RANT: Attacks of Opportunity

[Justin Bacon]

In one case the PC is completely ineffective and that can be not fun. In the other case the PC is dramatically effective which is more often seen as fun. Not the same thing.

Well, if you're going to get rid of every rule which might result in a PC failing to achieve his desired result, then AoOs are pretty far down the list, but I can understand that you'd get to them eventually.

You seem to have missed the point, however: AoOs allow PCs to both succeed and fail. Like every other rule in the game.

If you want to play a game where the PCs always get to do exactly what they want to do, then AoOs aren't your problem: D&D isn't the game for you.

 

[Justin Bacon]

Hey Justin! No offense is taken. I do not want it to seem that I am angry or attacking you either. However, you really want to tell me that the number of times you roll the dice & check the results of those rolls with 6-8 plyers does not have anything to do with the amount of 'real' time that is spent in that round of combat?

Hmm. Either (a) you're not expressing yourself clearly; or (b) you're still not bothering to read the posts you're responding to. Or both.

To whit: Originally you talked about extending the amount of real time spent in combat. Now you're talking about etending the amount of real time spent in a particular round.

First, these are synonymous statements. Do you understand that?

Second, who cares how much time is spent in any particular round of combat? I can understand personal taste preferring shorter and/or longer amounts of time spent resolving combat during a game session, but I can't imagine any legitimate reason for caring how much time is spent in any particular round of combat if the overall amount of time spent in combat remains unchanged.

 

[Justin Bacon]

Sure, but as it stands, fighters will move away from the wimps to ENGAGE the guy with the axe.

Why would an experienced fighter want the wimps taking potshots at his exposed back while he's focusing his attention on the guy with the big axe?

Your original claim was that you find it unbelievable that people would try to avoid getting close to people with weapons who are trying to hurt them. It literally breaks your suspension of disbelief.

Unfortunately, I think you're going to have a really tough time convincing anyone that people in the real world want to get close to people with weapons who are trying to hurt them for no reason whatsoever.

I wouldn't know about 3.5, we don't play it. But it was NOT untrue in 3.0. A pc may move his movement rate without drawing an AOO from the person he withdraws from (unless he has reach). Then, while 30 feet away he gets hit if he does any other action.

Apparently you didn't bother reading what you were responding to. Allow me to repeat it for you: "The AoO was always drawn because of the way you chose to disengage from your opponent: You could either disengage carefully and not provoke an AoO, but have no time left to do anything else; or you could disengage recklessly and provoke the AoO, but have time to accomplish something else in the same round."

You're not the first person I've encountered that had problems grasping this concept, which is probably why WotC added the Withdraw action so that you had to clearly state up front whether you were carefully disengaging from your opponent or not. But you'll note that adding an explicit statement of intent on the part of the player does NOT change what their character actually did.

A fireball has a 20 feet radius. A very bad dm should be able to describe the combat well enough so you know wether or not you are that close.

So a "very bad DM" will be able to describe combat in such a way that you can distinguish between 20 feet and 21 feet, but not between 10 feet and 11 feet? I call . At this point the only thing you can do is admit that you were wrong and move on.

 

[delericho]

Many special moves provoke AoO and in some cases a successful AoO makes the move impossible like grapple.

Yeah, that does bug me a bit. IMO, a successful AoO shouldn't simply prevent a grapple, it should make it harder. Perhaps apply the damage done as a penalty to the grapple check, or something?

However, that's a problem with that particular case, rather than a fundamental problem with AoOs.

 

[Cthulhudrew]

...and a core rule, going back even further.

Beat me to it. Was just going over the OD&D/BECMI rules earlier tonight, and was surprised to see something very similar there. There was even a tactical maneuver (Fighting Withdrawal) that encompasses both AoO and a 5' step!

 

[evildmguy]

I don't consider that metagaming. The savvy, veteran fighter is sizing up his opponents and knows that he'll be able to weave his way through them to reach the BBEG in order to stop the End of the World. Sure, he might cut up on the way... but that's a sacrifice he's willing to make if it will save the world.

A lot of people get schizophrenic over hit points: They know that having lots of hit points means that their characters are really good at avoiding and surviving blows that would devastate normal mortals. But, for some reason, they don't want their characters to behave as if they knew they were uber-skilled, tough sons-of-bitches.

