RANT: Attacks of Opportunity

[Raven Crowking]

From the video, it looks like the pigeon has Combat Reflexes.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Thurbane is a heretic! Crucify him! *CUE: Always Look on the Bright Side of Life*

"I'm not Thurbane- I'm Brian!"

"Oooh- I'm Brian too!"

 

[Psion]

No, because it has surprise.

He's also not armed.

That was cute, TA.

 

[Raven Crowking]

He's also not armed.

That was cute, TA.

He had a keen crumpled popcorn bag +2.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Proof that AoOs are never confusing: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=179874

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Proof that AoOs are never confusing: http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=179874

Eh...Hyp is just illustrating that much confusion can be alleviated by a thorough reading of the rules in question. Its not the rule that is confusing people in that thread- its the incomplete readings.

Which may be an argument for better rules organization- say, including a master list of AoO-triggering events, or making footnotes & exceptions part of the main text- but not neccessarily a change in the rules.

 

[Geron Raveneye]

You know, I'm always surprised when this thread makes an appearance, because I just don't see what's so complex about AoO's. I mean here's the list:

1. Moving through an opponent's threatened area.
2. Taking a non-combat action in a threatened area or in the same turn as you leave one with a move action.
3. Taking a specialized combat action in a threatened area without the appropriate feat.

I don't get how that's overly complicated. The thing is, it must be, because many of the people who say they have problems with the rule are very experienced and know more about some parts of the rules than I do. So my question is: what gives? What's the trouble?

I've seen some complaints about taking a long time to scout out the perfect path to avoid AoO's when you move, but it seems like if this is really a concern, you either invest in tumble or buy the dodge-mobility-spring attack chain.

Color me confused...

--Steve

In my opinion, it would already help if this list was shortened to the first two only, since a lot of those "specialized" combat actions are the stuff that make a combat much more varied, but are usually left out if the combatants don't have a way to avoid the attached AoOs. That way, we'd have a lot less actions to worry about in context with AoOs, and a lot less feats to ponder on too, which would be preferable seeing as there are only so many one character can take, but a zillion more available.

And about taking feats to avoid AoOs on such opportunities...my experience is that players prefer to take those feats that lets their characters do things they were not able to do before at all, instead of feats that simply lets them do stuff they can do before but without a penalty.
As usual, one player's annoyance is anothers treasured bit of rule, so YMMV.

 

[Raven Crowking]

Eh...Hyp is just illustrating that much confusion can be alleviated by a thorough reading of the rules in question. Its not the rule that is confusing people in that thread- its the incomplete readings.

Which may be an argument for better rules organization- say, including a master list of AoO-triggering events, or making footnotes & exceptions part of the main text- but not neccessarily a change in the rules.

Oh. I was under the impression that the wording was unclear, causing more than one valid interpretation and thereby resulting in a discussion that could easily have occurred at the game table instead of (or in addition to) on EN World.

To me, this is a problem with clarity, not organization (though I would certainly allow that one contributes to the other ). It would be far better, IMHO, if determining whether or not an AoO occurs really was as simple as the OP contends, rather than requiring a master list and footnotes.


RC

 

[woodelf]

"AoOs are so difficult. It's like taking a calculus class!"
"It's impossible to resolve AoOs without using miniatures."
"AoOs are confusing."

What is wrong with you people?

1. Can someone hit me?
2. Did I just do something that provokes an AoO?

1. Can someone hit me right now?
2. Am I still going to move at least 5 feet this turn?
3. Will I have moved more than 5 feet this turn?

What, exactly, do you find difficult, confusing, or impossible about these simple questions?

If the rules for AoO were as you just stated, they'd be easy. instead, they're an inconsistent morass of specific cases. Just completely eliminate that huge entire-page chart of which actions provoke AoO and which don't, and the rules would be simple. Or, rejigger that chart so that it follows a consistent set of underlying rules (such as you've just stated above), and the rules would be simple. As is, not so much so. When my group applies essentially the rule you describe ("let your guard down when someone can hit you") the results only match the big chart of actions about 2/3rds of the time. So i contend that, while that may have been the initial underlying logic to what provokes an AoO, the rules forgot that at some point along the way. Biggest problem is when we run into something that's not on the chart, and seems about equally like two actions that are on the chart, one of which provokes an AoO, and one of which doesn't.

As for taking care of AoO without miniatures/maps: non-movement based AoO are easy to adjudicate without miniatures--if you're within reach, you risk provoking an AoO if you do something that lets your guard down. Movement-based AoOs can get trickier, because, without miniatures and maps, it's hard to maintain a shared vision of the combat field that has a resolution detailed enough to keep good track of how close you are to people you're not engaged in melee with, to an accuracy of 5'.

Like the OP says, though, it's really simple. If you are within melee range of somebody and you do something that will leave an opening in your defenses, your opponent will take advantage of it. Admittedly, the movement-based AoOs were a bit confusing at first, but we got the hang of them quickly enough.

Actually, here's a serious question that came up in our most recent session, and i just made a spot ruling when an obvious answer wasn't to be found:

Two gargantuan (tall) creatures (20'x20' space), one with 20' reach, one with 25' reach, are in adjacent areas. Under what movement circumstances does each of them provoke an AoO? Are they really basically forced to stay next to each other, lest they provoke an AoO, because a 5' step is basically useless in actually getting anywhere? (M-sized creatures can step a full 90deg around their opponent for free, and can safely step back 5', thus escaping an opponent without a reach weapon.) Can neither of them close without provoking an AoO? (if they were M-sized, the one with the reach weapon could safely close, while the one without would get smacked). It says when you leave a threatened square--what if you move in such a way that you are moving away from a threatened square but, because of your size, another square of your being moves into that same threatened square?

It's been a few weeks since that session, now, so i don't remember all of the circumstances we ran into. But i do know that we spent a good 10min parsing the various movement and AoO rules, and finally came to an agreement on what the RAW interpretation was for most of these circumstances, and also agreed that it was ridiculous and ignored most of it. But a few of these circumstances were unclear to us, even then.

I can probably get behind the idea that the AoO rules are written clumsily. Personally, I find the entire Combat chapter to be badly organized and clumsily written.

You're gentle. I consider that chapter positively obtuse--almost like it was deliberately obfuscated. Doubly annoying when WotC has demonstrated that they can write the same rules with perfect clarity in the D20SRD. In all seriousness, i'm not sure we would've ever figured out the combat rules correctly, without outside help (such as asking here), had it not been for the D20SRD. It certainly would've taken us a lot longer. You know, if they'd just lifted the appropriate sections of the original release of the D20SRD for the combat chapter in the D&D3.5E PH, it'd probably have solved a lot of the problems.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Oh. I was under the impression that the wording was unclear, causing more than one valid interpretation and thereby resulting in a discussion that could easily have occurred at the game table instead of (or in addition to) on EN World.

You're sort of right- in this case, it was unclear wording...until you read further, or took note of the footnote, etc.

It would be far better, IMHO, if determining whether or not an AoO occurs really was as simple as the OP contends, rather than requiring a master list and footnotes.

Well, I think that footnotes for vital info is a bad idea. Footnotes are for things like explanations, alternate rules, options, etc. But a master list isn't at all that difficult nor is it unclear. I mean, we're talking about "Step X: is an AoO provoked by this action"- if its not on the master list, the answer is no.