RANT: Attacks of Opportunity

[MarkB]

But wait! Now we are tenth level! Suddenly, our verismillitude has changed. What used to kill a character is merely an inconvenience. My question is simply, how did the character, after x levels of this manoveur being fatal, suddenly decide, "Naw, I'll survive it this time?"

He got better at dodging, deflecting and withstanding attacks as the result of his training and experience - and what's more, he knows he did.

An average man on the street who takes a Formula One car out in a Grand Prix race will crash and burn. If he competes in a national-level rugby (or American Football) game, he'll be pounded into the mud. And yet, professionals at either of these sports will go out under exactly the same conditions, face the same dangers, and overcome them, because that's what they do, and they're good at it.

 

[Rodrigo Istalindir]

Those who know me knows I like the grim'n'gritty, so AoOs are a requirement for me.

IME, though, it's the loss of iterative attacks (and being on the receiving end of the on subsequent actions) that leads to a static battlefield far more than AoOs. The fighters don't mind taking the AoO, but they get cheesed when they can only make a single attack and then have to stand there and take multiple shots when the opponent gets to act.

I've always used AoOs or their equivalents, even in games that didn't have them. But I've been blessed with players who for the most part think like I do, and aren't going to let a little risk get in the way of doing something cool. Personally, I think AoOs should be *more* common -- you might actually see people fighting defensively, taking combat expertise, etc., once in a while instead of the 5' dance with full-attack.

 

[evildmguy]

In the end, we may have to agree to disagree.

He got better at dodging, deflecting and withstanding attacks as the result of his training and experience - and what's more, he knows he did.

How? Seriously, how does a soldier know that knife won't hurt him as much this time? How does he know the bullet will only be an inconvenience? And why would he willingly run past people with pointy metal and allow each of them to get an attack?

I completely agree that many athletes can either a) realize they can push themselves further or b) know they can take more hits but that is not the same as getting cut or shot.

Further, I agree that as a person becomes more skilled, they realize that they can take a bit more than the average person. What I don't like is that hit points allow them to take ten times more than they should! The system uses hit points to represent skill. I would rather the system just use skill to represent skill.

An average man on the street who takes a Formula One car out in a Grand Prix race will crash and burn. If he competes in a national-level rugby (or American Football) game, he'll be pounded into the mud. And yet, professionals at either of these sports will go out under exactly the same conditions, face the same dangers, and overcome them, because that's what they do, and they're good at it.

Okay, but that's comparing apples to oranges, and I have been trying to avoid that. An average person doing something they have never attempted before should fail, and the system does show that. That's not at all what I am talking about.

I am talking about a spell caster in front of his warrior or fighter henchmen. They are not as skilled as the PCs but they have experience. Yet it just isn't enough to stop the PCs from getting to their boss at high levels. Further, the higher level the PC, the higher level the henchmen can be, which means their ineffective attacks make less sense! (To use numbers, a 15th level group facing 7-8th level henchmen, which isn't bad for experience, yet they just aren't effective.) Again, I am not not trying to change your mind about it. I am merely saying it doesn't work for me.

Thanks for the reply!

Have a good one! Take care!

edg

 

[billd91]

/way off topic

I merely find the idea of hit points too abstract for my taste.

Further, I don't like how hit points effects role playing.

At first level, no one is going to rush past five monsters who can use an AoO to get to the bad guy, no matter how wimpy the monsters are, because that will kill them. Same for third level, maybe even up to fifth level, depending on the monsters involved and the current hit points of the character.

But wait! Now we are tenth level! Suddenly, our verismillitude has changed. What used to kill a character is merely an inconvenience. My question is simply, how did the character, after x levels of this manoveur being fatal, suddenly decide, "Naw, I'll survive it this time?"

That, to me, is metagame playing, and it's what I don't prefer about d20. It doesn't make it bad, just not my preference.

So, you are correct that we, in real life, don't have levels but how did our characters realize they have hit points?

They don't actually realize they have hit points, but they realize that certain things that were perceived as dangerous back when they were neophytes aren't quite so scary now.

You say this is metagaming and I have to say that pretty much everything you do in D&D or any other RPG that deals with quantifiable improvements in the character is metagaming. Every challenge is assessed differently as the character advances in level, skill, or whatever other measures the game system uses to codify improvements in the character. But that's not a problem. The problem comes when players either don't come up with ways to justify it in character or try to bring and use knowledge the PCs couldn't conceivably have (like "The DM likes to have 3 trick rooms in every adventure, this must be one of them.").
In the case of increased hit points, the PC has learned his limits a bit more, has learned to turn aside more blows, whatever the abstract hit point system allows, so that he knows the actual risk of the maneuver he wants to try has changed dramatically since he first took up the blade. He'll still know that the maneuver might cost him, but he believes he can keep the coils of the grim reaper off him... something he doesn't think he could have done as a younger man.

Think of a high school fullback. He knows that if he tries to get through the defensive line of a professional team, he'll probably get seriously hurt, including the possibility of broken bones and a concussion. Give him a few more years of experience and training and he'll probably think he can escape serious injury. But like that higher level fighter, he probably recognizes he can't keep it up all day... and neither can that higher level fighter. Eventually, the two will tire and be more susceptible to serious trouble. In the case of the fighter PC, that happens to be due to loss of hit points, bringing him down to the level in which he actually might be killed by a telling blow or two.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

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.

Just how do you avoid him and still kill him? Not every character uses a ranged weapon.

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.

The reason is to kill the bastard who is trying to hurt your friends/take over the world/etc.


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.

No, by the book, you can take a double move and the square you start in is not considered threatened. So I can move 60 feet, but not 30? And if I have time to move the extra 30 feet, I should have time to knock down a shot of whiskey AFTER I've moved 30 feet, but that's a moot point because I can't move 30 feet and not get an AOO unless it's a double move.

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.

That's been a problem in every edition of D&D. I hate the way mages can throw fireballs around with that manner of exaction. It's much like a soldier lobbing a grenade so that it blows the guy up trying to stab his buddy with a bayonet, yet leaving his buddy completely unharmed.

 

[Asmo]

In RL, people don't have levels, don't have magic items, and life isn't a RPG.

Are you saying that Chuck Norris doesn´t have levels?

Asmo

 

[JRRNeiklot]

True dat ... just like real life!

-Samir

Not quite, in a rela life fight, I'm already trying to hit you as many damned times as I can in each 6 second span. It doesn't matter what you do. If you tie your shoes, drink a beer, take a leak, or actively fight back. Otherwise, I'm not fighting to win.

 

[MarkB]

No, by the book, you can take a double move and the square you start in is not considered threatened. So I can move 60 feet, but not 30? And if I have time to move the extra 30 feet, I should have time to knock down a shot of whiskey AFTER I've moved 30 feet, but that's a moot point because I can't move 30 feet and not get an AOO unless it's a double move.

You can move any distance up to double your current speed and avoid AoOs against your starting position so long as you give your full attention to just moving and don't do anything else that turn.

 

[JRRNeiklot]

Yeah, I know how it works, I'm just saying it doesn't make sense imo.

 

[Lanefan]

That's been a problem in every edition of D&D. I hate the way mages can throw fireballs around with that manner of exaction. It's much like a soldier lobbing a grenade so that it blows the guy up trying to stab his buddy with a bayonet, yet leaving his buddy completely unharmed.

So make the mage roll to hit, to put the spell where she wants...then roll a d8 if she misses, to see which way the error was. She'll learn, soon enough, that the party front-liners do not appreciate being blown up by their own side.

Lanefan