How often do deal with AoOs?

[Bill Muench]

We see AoOs just about every round. I've played in other campaigns where they are much less common. Their prevalence seems to depend on the level of tactics your party uses.

If your every action is "I attack the guy in front of me" or "I cast magic missile" or "I attack the guy in front of me again", of course you won't suffer any AoOs. You aren't seeing AoOs for the same reason the 2E gridless ruleset didn't include them. When the whole combat consists of trading blows with the monster until one of you dies, there aren't many dynamic situations where an AoO would make sense.

On the other hand, if you take advantage of all the new tactical options allowed by 3E + battlegrid, the AoO becomes a much larger factor. Use Disarm or Trip on pesky opponents with too many hit points. Barrel past the enemy tanks to put a hurt on their wizard. Disengage from one enemy to go finish off another one who's almost dead. Do anything more interesting than just stand there and swing a pointy stick, and you're liable to draw AoOs pretty often.

I concur wholeheartedly. Put me in the "every round" category. My friends and I tend to work well together as a team, so we'll have some people drawing AoOs to allow other people to do things. One of my characters is a very mobile Dervish with a very high AC, plus Elusive Target, Combat Reflexes and soon, Karmic Strike. So he'll dance around the battlefield drawing AoOs. If they miss, he trips them (thank you Elusive Target!) and they provoke when they stand up. If they hit, he attacks (thank you Karmic Strike!) and trips them with Improved Trip and they provoke when they stand up. He's also got Close Quarters Fighting, so most things that try to grapple him provoke AoOs.

We also tend to do things like use air elementals to scoop up enemies and put them in bad positions, etc. I for one really enjoy the options and tactics in 3.0/3.5, and tend to use them whenever possible. Plus really high AC characters might just not bother casting defensively to use up an opponent's AoOs.

Bill