How often do deal with AoOs?

[Quasqueton]

Confusion and complaints about Attacks of Opportunity come up quite often on this board. There are two threads discussing them right now. There is always one active in the Rules forum.

In my experience, AoOs don't come up very often. The simple 5' step negates easily half or more of the potential oppontunities. It is rare that someone tries a special combat, and the character usually has the feat to negate the AoO prompted by that. My group sees maybe one AoO in every 4 combats.

"Keep your weapon up, keep the mages out of melee, and don't try to dart past active enemies."

How often do you see AoOs provoked in battle (assuming you use the RAW). Do your Players fret over every action and movement to avoid AoO? [Mine don't.]

Quasqueton

 

[Crothian]

maybe every other or every third. non of the PCs are built to take advantage of them and they just don't come up that often. but that will change

 

[diaglo]

every round.

 

[DaveMage]

Sometimes you have to provoke AOOs to get to the spellcaster behind the front lines.

Other times AOOs help you avoid the full attacks of some creatures. It's usually much better to provoke an AOO by running away from a baddie with multiple attacks each round.

 

[the Jester]

Depends on what you mean by 'deal with'- do you mean, how often does someone get one, or how often does someone need to take them into account?

I voted 'multiple times per combat' as there is almost always the need to cast defensively, withdraw, etc. As to how many actually get taken per combat- I'd still say multiple.

 

[Quasqueton]

every round.

Can you elaborate on this? What is going on that someone is provoking an AoO every round? Can you give an example of a normal combat?

I'm really curious. In my experience, 80% of all actions are "I attack with my weapon" or "I cast a spell". And rarely are the spellcasters up in melee, so that rarely provokes.

Quasqueton

 

[Zappo]

They always come up, if by "coming up" you also include "changing your strategy in order to avoid an AoO". Usually, AoOs actually happen when Large creatures are involved.

 

[Crothian]

They always come up, if by "coming up" you also include "changing your strategy in order to avoid an AoO". Usually, AoOs actually happen when Large creatures are involved.

if we are using this definition ie people altering what they do to avouid them then they happen much more often form me.

 

[diaglo]

They always come up, if by "coming up" you also include "changing your strategy in order to avoid an AoO". Usually, AoOs actually happen when Large creatures are involved.

that's the way i read it too

 

[Mercule]

Once a combat, on average. The players understand them and compensate for them, but there are times they feel the risk is worthwhile. NPCs/monsters also occasionally provoke AoO. "Dealing with" can also imply an open consideration in choosing an action, in which case, the frequency would go up.

Personally, I've never understood the storm around AoOs. The rules are pretty easy to understand, for general conditions (don't move out of a threatened space casually), and there's a chart for everything else. Honestly, anyone who ever calculated THAC0 should be able to handle AoOs.