How often do you provoke AOO/OAs as a DM?

[Hejdun]

I do it often. Mostly because a lot of my combats involve demons and related monsters that are extremely bloodthirsty and have little to no regard for their own lives. Provoking lots of OAs increases the damage and decreases the grind, and it facilitates more interesting combats and choices.

For instance, I've had the last gnoll of the encounter provoke 3 OAs just to try to tackle a PC off a 50 foot high ledge. Really drives home to the PCs just how crazy vicious these gnolls are. They'd rather take a PC down with him than surrender.

 

[jbear]

If the monster is a big brute with loads of HP then I provoke OA without a second thought if the situation is appropriate. When creatures get bloodied or are more fragile they take more care not to provoke. Dumb creatures make mistakes. Untrained creatures aren't master tacticians. Plus it is a good way to speed combat up and keep players attention on the game when it isn't their turn.

 

[Evilhalfling]

Not as often as I should. last game was all centipedes and Kurziks, none of which provoked OAs. They mostly just attacked the nearest thing. They ignored the paladins mark regularly and 3 minions attacked the guy who was doing automatic damage as a reaction to being hit. One also stood in front of a moving mine cart, (2d10) but it was great positioning. Of course some of the monsters had shift 4 as a move action

I do have monsters that get frustrated attacking high AC characters, and move on to softer targets but few make assumptions based on the appearance of vulnerability.

hmm I have been using a lot of semi-intelligent (at best) monsters. The last intelligent enemy was 6 levels higher, and backed by allies - PCs were captured after killing only 1 opponent.

 

[Mark Chance]

Lately: never. I scrapped AoO entirely.

 

[pawsplay]

In my 3.5 game, I frequently had opponents such as dragons or giants provoke them by performing sunder or disarm attacks. Unless the PC has Combat Reflexes, a dragon's high attack bonus and multiple attacks makes eventual success almost certain.

Sometimes the monsters do it out of arrogance, like the wights who tried to swam the cleric. A couple of lucky rolls by the PCs caused the wights to be destroyed by anti-undead weapons before they even got a chance to make an attack roll.

 

[haakon1]

My monsters provoke when the threat seems lesser than the gain.

Nod. Barging through an AOO is a good way to show smugness or rage in a monster, too.

 

[cmrscorpio]

My monsters provoke when the threat seems lesser than the gain. The same goes for ignoring defender marks.

Nod. Barging through an AOO is a good way to show smugness or rage in a monster, too.

Brutes do it all the time. Mindless undead/constructs do it all the time.

Soldier do it occasionally.

Most others do it very rarely.

Solo soldiers do it to display arrogance early in battle.

 

[malraux]

In my combat tonight, I think it was at least once a round by some monster or other. At least in 4e, combat is so movement centric the monsters standing still is a bad idea.

 

[Stormonu]

More often a low levels, when attacks are more likely to miss. I'm also prone to do it when a monster is one hit away from death anyways; sometimes it simply tries to get away or get out of a surrounded position, or I may have it try something desperate.

Also, the monster's intelligence tends to factor in - unthinking creatures are prone to it, animals tend to avoid provoking at all costs and an intelligent creature will weigh the risk.

 

[Hussar]

I think I probably did it at least once per combat. There are so many actions in 3e that can provoke an AOO, that it's pretty difficult to go through an entire fight and NOT do something at least once.