Um . . . isn't your response the essence of metagaming? I mean, I don't know anyone who has ever been cut deeply or shot who wants to repeat the experience! Further, the *rules* support the fact that a sword with no special killing ability CAN NOT kill a high(er) level character in a single blow. That's just not true in real life. Further, the rules don't support being slowed down, hobbled, blinded from blood, or reeling from the blows, again without some special ability. 1 hp = 100 hps as far as how effective the character is, again barring any special attacks that happened.

Of course, my statement about it not being real life is the crux of the difference between us, specifically me and the d20 rules. I would rather see a player be wary at all times of being hit because it isn't a good thing. Most d20 players, though, are the opposite of your second paragraph. As long as they are above 50% hit points, most are more than willing to charge in, take the hits but get to the BBEG.

It's very heroic. It's very dramatic. It's just not very realistic especially if the character survives all of the hits. And for me, again, I like the concept or idea of AoOs but I don't like hit points.

I guess, like Maverick, we will just have to say that we are agreeing with each other in an unusual way!

Have a good one! Take care!

edg

 

[evildmguy]

"I wisely assess the situation, noting that the minions of the high priest are clustered in two groups with room between them. I smile beneath my helm at their inexperience and dodge to the left then charge forward while drawing my sword, just as they brace for the presumed onslaught of my attack, I cut left again, slide forward and try to slam my sword into the evil smile of that evil bastard who is still covered in the blood of his latest sacrifice. Soon he will wear his own blood because I fight with both heart and mind instead of charging heedlessly into the sorry curs that serve him through fear."

Yeah, it bugs me too when a player breaks it down into move 5' left, 10' forward, 5' left, 5' forward every time rather than tossing out some cool descriptive text. Heck, even once in a while would be fine.

That was an awesome description! And I am with you, I would love it if players did that more often!

Have a good one! Take care!

edg

 

[delericho]

Further, the *rules* support the fact that a sword with no special killing ability CAN NOT kill a high(er) level character in a single blow.

Not quite - the rules support the notion that a sword with no special killing ability cannot land a blow cleanly enough on a high level character to kill him in a single blow. Which isn't realistic, it's true, but the odds of a standard militiaman getting lucky and one-hit-killing Lancelot are so small that the system doesn't model them. That's not a hugely bad thing.

And note that a high-level fighter with a normal sword can land far more potent blows than the standard militiaman - as reflected by his use of the Power Attack and Improved Critical feats. It's not a perfect fix, but it does work somewhat.

And that's the thing with the "high level Fighter running past the mooks" scenario - the Fighter isn't just running, he's also angling arms, shoulders, armour and shield, to roll away from the worst of those blows. Sure, he's not defending fully (hence the AoOs), but much of what he does is instinctive, learned through hard experience.

Works for me.

 

[greywulf]

We removed AOOS a long time ago and not one of us (a group of as many as 12 different players - though they're never all here at once) has regretted it.

Amen, bro'! You sound like my kinda gamer.

We took out AoO the same time we unanimously decided to ditch using miniatures. Yes, we tried 'em. And no, we didn't like it.

The point that seems to be missed is that getting rid of the whole AoO fiasco doesn't mean that gameplay just becomes a morass of move/hit/move/hit alternate rounds. AoO is jut a badly worded attempt to impart COMMON SENSE into the proceedings. As such, for us (I know others have more success. That's cool) they just don't work. It's too rulesy, to heavyhanded.

What we do is just use common sense as it stands without trying to dictate the whens and wherefores. That's all.

Want to dash past that guard? He's going to try to hit you. Don't need no steenking AoO diagram and paragraph of text to tell me that. Same goes for miniatures and battlemaps. Is that troll in range of my fireball? Yes, if it's fun.

 

[Crothian]

You seem to have missed the point, however: AoOs allow PCs to both succeed and fail. Like every other rule in the game.

You have missed my point. The AoO doesn't have anything to do with the character completely the move. Before the character even tries the move they get hit. And sometimes that hit prevents them from doing the move all together. It is one thing to get to roll that d20 to try to grapple, but a successful AoO prevents that from happening.