Here's to the extinction of the AOO

[Dragonblade]

They should keep AoO's. They are not so hard to understand. I've never had a newbie not understand it once I explain how it works. Of course, part of my real world job often involves explaining things to people who can be incredibly dense. So, I may just be good at explaining things in basic, easy to understand language.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Ha! In my group we make it even harder for ourselves out of habit but count, "One and a half, three, four and a half, six, etc. . ."

Exactly – a diagonal square is 7 1/2 feet.

 

[BryonD]

Anyone who walks because they can't grasp 1,2,1,2, IS a child in my opinion.

meh

I don't see that as fair. It doesn't need to be a matter of grasping it for someone to find that kind of issue to be the opposite of fun for them.

 

[Lord Zardoz]

I like AoO, and hope they stay. I assume that an AoO will be an immediate action, and have a trigger of moving out of an area someone threatens, and on the Disarm / Trip / Sunder type actions.

As for diagonal movement, I mostly work around that by direct measurement. As someone else on these boards once mentioned, the length of a standard mechanical pencil works out to 30 feet of movement on most square grids. For missile weapons, I use lengths of pre-measured string.

END COMMUNICATION

 

[Thornir Alekeg]

Would you prefer for each square to count as two when moving diagonally, ala Saga?

If they do this, one of the first houserules I would implement if I were DM would be to go back to the 1,2,1,2 diagonal move.

I like the idea of AoOs, although I wouldn't mind simplifying the things that provoke. My biggest problem with the AoO is that I've found many players become so afraid of provoking one, they spend way too much time doing everything they can to avoid them, which can slow the game down. "I'll move here. No, wait! He'll get an AoO if I do that...so, I'll move this way instead...I won't provoke one if I do that, right?"

 

[Cadfan]

Attacks of Opportunity can't be replaced by immediate actions because they already are immediate actions. They're just really crappy immediate actions that aren't well integrated into the immediate action rules.

Look at them. They're a special action you can do outside of your normal turn, but only once per round. Sounds like an immediate action to me. Except they don't use up your immediate action, so you can use an attack of opportunity to respond to an opponent, then an immediate action to respond to your opponent again.

I don't mind if AoOs stay. But they need to be integrated into the rest of the rules. Give players one Immediate action per round. Make an Attack of Opportunity an immediate action that can only be used to counter your opponent's actions.

With iterative attacks going away and single attacks increasing in power, AoOs will get proportionally stronger since they're single attacks. The fact that they do more damage will make them more relevant on the battlefield, which makes them more palatable even if they slow gameplay. Meanwhile, the increase in mobility created by the loss of iterative attacks will make provoking AoOs more tempting.

That's my take on how this should happen. I give it about a 70% chance of being written this way.

 

[Nahat Anoj]

If there are no AoO's, then it's not D&D.

And yes, that means all pre 3.x games are not D&D.

 

[Baby Samurai]

Attacks of Opportunity can't be replaced by immediate actions because they already are immediate actions. They're just really crappy immediate actions that aren't well integrated into the immediate action rules.

Look at them. They're a special action you can do outside of your normal turn, but only once per round. Sounds like an immediate action to me. Except they don't use up your immediate action, so you can use an attack of opportunity to respond to an opponent, then an immediate action to respond to your opponent again.

I don't mind if AoOs stay. But they need to be integrated into the rest of the rules. Give players one Immediate action per round. Make an Attack of Opportunity an immediate action that can only be used to counter your opponent's actions.

With iterative attacks going away and single attacks increasing in power, AoOs will get proportionally stronger since they're single attacks. The fact that they do more damage will make them more relevant on the battlefield, which makes them more palatable even if they slow gameplay. Meanwhile, the increase in mobility created by the loss of iterative attacks will make provoking AoOs more tempting.

I really, really dig all of that (you're right on the money).

 

[Toben the Many]

IMO the hatred of AoOs is because while it increases the "tactical level" of the game, it turns it into a mini-wargame. Back with my old group, every combat devolved into a chess game, with us trying to choose the best way to take movement to avoid any AoOs, because blindly moving had proved to be deadly when we first started playing. So yes, it did slow the game down a great deal for us and made it feel like a board game, where it was in your best interest to take 5 minutes calculating how best to move your "piece".

I'd love to get rid of them.

I totally agree. For one, AoOs basically mandated the need for miniatures and battle maps. We used those before, but it made combat tied to the battle map. Then, as wayne mentioned, it made each player move their mini like a chess piece, and it slowed the game down to a crawl. There was even a game that I was in where "if you took your hand off your mini then you finalized your move". So people would place their mini and then leave their finger on it while they were thinking.

That's obviously an extreme case, but the big thing I've noticed is that it adds about 5 to 6 seconds for even experienced players when moving on the battle field. That doesn't seem like a lot but that slight pause slows down the battle cumulatively, because everyone is taking more time.

Now, stuff I've heard makes it seem like AoOs are still around, however. Where's the news that they will be gone?

 

[Baby Samurai]

And yes, that means all pre 3.x games are not D&D.

That's true, we had Basic and Advanced and…