RANT: Attacks of Opportunity

[Dannyalcatraz]

Ahhh...a new term arises:

Attack of Opportunity Anxiety: an irrational fear of AoOs that leads to avoiding them at all costs...

We don't have that problem in my current groups. Our DMs dutifully remind players that a certain act would provoke an AoO, but it rarely dissuades anyone from acting appropriately...or heroically.

 

[BryonD]

How does this kill role playing? (And does it take its stuff? ) I am no fan of AoO or minis, but people that want to role play I have noticed never let this stop them. Judging by your post I'd blame the players.

100% correct

If you don't like AoOs then fine. But if AoOs stop you from roleplaying then I'm sorry for you that you capacity to roleplay is so fragile. It ain't the AoOs. Its you.

 

[BryonD]

That sounds like a courage problem to me...

Agreed.

Taking the risk to accomplish something is heroic (and in D&D terms "fun").
Having the world re-arrange itself so that you can get away with something with no threat against you is the exact opposite of fun. (IMNRHO)

 

[Crothian]

Taking the risk to accomplish something is heroic (and in D&D terms "fun").
Having the world re-arrange itself so that you can get away with something with no threat against you is the exact opposite of fun. (IMNRHO)

One problem is D&D punishes one for trying things there PC is not good out. Many special moves provoke AoO and in some cases a successful AoO makes the move impossible like grapple. So, what at first sounds like a herioc move for the Wizard to fling himself and hug (grapple) the Evil Fighter to restrain him enough for his allies to strike him down becomes almost comical and a little sad as the Evil Fighter takes his AoO, hits the wizard, and then the wizard can't go through with the grapple. That is where I see AoO stop people from doing things with these actions and not so much with movement.

 

[BryonD]

One problem is D&D punishes one for trying things there PC is not good out. Many special moves provoke AoO and in some cases a successful AoO makes the move impossible like grapple. So, what at first sounds like a herioc move for the Wizard to fling himself and hug (grapple) the Evil Fighter to restrain him enough for his allies to strike him down becomes almost comical and a little sad as the Evil Fighter takes his AoO, hits the wizard, and then the wizard can't go through with the grapple. That is where I see AoO stop people from doing things with these actions and not so much with movement.

I don't see that as a problem.
A typical wizard not being able to grapple a typical evil fighter sounds just right to me.
On the other hand, if the wizard feebly dives at the evil fighter he creates a distraction, even though his attack will likely fail. The distraction comes in the form of using the fighter's AoO. Which could give the party's fighter a free shot at something.
And that IS a heroic effort that works out the way it should, as I see it.

Edit: Another way to put it, I don't see the wizard's total inability to physically take on the fighter as being any worse than the party fighter's total inability to use a wand. If you want to achieve these things, you can customize the character to do so. But under typcial conditions, things work out "right".

 

[MarkB]

One problem is D&D punishes one for trying things there PC is not good out. Many special moves provoke AoO and in some cases a successful AoO makes the move impossible like grapple. So, what at first sounds like a herioc move for the Wizard to fling himself and hug (grapple) the Evil Fighter to restrain him enough for his allies to strike him down becomes almost comical and a little sad as the Evil Fighter takes his AoO, hits the wizard, and then the wizard can't go through with the grapple.

So you don't like AoOs because they contribute to making characters less likely to succeed at things they're not actually any good at? That's not exactly a compelling argument against them.

 

[Crothian]

I don't see that as a problem.
A typical wizard not being able to grapple a typical evil fighter sounds just right to me.

It's not that they won't succeed; it's that provoking an AoO makes it that much more pointless to try. In the case of Grapple, the Wizard doesn't even get a chance to grapple if the AoO is successful.

 

[Crothian]

So you don't like AoOs because they contribute to making characters less likely to succeed at things they're not actually any good at? That's not exactly a compelling argument against them.

Nope. It stops them from even trying.

 

[Psion]

Obviously, if you can avoid damage, you should.

But there are times that you should just suck up the hit.

Or, suck up the chance of a hit. Sometimes, the chance and amount of damage is outweighed by the tactical flexibility you would be giving up. Are you really going to gingerly skirt around a goblin puckboy so the BBEG wizard can drop his party dooming spell on you butt, or are you going to shrug the goblin off and layeth the smack down?

You make the call. Some people are scared by risky decisions. Rules lite game let you not make decisions by making all choices fundamentally the same. Not for me thanks. I'll take the excitement, the risk, the trepidation. Lack of AoO's sucks the fun out of my game. Make mine 3.5.

 

[BSF]

The "good" fun.

Ah, so playing with AoOs is having wrong, bad fun?
No, I don't think you are really saying that. But you are passing judgement on what is fun and what isn't.

I like AoOs. But I can play without them. I can play using a battlemat, and without. Depending on the game and the group, I can have just as much fun mixing any of the options. I can also have much less fun with different groups.

I haven't seen AoOs kill roleplaying with groups I enjoy playing with. I have seen heroic in-character decisions made because AoOs created a different level of tension that games without them lack. Mind you, I am not saying that you can only create tension with AoOs. But the mechanics do lend themselves to certain sequences and actions.

I see fewer people griping about how the mechanics of AoOs are implemented than I do with people complaining that groups allow too much time to be devoted to avoiding AoOs.

Taking 5+ minutes just to find that perfect move action to avoid AoOs is just as annoying as a spellcaster taking 5+ minutes to choose what spell to cast, or a fighter taking 5+ minutes to figure out what all the bonuses and penalties add up to when he rolls his attack die.

It is a dynamic within each group. If eliminating AoOs from the game help keep your group playing fast and fun, that's great. But there are groups that also find AoOs to be a fun, exciting component and it doesn't slow the game down by any significant measure for those groups.