What's so bad about AoO's?

[Voadam]

I agree with Colonel Hardisson,

If you are used to running abstract combats without minis and keeping track of exact movement and placement it is a big shift to figure out AoO for the movement situations, etc. Also the leaving a threatened area not entering seems counterintuitive but works well I think once you get used to it.

 

[Razuur]

We never used AoO for several reasons.

A. We don't use minatures in combat. We felt it made the game too wargame-like and took away from the cinematic feel.

B. When you are using a cinematic feel, such concepts are common sense

C. More "roleplayer" players thought that it made the game confusing. More "Action" players trust my (the GMs) common sense that I will handle combat fairly.

Plus in the end I never liked it. I hate, HATE the minatures thing. Slows down the game, and makes it a wargame. If I wanna wargame I'll Play Full Thrust, Dirtside, or Renegade Legion. When I wanna roleplay minatures just get in the way of imagination, IMHO.

Keep in mind before anyone explodes that this was my opinion, and if there are those out there who love miniature gaming, then more power to them. If they are happy doing it their way, cool. I am happy doing it my way.

Razuur

 

[jollyninja]

it's all about rules lawyers and interpritable text, my group really had problems with AoO's before we decided to just quit trying to optimise every rule to our advantage. common sense must be used with AoO's and the DM must be the final word because if he is the one misusing AoO's he is just a crappy DM.

 

[Aaron L]

WE don't use miniatures, we all hate them for the reasons Razuur said. However, we've never had a problem with AoOs. The DM uses a little grid paper map, maps the combat, and lets us know when we get one or get one on us. Real simple.

Also, double moving away from an opponent so they don't get an attack of oppurtunity IS withdrawing. It doesn't matter if you move 60 feet with a double move, 20 feet, or 10 feet, it is the care and amount of time taken that matters. Double moving away from someone represents you taking 6 seconds to back away carefully. Normal moving away from someone means you take 3 seconds, turn your back, and skidaddle off.

 

[WSmith]

Also, double moving away from an opponent so they don't get an attack of oppurtunity IS withdrawing. It doesn't matter if you move 60 feet with a double move, 20 feet, or 10 feet, it is the care and amount of time taken that matters. Double moving away from someone represents you taking 6 seconds to back away carefully. Normal moving away from someone means you take 3 seconds, turn your back, and skidaddle off.

This is my problem with it. If you can take 3 seconds to use caution and withdraw or as you say "to turn your back, and skadaddle off" why should you be allowed to use the other 3 seconds to perform an action that is only allowed to take up a 6 second timeframe. IMO, it seems like it is giving an extra partial action to the character.

Following that rational, If I can double move, which is the eqivilant of two partial actions or one standard action, and end up 60' away from an opponent and not draw and AoO, OR just step 5' away and do a full round action without provoking, how can you take a 30' move (move action) away from your opponent which is far out of his striking distance, and not be able to finish the standard action portion of your turn because it would have drawn an AoO, just makes no sense. That is why I say that disengage, fighting withdrawal, or whatever anyone whats to call it, should only be the distance in speed rate, plus nothing else. yes you are moving, but more cautiously than moving out of a threat range normally.

BTW, I do like AoOs, dispite my post.

 

[Aaron L]

I don't think you got what I was saying. Skidaddling takes 3 seconds, you hoof it over to someone else and whack at them. Double moving takes 6 seconds, in this case you cautiously take the time to back away from your opponent, whether you move 10 feet or 90 feet. Double moving represents taking the whole round to move around, it doesn't matter how far you move, it matters how much time you take doing it.

 

[BadMojo]

I initially had some trouble with AoO's. I too think the PHB entry in question is not nearly clear enough.

Check out this stuff from the "Black Pages":

http://www.d20reviews.com/Eric/aoo/index.htm

Very helpful. Really.

 

[ConcreteBuddha]

You can play DnD without miniatures? Whoa...

It has never occured to my simian mind to do that. I am so used to miniatures in the games I run or play.

I could see how AOOs would be troublesome if everything was abstract. Kinda like playing chess without a board or pieces...

 

[hong]

Plus in the end I never liked it. I hate, HATE the minatures thing. Slows down the game, and makes it a wargame. If I wanna wargame I'll Play Full Thrust, Dirtside, or Renegade Legion. When I wanna roleplay minatures just get in the way of imagination, IMHO.

I really don't see how using miniatures makes it into a wargame. I'm one of those people who needs a visual representation of combat, or I get really confused. It doesn't have to be minis as such; anything from monster tokens to SJG's Cardboard Heroes to spare coins will do. It hasn't stopped me from maintaining an appropriately free-flowing pace to the game, as far as I can tell.

I can see that a map might encourage tactical thinking, like always moving into flanking positions or taking advantage of cutoff points for weapon ranges. Too much of this will definitely ruin the game if you're not a dedicated wargamer. However, that's easy enough to deal with.

As for AoOs, they should be easy enough to deal with too, if you just remember the basic rule: do something stupid, like running around or casting in melee, and people will hit you.

 

[nopantsyet]

yeah....have to agree....they work smoothly in my group. adds a sense of excitement whenever a PC forgets to watch themselves and WHACK!!!!