New Revision Spotlight: Attacks of Opportunity

[Hypersmurf]

Quite Good, when you explain to me the 39 Dex he must have to get 14(!!) AoO.

Or a 14-headed hydra with Karmic Strike

Still, i would state, that moving is a separate action from attacking, but a Full Attack is just one Opportunity.

I don't like that at all. If someone stands next to a High Dex Spiked Chain AoO-Monkey and fires five arrows, they should provoke one per shot...

To get everything right, the (hopeless) attacker wouldn't continue to hit (thus getting the extra Karmic Strike) until after the first 6 Attacks, would you think? And if he does, he'd shrug off your puny attepts to bother him, and finally punish you subdually

Nevertheless It's a thought experiment.

-Hyp.

 

[Number47]

AoO become difficult only in these "hypothetically possible" thought experiments. In real games, the rule is fairly simple and works without slowing the game at all.

 

[Pielorinho]

Can't.

Table 8-4.

You've said this twice, but I still have no idea what you're talking about. Would you mind elaborating, as the table doesn't exist in the SRD?

A quote from the SRD would be helpful; such a quote might look like:

Strike a weapon [Standard][AoO: Yes]
Description: A character can use a melee attack with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon to strike a weapon or shield that a character's opponent is holding. The attacking weapon must be no more than one size category smaller than the weapon attacked. (Treat a buckler as Small, a small shield as Medium-size, a large shield as Large, and a tower shield as Huge.) Doing so provokes an attack of opportunity from the opponent because the character is diverting it's attention from the opponent to the opponent's armaments.
Then the attacker and the defender make opposed attack rolls. If the attacker wins, the attacker has made a successful attack against the weapon or shield.

Brevity is often, but not always, the soul of wit.

Daniel

 

[hong]

Brevity is often, but not always, the soul of wit.

The secret to comedy is

 

[Hypersmurf]

You've said this twice, but I still have no idea what you're talking about. Would you mind elaborating, as the table doesn't exist in the SRD?

A quote from the SRD would be helpful.

In the SRD, look at the action type for Disarm, Trip, Grapple, and Strike a Weapon.

The first three are "Varies"; the last is "Standard".

On Table 8-4, this is explained; Strike a Weapon is a Standard Action, specifically, the Attack Action.

Disarm, Grapple, and Trip are Action Type Varies, and each bear a little double dagger symbol that points to a footnote:

"These attack forms substitute for a melee attack, not an action. As melee attacks, they can be used once in an attack or charge action, one or more times in a full attack action, or even in an attack of opportunity."

The Strike a Weapon action does not have the double dagger symbol.

-Hyp.

 

[hong]

timing.

 

[hong]

Do not follow my example.

 

[Darklone]

Soon there will be one day when I will understand Hongs post at once...

I loathe that day.

 

[Pielorinho]

In the SRD, look at the action type for Disarm, Trip, Grapple, and Strike a Weapon.

The first three are "Varies"; the last is "Standard".

On Table 8-4, this is explained; Strike a Weapon is a Standard Action, specifically, the Attack Action.

I'm skeptical, considering the first sentence of "strike a weapon" is:

Description: A character can use a melee attack with a slashing or bludgeoning weapon to strike a weapon or shield that a character's opponent is holding.

Combined with the first sentence of "Making an attack of opportunity:

An attack of opportunity is a single melee attack

It's true that the text you quoted is not part of the description of either striking an object or a weapon. However, there's also no text in striking an object/weapon to indicate that this particular use of a melee attack is excluded from being done as an AoO. As such, it looks to me like it's clarification text in the other places, technically unnecessary (since things you can do as a melee attack, you can do as an AoO).

To repeat: an attack of opportunity is a single melee attack, without further qualifiers. Any attack defined as a "melee attack" can be taken as an AoO.

Daniel

 

[Rel]

This has been a really interesting thread. I always know that is the case when I am nodding my head and saying "good point" to both sides of an argument. (Yes, I nod my head and talk to my computer screen. Don't you?)

My take up to this point is this:

I agree that it makes little sense not to allow AoO's on helpless foes. There is however, IMO, no chance that the 3.5 rules will address this.

If I were going to allow AoO's against helpless foes, I think that I would feel forced to do a few things for the sake of balance:

1) Restrict the number of AoO's against a given helpless foe to one per attacker. I'd use the fairly flimsy excuse that being helpless is a single circumstance and you therefore don't get multiple AoO's deriving from the same circumstance.

OR

2) Add additional prerequisites to Combat Reflexes to assure that it couldn't be taken until higher levels.

AND

3) Ease up on the "Death Rules" such that combatants didn't die until they had taken more than -10 HP. Negative Constitution score seems ok early on, but that will be negligible protection at levels 5 and higher where any given attack against a foe rendered helpless by unconciousness will be tantamount to a CdG (which is NOT an evil act by the way ).


To be perfectly honest, I probably won't do any of that and will just ignore the problem. I understand that for some people, this will be the pet peeve that they MUST address with the system. I respect that but this one isn't mine.