Attacks of Opportunity are Hard?

Hicks · Post by **Hicks** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 2:14 am

For ten years, I've been hearing people complain about 3.X's attacks of opportunity, and it really baffles me as to why they do so. To me, the rules seem pretty reasonable, concise and unambiguous as to when and how they are applied, but to others they seem as impenetrable as a cubic mile of adamantine. So do you think Attacks of Opportunity are fine as is, are a byzantine writhing mass of chaos, or something else?

Echoes · Post by **Echoes** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 2:20 am

I've never seen an issue with them. Of course, there are gamers who will be completely stumped if you ask them to add multiple two-digit numbers together, so it certainly wouldn't surprise me if some folks find them difficult.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 3:19 am

Attacks of Opportunity seem fine to me. Even the grapple rules are fairly easy to understand. No one component of D&D 3.5 combat is terribly complex, which is why it probably seemed really good to the designers. Having spent weeks, months, or more working with the mechanics as their day job, they were intimately familiar with all of them in a way that people who'd read the combat section once wouldn't be. Things like the grapple rules aren't hard to comprehend, but they're hard to remember and a nuisance to look up again and again.

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 5:18 am

best part of aoos is that they are generally intuitive. for the most part you can ask yourself, "is this distracting?" and if the answer is "yes" then you will have an aoo

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 5:19 am

The only people I know that complain about them are people who do not like using a battle map.

A Man In Black · Post by **A Man In Black** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 6:55 am

Chamomile wrote:Even the grapple rules are fairly easy to understand.

What happens when you grab someone already in a grapple?

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 7:06 am

I think, off the top of my head, the only argument I've ever heard is "Can you do a trip/grapple in an AoO?"

So, can anyone do my work for me, and answer that question?

TheFlatline · Post by **TheFlatline** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 7:15 am

Isn't a trip/grapple a full round attack?

If so you can't because an AoO isn't a full round attack.

DragonChild · Post by **DragonChild** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 7:19 am

You can try to trip an opponent as an unarmed melee attack

Starting a grapple requires a successful melee attack roll. If you get multiple attacks, you can attempt to start a grapple multiple times (at successively lower base attack bonuses).

They replace an attack, so can be used on an AoO.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 8:58 am

A Man In Black wrote:
Chamomile wrote:Even the grapple rules are fairly easy to understand.
What happens when you grab someone already in a grapple?

You provoke an attack of opportunity, make a touch attack, and make an opposed grapple check. Unless that someone is already being grappled by four creatures of its same size, in which case you just can't. Whether that entirely makes sense (especially provoking an AoO from a grappled character) is another discussion entirely, but the RAW are not hard to comprehend.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:39 am

"A grappling character can undertake only a limited number of actions. He does not threaten any squares,"

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:06 am

Kaelik wrote:"A grappling character can undertake only a limited number of actions. He does not threaten any squares,"

The AoO is automatic, though. It isn't based on someone leaving a threatened area or performing a distracting action in one. It is kind of implied later on in the rules text that you must threaten squares in order to make an AoO, but that's vague wording, not complicated rules.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:17 am

"Provoking an Attack of Opportunity
Two kinds of actions can provoke attacks of opportunity: moving out of a threatened square and performing an action within a threatened square.

Moving
Moving out of a threatened square usually provokes an attack of opportunity from the threatening opponent. There are two common methods of avoiding such an attack—the 5-foot step and the withdraw action.

Performing a Distracting Act
Some actions, when performed in a threatened square, provoke attacks of opportunity as you divert your attention from the battle. Actions in Combat notes many of the actions that provoke attacks of opportunity.

Remember that even actions that normally provoke attacks of opportunity may have exceptions to this rule."

No threatened squares == no AoO.

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 11:51 am

Sure, whatever. Doesn't really change my main contention, which is that AoOs are not actually complicated, even if the wording of the rules may cause confusion. You don't have to change mechanics to solve this problem, just add in a note that says "unless target is already grappled" to the grapple rules.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 12:29 pm

I've never had problems with AoOs in my games, and since I'm usually the MC, I tend to be nice enough to the players to remind them if an action would provoke one.

I have had problems with other players who didn't understand the rules trying to game the system in stupid ways. Like the guy who rolled a monk with a natural 18 Dex and mostly 10s in his other rolls and took Combat Reflexes so he could make a crap-ton of AoOs on one guy (without using a reach weapon). I told him twice that you only get one AoO per opponent per round if the AoO is provoked from movement, and both times, he didn't want to switch the feat. So I guess it is hard for some people.

Echoes · Post by **Echoes** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 12:58 pm

Kaelik wrote:"A grappling character can undertake only a limited number of actions. He does not threaten any squares,"

You still provoke the AoO if you are in the threatened squares of any other enemies, but yes your target normally wouldn't get to make the AoO, unless they had an ability that let them grapple people without themselves being treated as being in a grapple.

Endovior · Post by **Endovior** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 3:17 pm

Echoes wrote:
Kaelik wrote:"A grappling character can undertake only a limited number of actions. He does not threaten any squares,"
You still provoke the AoO if you are in the threatened squares of any other enemies, but yes your target normally wouldn't get to make the AoO, unless they had an ability that let them grapple people without themselves being treated as being in a grapple.

