Special Combat without AOOs

[Stalker0]

I think many people agree that AOOs are an important balancing factor in using attacks like disarms and trips. However, at the same time, they often make those attacks very rare unless you have the appropriate improved X feat. I think this house rule creates a balance.


House Rule: If you attempt a disarm, trip, or sunder attempt against a creature with a Base attack bonus of 5 or more less than your own, you do not provoke an AOO for the attempt.

 

[Telsar]

Something to think about: Would you get to know if your foe has the appropriate attack bonus or not? If you didn't, I think it still wouldn't get used very often. And also if you didn't, I bet with most GMs, the NPCs would still have a good idea of what a PC's attack bonus is and know whether it's safe or not to do it.

If you want to encourage it's use more, well... for one thing, you can point out to the PCs that anything with 5 less attack bonus than you probably won't hurt you much with an AOO anyway.

A better encouragement-driven HR might be to say the AOO in response to disarms and trips are at -4 to hit. Those maneuvers just make it easier to defend against the AOO than other distracting things (like moving and casting).