RANT: Attacks of Opportunity

[Hussar]

[/quote]You apparently want to play a game that doesn't work on a superhuman scale, but D&D does. If you don't like the superhero metaphor, consider mythology. D&D heroes are like Beowulf, who swims for days on end while wearing armor, or holds his breath for days and battles monsters underwater with his bare hands. You may not like it but that's D&D in its current incarnation.[/quote]

Or, every incarnation really. This is hardly something that's jumped up recently. I remember carving my way through armies of giants back in the day.

 

[eyebeams]

Yeah it is.

No, it isn't. "a situation where you draw an AoO," includes a number of individual cases modified by multiple feats, such as spellcasting, unarmed combat, trip attempts and so on. It isn't a singular item and the rules don't present them as such.

Generally, if you have to rewrite the presentation of the rule to make it look simple, you're not really defending the "rule as written." You're defending personal shorthand. That doesn't apply to anyone actually using the core books.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Actually, it is a single step- it just has multiple subparts.

 

[GoodKingJayIII]

Actually, I think there are many games that have quantifiable improvements that don't force metagaming. Further, as I said in my previous post, I think more experienced characters should have more options. What I object to is the system's assumption that losing some hit points, i.e. being hit, is okay at high levels but not low levels. The game mechanics essentially set up one style of play at low levels and another at mid and high levels. That's what I don't prefer.

I don't think the game actually scales that way, it's just that priorities change and what can kill you has to be more powerful than your average warrior swinging a sword, because in turn the characters have gotten more powerful. As has been said by even you, DnD is not the game you're looking for.

But I do think you're wrong about scaling weapon damage. Yes, the base damage die never changes, but magic weapons, feats, and class abilities . If your PCs are 17th level, maybe your BBEG Elite Guards are a pair of 15th level melee combatants, one a +3 halberd, Improved Trip, and Power Attack and the other a Fighter/Rogue/Blackguard with a +2 unholy fiery burst greatsword smiting good with a sizeable amount of sneak attack dice. Any 17th level PC would be daft to just run past these guys.

 

[Psion]

Actually, it is a single step- it just has multiple subparts.

For the most part, I could generalize those subparts into two general cases: doing something other than melee combat or doing something risky in melee combat you weren't trained to do.

I find it relatively straightforward.

 

[shilsen]

Or, every incarnation really. This is hardly something that's jumped up recently. I remember carving my way through armies of giants back in the day.

True. I was mainly focusing on this one because I've played very little D&D pre-3e, but from all that I've read on ENWorld, I gather you're right.

 

[DungeonMaester]

I see something like AoO in alot of other rpgs and wargames myself. Maybe I took to many blows to the head but its a simple rule of boxing. If the other guy has reach you are going to get knocked around if you try to leave the reach area..If you are't fast enough.

Ive taken and provoked my fair share of AoO, and its never been game breaking.



---Rusty

 

[Hypersmurf]

However, I take umbrage that anyone at any point could look at a line of sword wielding "veterans" and say "I can get through that this time." Or that they could look at a Blade Barrier at any point say, that they can get past it.

Heh.

I recently played a high level fighter who looked at a Blade Barrier, and said "This is gonna hurt, but I can get past it."

Turned out I was right, and also wrong.

It hurt, but a series of bad rolls left me unconscious on the other side...!

-Hyp.

 

[eyebeams]

Actually, it is a single step- it just has multiple subparts.

Well, if we want to use absurd reduction, we can claim that AoOs are even easier, because it's just:

You suffer an AoO when:
1) Something happens that makes you suffer an AoO.

But that would be an extremely silly attempt to shoehorn several separate things into a single description, just like saying that several different circumstances are "multiple subparts."

The fact is that AoOs are integrated into several different special case mechanics, and that these are what makes them confusing. Each special case is based on a common principle (that to get an special effect you draw an AoO), but that's not emphasized in the current text.

 

[2WS-Steve]

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.

I recently put together some house rules for this that minimize the need for scatter diagrams and to hit rolls against hexes so I thought others might find them handy:

***************************

There are two "hitting your friends" situations that I'll cover here.

The normal D&D rules go with simplicity here, but I've noticed that everyone (my players at least) naturally thinks that firing into tight quarters is dangerous, and tend to be surprised when they discover that the core rules don't make doing so very risky.

Firing Into Melee
Firing a ranged attack into melee already generates a -4 penalty on your attack check.

We'll also add that if you fire into melee such that you suffer the -4 penalty, and roll a natural 1 on your attack check, then your target can choose one adjacent opponent (someone within 5 feet) and force you to make an attack check against them -- this works with all the same bonuses and so on, but no -4 for cover (since this guy IS the cover).

Fireballs In Tight Quarters
If you are caught in an area effect attack and succeed at your saving throw with a natural 20, then you can force one creature who is adjacent to you and outside the area of effect to also save against that attack just as if they were in the area of effect.

Explanation: Explosions and area effect attacks are allowed to be dropped onto the map with extreme precision -- where they might affect a crowd of bad guys but not hit any of the crowd of allies standing right next to those bad guys.

Rather than require a clunky targeting check and add yet more die rolls to the process, the above rule creates a sort of fringe, where lucky targets can share the pain with an enemy that is close to them.