Attacks of Opportunity [3.5]

[EriktheRed]

How important are attacks of opportunity, and how much of an impact would there be if they were eliminated entirely? The reason I am asking is because attacks of opportunity seem really clunky for play-by-post games, and I am looking for an alternative.

[BowStreetRunner]

Attacks of Opportunity are a key part of melee combat and taking them away hurts martial melee characters while helping ranged attackers and spellcasters. Since martial melee characters already tend to get fewer nice things, this would tend to be even more unbalancing.

[INoKnowNames]

Attacks of Opportunity are a key part of melee combat and taking them away hurts martial melee characters while helping ranged attackers and spellcasters. Since martial melee characters already tend to get fewer nice things, this would tend to be even more unbalancing.

What he said. It might make things a bit faster than trying to figure out if an act gets to occur because someone just got interrupted by attacks of opportunity, but it hurts mundane a bit to do so. Would you prefer speed or game-balance? I'd certainly prefer the latter, and try to work harder by mapping out moves in advance and noting if I may or may not trigger attacks, in order to help keep the former.

[EriktheRed]

A little bit faster is an understatement. I'm already getting rid of initiative, and that works out pretty well with a few changes, but Attacks of Opportunity are a major snag, because there isn't really a way to deal with them without keeping initiative, and the entire turn order structure is a major problem for play by post games. Something like 50% or more of PbP games I've been in fall apart in the 1st combat because of it. So the game balance concern may in fact take a back seat to trying to keep the flow of the game going.

Any ideas on how to work with attacks of opportunity with simultaneous actions?

[Darth Stabber]

AoOs aren't really that hard. Mostly because unless you are taking specific precautions against them, you're provoking, easy enough.

[EriktheRed]

It actually presents a problem for play by post gaming, because it creates a situation in which additional posts are required to resolve an action, and every additional post required to resolve an action adds 12-24 hours of time before that action can be resolved, and that seriously reduces the survivability of PbP games. Here is an example:

Scenario 1: (avg. 3-4 days to resolve)
DM: Monster 1 acts, provoking from player 1 and 2. Do you take your AoO?
Player 1: Yes. [dice rolls]
Player 2: No, I'm saving mine so Monster 2 will provoke if it tries to do something that provokes.
DM: Ok, Monster 1 finishes its action, and Monster 2 provokes from Player 2 [dice rolls].
Player 1: Takes his action, provoking from Monster 1. Doesn't complete action, because he is low on health and doesn't know if he will be able to complete his action.
Player 2: I need to know how badly hurt Player 1 is from the AoO before I decide my action.
DM: Monster 1's AoO [rolls dice]. Player 1 is fine.
Player 1: Continues action.
Player 2: Takes action.
DM: Begins round 2.

Compared to:

Scenario 2: (avg. 1-2 days to resolve)
DM: Posts monster's action
Player 1: Posts action.
Player 2: Posts action.
DM: Posts recap of previous round (describes which attacks hit, etc.), posts monster's action.

Combats in PbP are a lot smoother without AoOs, the issue is how to not screw the character types that utilize them by getting rid of them.

The only idea I've come up with so far is to assign a penalty to d20 rolls made by the active player if he provokes an AoO with his action, say, -5. Since I already plan to have the active character make all dice rolls pertaining to his own action, that effects casters as well as fighters.

[Big Fau]

I resolve AoOs by having the players roll the AoO for the enemies, and I do the same for the players (so when a player provokes, they roll the d20 for the enemy and vice versa).

Cuts the number of posts needed a fair bit (although it does reveal the enemies' attack bonus).

[EriktheRed]

That could be viable. Just make it so every character always takes every attack of opportunity available, and list the attack of opportunity to hit and damage for each enemy, and whether or not they have combat reflexes, as part of the scenario details?

[eggynack]

That could be viable. Just make it so every character always takes every attack of opportunity available, and list the attack of opportunity to hit and damage for each enemy, and whether or not they have combat reflexes, as part of the scenario details?
That sounds about right. If you wanted to incorporate more tactics in it, you could even make not AoO'ing an affirmative thing. Like, in their action post, if they don't want to stab someone who's passing by, they'd have to actively say that, rather than the inverse. It'd be like readied AoO's. If things become more complicated, with improved trip stuff, you could set that as the standard AoO set up, unless there's an affirmative negation, or if it would be impossible to trip the enemy.

[EriktheRed]

Ran into a snag with that. My current system gets rid of a strict turn order, so determining who provokes first becomes a problem. How unbalancing do you think it would be if I got rid of the limit on attacks of opportunity per round? That way, if you provoke with your action, you put your defense roll and the monster's damage roll in your post?

[eggynack]

Ran into a snag with that. My current system gets rid of a strict turn order, so determining who provokes first becomes a problem. How unbalancing do you think it would be if I got rid of the limit on attacks of opportunity per round? That way, if you provoke with your action, you put your defense roll and the monster's damage roll in your post?
I don't quite get how an initiativeless game works, but you'd definitely be better off balancing things towards melee being buffed, rather than melee being nerfed. It might make thicket of blades style strategies a bit crazy, but nowhere near as crazy as any tier one class.

[EriktheRed]

It works like this:

This is a work in progress.

