D&D 5E Keeping AoO for PC's, but removing AoO from enemies

[BookTenTiger]

In my experience...

Attacks of Opportunity are FUN for players. Players love to have that extra chance to hit enemies, and feats like Sentinel are super fun.

Attacks of Opportunity are NOT FUN for enemies. Players limit their options in combat for fear of being hit, even when facing weak enemies.

I am thinking of limiting Attacks of Opportunity to being available only to Player Characters.

How do you think this will effect combat?

I am hoping that as a result, players are more dynamic and creative in their movement and actions. I also think this will allow the Player Characters to face more difficult enemies and feel better about running away.

On the other hand, this means that the characters are going to get more attacks per combat than the enemies. So I'm thinking of giving all enemies something in exchange for taking away their Attacks of Opportunity. Here's my list of ideas:

Max HP.

A "Healing Surge" once per combat as a reaction.

Dodge as a reaction to taking damage.

Higher AC.


What are your ideas? Is this a crazy imbalance of action economy? Does it solve my problems?

 

[lhx]

Do you have a rogue? You just nerfed your rogue’s cunning action. I think you’re going to have balance issues and the extra mobility is going to feel weird.
Sometimes a monster’s goal is to dash to engage the caster even if it can’t attack this round.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Do you have a rogue? You just nerfed your rogue’s cunning action. I think you’re going to have balance issues and the extra mobility is going to feel weird.
Sometimes a monster’s goal is to dash to engage the caster even if it can’t attack this round.

"Nerf" is one way to look at it. But Cunning Action allows more than Disengage. Since the Rogue no longer has to use their bonus action to Disengage, they can now choose other Bonus Actions to take.

 

[Oofta]

I always play that what works for the PCs works for the monsters. There's very limited tactics for positioning in 5E, I don't see a need to get rid of this. Yes, it sucks that the monsters get to attack and potentially kill a PC. But without that threat there wouldn't be much of a game.

If players are that concerned about it there are several options including the mobile feat, play a swashbuckler, use cunning action, misty step ... the list goes on.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

I don't think it would have a big enough impact that you need to give NPCs something in return. It will probably just make it easier for PCs to focus fire and do things like run past minions to take out the spellcaster.

I do agree that it takes away some of the tactical element of the game, but that's not everybody's cup of tea.

I also think there's a tendency for players to be overly cautious. There's plenty of times where it's worth it to get an attack of opportunity. You might demonstrate this by having NPCs provoke them to get in better tactical positions. Also as others have mentioned there are lots of ways mitigate AoOs and remember that it takes a reaction, so they can't do one if they used their reaction for anything else (including another AoO.)

 

[Nebulous]

I think that would greatly unbalance the game and give the PCs an unfair advantage. But, if you want to make 5e even more PC friendly, go ahead.

 

[Helldritch]

I am fully on Oofta's side on this one. What the PCs can do, so can the monsters.

 

[Shiroiken]

"Nerf" is one way to look at it. But Cunning Action allows more than Disengage. Since the Rogue no longer has to use their bonus action to Disengage, they can now choose other Bonus Actions to take.

Yes, but now the Swashbuckler Rogue ability and Mobile become nerfed instead. Anything that negates/mitigates AoO from enemies is now weakened/worthless.

 

[commandercrud]

This causes more problems than it solves, which is none.

 

[aco175]

I have see PCs run up to meet the front line of the monsters who are blocking the evil caster. The fighter wanted to reach the caster, but is now blocked by a group of mooks. The evil caster gets to cast bad spell at the cleric knocking him down. The next round the fighter decides to take the AOO from the mooks in order to reach the evil caster. It becomes a trade-off for the player. You remove this by allowing the fighter to just move by the mooks, you remove a lot from the game and need to replace it with something cool.

A simple thing is that monsters stop PCs for one round even though they do not get an AOO. Not as cool as attacks. Maybe allow them to negate a hit once/rest. This will most likely make the players upset though. You can have them get a free move 1/rest, but players may still get mad if the monster moves just before the fighter rolls to his. I would think you need something easy like +2 to AC or max HP and just leave more options off the board.