This. Provoking an AoO means that anyone within range who can do one gets to, not that your target automatically gets to whether he's entitled to or not. If, for example, your wizard friend temporarily stunned some guy, then it's totally reasonable for you to grab him and tie him up or whatever while he's stunned instead of slitting his throat. Though you technically provoke an AoO for starting the grapple, nobody actually gets to make one, since the guy you're grappling is stunned, and he doesn't have any buddies of his own in range.

Lokathor · Post by **Lokathor** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 3:48 pm

Chamomile wrote:Sure, whatever. Doesn't really change my main contention, which is that AoOs are not actually complicated, even if the wording of the rules may cause confusion. You don't have to change mechanics to solve this problem, just add in a note that says "unless target is already grappled" to the grapple rules.

The fact that people who feel completely confident with the rules can look at them and then miss out on a detail that makes them understand it completely differently means they are hard to a number of the gaming population.

Remember that the scale for easy to hard with game mechanics is pretty small in the first place, so it doesn't take much to get into "hard" range.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 4:31 pm

They are at least moderately complex.

And ya gotta remember,

* They were a brand new concept in 3.0
* The wording on AoO rules got cleaned up and clarified a lot after the initial 3.0 PHB presentation of them
*There are a multitude of exceptions, which increase complexity. For example the above grapple question could turn out differently if Improved Grab was involved.

That said, they do serve a couple valid tactical purposes. Their existence means that sufficiently superior movement speed does not grant a character double the number of melee attacks as their slower opponent via alternating between move in + attack, attack + move out each round (see also readied action, charge attack). The also serve to allow melee combatants to mildly harry bowmen and spellcasters and to restrict movement.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 4:52 pm

Josh_Kablack wrote:* They were a brand new concept in 3.0

I'll have to break out my 2E Combat & Tactics book, but I thought they were in there. A lot of the on-the-board style of 3E combat was found in that book.

I'll grant you 3E was the first time it was core.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 5:52 pm

Technically speaking, you can find the idea in the old 1E rule set, although it was not written as such and was divided into many diverse parts of the rules. (It's also important to note that by the RAW meele in 1E is more "molecular" than in later editions.) One example is in the "charging" rules that applied to any creature that was more than 1" from opponent, but in this case the deciding factor is weapon length. Another example is casting a spell, even winning the initative can still allow a fighter to disrupt the spell depending on the weapon and segment time of the spell.

Kaelik · Post by **Kaelik** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 8:13 pm

Chamomile wrote:just add in a note that says "unless target is already grappled" to the grapple rules.

You don't need to add in that note. There is already a rule that says grappled characters don't have threatened squares, and the AoO rules say you may only take an AoO when it is provoked in one of your threatened squares.

However, jokes on you darling, because if you had actually read the rules, you would know that this exact note already exists.

"If your target is already grappling someone else, you can use an attack to start a grapple, as above, except that the target doesn’t get an attack of opportunity against you, and your grab automatically succeeds."

Which by the way, means you were also wrong about the touch attack.

So the bottom line is, you don't know the grappling rules, or the AoO rules, even when we are letting you look them up, so you actually don't have a leg to stand on when criticizing people for not getting rules.

So how about this, when a Huge Creature grapples a Medium creature, and you shoot a ray of frost at the huge creature, what happens? Okay, now you are shooting at the medium creature, what happens?

...You Lost Me · Post by **...You Lost Me** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 8:23 pm

Kaelik, you're frightening when you're right.

In other news, I have had problems with players who don't understand AoOs. If I didn't remind them, they'd have no idea (except for one guy, whose build is made for interruption).

It seems to me like it comes from a turn-based-game mentality of one player doing something, then the next player, and nobody else doing anything in-between. And that's really dumb, because they also complain about having to wait for their turn and not getting to do things during their opponents turns. So they want to do things when the enemy is going about its business, but they don't want to at the same time. Ugh.

hogarth · Post by **hogarth** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 9:02 pm

tzor wrote:Technically speaking, you can find the idea in the old 1E rule set, although it was not written as such and was divided into many diverse parts of the rules. (It's also important to note that by the RAW meele in 1E is more "molecular" than in later editions.) One example is in the "charging" rules that applied to any creature that was more than 1" from opponent, but in this case the deciding factor is weapon length. Another example is casting a spell, even winning the initative can still allow a fighter to disrupt the spell depending on the weapon and segment time of the spell.

Those don't really give you extra attacks a la AoOs, though; they just change the turn order.

A better example would be the free attack you get against enemies who flee from melee, and the fact that you can avoid that free attack by doing a "fighting withdrawal".

Chamomile · Post by **Chamomile** » Fri Aug 05, 2011 10:05 pm

Kaelik wrote:
So the bottom line is, you don't know the grappling rules, or the AoO rules, even when we are letting you look them up, so you actually don't have a leg to stand on when criticizing people for not getting rules.

Except...I'm not.

Chamomile wrote:Things like the grapple rules aren't hard to comprehend, but they're hard to remember and a nuisance to look up again and again.

So how about this, when a Huge Creature grapples a Medium creature, and you shoot a ray of frost at the huge creature, what happens? Okay, now you are shooting at the medium creature, what happens?

I don't care. It doesn't matter, because whatever it is it doesn't require a vast array of charts and tables to calculate. Whatever it is, it isn't hard to do, it's just a nuisance to look up, which is why (as before) I'm not going to bother doing so.