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<blockquote data-quote="John Morrow" data-source="post: 2227943" data-attributes="member: 27012">It's designed to allow the simulation of battle lines.&nbsp; Some older melee combat games and role-playing games used to do the same thing by requiring you to stop as soon as you came close enough to a hostile combatant in melee and perform a disengage maneuver to get out of melee combat with them.&nbsp; Without one of these or the other, it's just too easy for a character that can move 12 squares in a turn and slip through a small one square gap behind enemy lines to flank them.&nbsp; As for stopping paying attention to the opponent in front of you or having trouble noticing someone moving past you, remember that D&amp;D 3.5 abstracts out facing (which way a character is primarily looking) and instead assumes that characters are spending their 6 second round moving around and looking around and covering themselves through 360 degrees.&nbsp; It's only when they have someone on both sides of them that they have trouble being in two places at once.&nbsp; Is this realistic?&nbsp; Not entirely.&nbsp; But no RPG combat system is and giving a character facing requires shorter combat rounds and shorter movement or it has it's own big problems.So the quick and dirty answer is that Attacks of Opportunity are an abstraction but many of the alternatives are more complicated and playing without them has it's own realism problems.That also creates other problems.&nbsp; Do you really want a Wizard casting two Chain Lightnings in one six-second round before anyone else can respond?&nbsp; If a fighter has 3 attacks in a round, what does a single attack mean?&nbsp; Do they get all three attacks?&nbsp; Then what does a double-attack mean?&nbsp; Can they cast a spell like True Strike and then whack someone with their weapon in one round?&nbsp; What does it mean to attack and defend or defend and attack?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="John Morrow, post: 2227943, member: 27012"] It's designed to allow the simulation of battle lines. Some older melee combat games and role-playing games used to do the same thing by requiring you to stop as soon as you came close enough to a hostile combatant in melee and perform a disengage maneuver to get out of melee combat with them. Without one of these or the other, it's just too easy for a character that can move 12 squares in a turn and slip through a small one square gap behind enemy lines to flank them. As for stopping paying attention to the opponent in front of you or having trouble noticing someone moving past you, remember that D&D 3.5 abstracts out facing (which way a character is primarily looking) and instead assumes that characters are spending their 6 second round moving around and looking around and covering themselves through 360 degrees. It's only when they have someone on both sides of them that they have trouble being in two places at once. Is this realistic? Not entirely. But no RPG combat system is and giving a character facing requires shorter combat rounds and shorter movement or it has it's own big problems. So the quick and dirty answer is that Attacks of Opportunity are an abstraction but many of the alternatives are more complicated and playing without them has it's own realism problems. That also creates other problems. Do you really want a Wizard casting two Chain Lightnings in one six-second round before anyone else can respond? If a fighter has 3 attacks in a round, what does a single attack mean? Do they get all three attacks? Then what does a double-attack mean? Can they cast a spell like True Strike and then whack someone with their weapon in one round? What does it mean to attack and defend or defend and attack? [/QUOTE]

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