can't take another round where they are, or if the fighter has a mark that will be provoked in turn.

I'd say that each side provokes at least once per combat for some reason. It's a rare combat where that doesn't happen.

 

[Saeviomagy]

It is good to be rid of "HA HA GOTCHA" effects.

There's just one problem with this interpretation: specifically there's a rogue power that, once it hits a group of foes, automatically redirects any of that group of foes attacks to targets of the rogue's choice.

Now one might say this is just shorthand for saying that those foes cannot attack the rogue, but if that's the case: why does it give them a bonus to attack the newly chosen targets?

 

[Akaiku]

While it is correct that a creature knows the exact effects of any power used against it, the effect of the fighter mark is -2 to attack and nothing more. All other fighter tricks are separate features in their own right and not actually part of the mark (unlike a swordmage or paladin mark, in which the mark and the mark violation result are part of a single power). A creature can't know them until they have experienced them for the first time.

Hense the sadly. The enemies get to know the totality of the causality of effects. So they know about the fighter mark and the retribution, and probably if they have feats that make it worse, etc...

At least they just stand in the fighter stance that's 1w auto damage, making cc attack oh well for not happening.

 

[Iron Sky]

We had a pretty gnarly OA event happen in our second-to-last fight of Paragon (just hit Epic last night!):
1) Our Warlock used Hellish Rebuke on an enemy 6 squares away (if the Warlock takes damage, the enemy takes damage).
2) Our Champion of Order Paladin DC'd an enemy caster next to him.
3) Our Warlock intentionally walked past the enemy the Paladin had marked, taking 19 damage. This triggered his Hellish Rebuke, doing 20 damage to the enemy he'd hit with it last turn.
4) The Paladin's Divine Challenge did 19 damage to the monster that hit the Warlock, then the Pally got an OA from CoO and hit for another 21.

Net result: Monsters take 60 damage, the party takes 19, from a move action...


On the topic at hand, I'd say my ranger gets about 1 OA every other fight or so. With my crazy initiative and speed, I can usually get up in the grille of enemy controllers, often forcing them to decide between eating an OA from me or using a puny melee attack on me.

As a whole, I'd say the monsters average 1-2 OAs per fight and the party about the same(with the temp-heavy Infernal Warlock and the Halfling Rogue drawing 90% of those).