Here's to the extinction of the AOO

[Baby Samurai]

I agree that that part of it's still wonky, but the complaint was that a withdrawal (of, say, 30') does not provoke AoOs, while, say, an attack followed by a standard move of 30' does. I think the reasoning is that, while you're moving the same distance, in the former case, you're moving more slowly.

How do feel about the way Withdraw is handled in Saga (Move action, half your speed, must clear threatened status with first square of movement)?

 

[glass]

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.

Except that as someone has already noted, AoOs date back at least as far as 1e, even if they weren't called that until (late) 2e. So I guess they were D&D after all!

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

A smidgeon over 7 ft, actually.

 

[Desdichado]

I am hoping that AOOs are gone in 4e. Nothing slows down play more than this rule. Maybe AOO should be a special ability/power that a fighter type could CHOOSE to take, but not a standard thing that everyone can do.

Actually, in my experience nothing slows down play more than having hundreds of available spells that need to be looked up almost every single time they're cast. Especially since so m many of them ended up changing from 3e to 3.5. AoO's are easy and only take a few seconds of playtime, in my experience.

Not that I'd miss 'em; they really made playing D&D without a battlemat and minis (or counters of some kind) much more difficult. I prefer to kick back on the couch and play a more narrative style.

I always thought AoO's were easy, but then again, I played a lot of third edition Blood Bowl, and AoO's are pretty much just the same as tackle zones.

 

[Najo]

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.

I agree with you 100%. That is exactly how they should do it. No offense to the non AoOp people here, but without some form of AoOp combat will lose alot of tactical elements. They should also keep it so an individual who is unarmed can be attacked like this, and if somone has reach over you they get the ability to attack you like this.