1. The active character rolls all dice whenever possible. Anything an inactive player would need to roll out of turn, they automatically take 10 against the active character’s roll.
2. Initiative no longer determines turn order. Instead, all actions occur simultaneously, and are resolved after all character have posted. There are some exceptions:
a. Pre-empt. If you want to have your action occur before another character’s action, you may make an initiative check to determine if you succeed. You may not change your action based on the results of your initiative check. In the first round of combat, you may attempt an initiative check to catch an opponent flat-footed.
b. Readied/Delayed Actions. You may declare that you are waiting for someone else to act before taking your action. Since actions are resolved simultaneously, there is no meaningful difference between a readied and a delayed action. For special actions that require a readied action, there is no initiative roll required.
c. Attacks of Opportunity.
i. Option One: There are no attacks of opportunity. Instead, if your action would provoke an attack of opportunity, you are at a -5 to any d20 roll you make this turn.
ii. Option Two: Unless specifically declared, every character takes every attack of opportunity available to it, unless that character has specifically declared it will not. Monsters will have an AoO DC and damage listed as part of their description. If a player provokes, they must include a defense roll (AC-10, +1d20), or take that damage (which is averaged, not rolled). Monsters will do the same.


My ultimate goal is for each round to be able to be resolved with each player making a single post.

[Squirrel_Dude]

The only problem with trying to make it so that player's have to declare whether or not they take AOOs is the sheer number of ways that may cause a character to provoke an AOO.

I'll try and give an example:

Character 1 is threatening Enemy A, and there is a rogue, Enemy B.
- If Enemy A tries to run away from me, I don't want to use my AOO, I have other people I can deal with.
- If Enemy B fails their tumble check to avoid an AOO to get into flanking position, I want to take an AOO, and make it a trip attempt.
- If Enemy A is trying to drink a potion I want to take an AOO.
- If Enemy A is switching weapons, I don't want to take those AOO.
^^^
There. 4 possible things the enemy could do, and each garnered a different response as a player for how I would deal with it. This only gets more complicated as more enemies are involved, and as allies start getting involved (how does enemy movement effect their positioning, etc.)

And trust me, I know it effects PbP, I argued with a recent DM over this issue... >.>, I'm just not sure how to get around it.

[EriktheRed]

What if you remove the limit on attacks of opportunity per round? In that scenario, the only time you would not want to take an attack of opportunity would be if you no longer wanted to keep attacking that character, right?

I would have to remove the possibility of doing things like trip or disarm with an AoO, though, to make that work.

[Squirrel_Dude]

I would have to remove the possibility of doing things like trip or disarm with an AoO, though, to make that work.The problem here is obvious, and you're aware of it, so there is no need to dwell.


What if you remove the limit on attacks of opportunity per round? In that scenario, the only time you would not want to take an attack of opportunity would be if you no longer wanted to keep attacking that character, right?The effect doing this, in terms of tactical combat is subtle. Basically, combat will get very, very, static. Especially with large numbers. Basically, the statement "They can't stop all of us." Kind of loses it's meaning. All of a sudden, those 2 guards really can stop all 30 people trying to run past them and through the gates. Hell, all 100. They have an infinite number of attacks. Not only that, Let's say the guards are aligned something like this G is guard, X is blank square, - is a wall)

- - - - - - -
x x x x x x
x G x xG x
- - - - - - -

Each commoner running through those north squares would provoke 6 AOOs from the guards because they would enter an leave 6 threatened squares.



*thinks*

One solution to your problem:
- With combat reflexes: You can do something other than a normal attacks up to your dex modifier times a round. Normally a character would only be able to do this once.
- Without combat reflexes: you can only take a standard attack during an AOO. You may do so as many times as you want. You could not make any combat maneuver, or use any feats or class abilities when you make this attack.

This means combat reflexes is still important for people who want to take serious advantage of their AOOs, and they are still able to, but the answer to "do you take an AOO" is still always in the affirmative.

[EriktheRed]

I would generally rule that movement can only provoke once from a given opponent, regardless of how many of their threatened squares you move through, but your point still stands. I guess it becomes a question of deciding which problem is worse, that one, or the one I am trying to resolve.

I'm trying to avoid any scenario possible in which a clarifying post is required from another player/the DM in order to resolve an action (other than DM summary at the end of the turn). Making non-standard AoO presents a problem with this.

[Zombimode]

Hm, why not just resolve the combat out of play-by-post?
Just play your game normally play-by-post, but when a combat starts, just say "Ok, guys, this is a combat encounter. Can we all agree to a time to resolve it using FantasyGrounds/MapTools/Roll20/whatever?"

If your players are dedicated at all, it is probably still (much) faster to find a shared date and resolve the combat than to resolve it by play-by-post.

(I would recommend roll20 since it seems incredible easy to set up.)

Sure, it would make the campaign hard to follow for readers if all the combats are removed from the thread, but these mentioned programs typically have logs so you can just copy-paste the log of the fight in the thread.

[Squirrel_Dude]

Talk to your players about it, and see if they have any opinions on it. Show them your idea for a quicker combat, and ask if they would prefer that to the normal system. Express your concerns about the game slowing down because of AOOs.


If they say they would rather do the standard system, at least they are aware of the option. Personally, I am okay with the slower game because I like being able to react to every change that has happened, but I know that combat can slow to a crawl because of it.

[Jormengand]

I would generally rule that movement can only provoke once from a given opponent, regardless of how many of their threatened squares you move through,

So would our friends at WotC. Moving is only one action and therefore provokes only one AoO from a single person, even if they have Combat Reflexes and so can make more.

[EriktheRed]

I'm not currently running a PbP. I'm working on a system to streamline PbP for d20, and plan to do some playtesting of it in the near future.

[georgie_leech]

You could borrow 4th's interpretation, where you can take as many AoO's as you want in a given round, but only once against each target. Then it's as simple figuring out who they provoked, unless the attacker specifically says they're not going to.

[Seharvepernfan]

As a DM, I just have players take the first AoO granted to them, unless they tell me they're saving them for something beforehand.