Am I crazy, or is it just this house rule?

[Valtu]

Here's something I'd meant to ask a little while ago (so glad the forum is back, and it looks great, too!):

Our DM runs another campaign with a different group than ours, and also plays in yet another game on top of that. One of the other 2 groups recently convinced him to implement a house rule that basically says that an Attack of Opportunity is triggered every time a character enters a threatened square, unless moving cautiously at half speed.

Not just moving through or leaving threatened spaces, as I believe would normally provoke an AoO, but simply moving your speed and engaging a single enemy in front of you. Not entering the actual enemy's square, but just standing in front of it and swinging. I believe this would especially hurt anyone who used a build based around charging.

I was under the impression that an AoO signified when your guard was down, when the enemy gained an opportunity to sneak in a quick blow while you were otherwise preoccupied or your attention was elsewhere. If I'm approaching an enemy face-to-face and taking a swing during my turn on initiative, I'm definitely watching said enemy and not distracted.

Is it just me, or is there some advantage to this that I'm missing? I just don't see it, unless the purpose is to speed up encounters by essentially giving extra attacks to everyone when someone moves, but that just seems like it's extra work for each turn.

[lytokk]

I think it would discourage charging and encourage waiting for someone to run at you. I can see everyone standing with 5 feet between them waiting for the other guy to make the first move. Or a lot of reach weapons.

[Telonius]

Rogues still tumble through, ranged combatants still try to stay away, and spellcasters still avoid getting into melee. This only hurts melee.

[Valtu]

Fortunately nobody in our party is using a build centered on charging or leap attacks, and it doesn't affect my character as much, but it came as a shock being introduced in the middle of our campaign at the beginning of a session a few weeks ago.

I was considering at some point in the future trying out a Shock Trooper build, since I've never played a non-magic user, but if we keep this rule in future campaigns it seems that would render that kind of setup much less effective (especially the Heedless Charge feature).

Since we can still move half speed and engage an enemy it's not exactly breaking our game, but it just seems very strange, and I don't see the advantage. We at least do get the same opportunity to use this against our enemies, at least I think so.

[HaikenEdge]

This is a house rule, and a bad one at that. It goes along with the idea of "melee can't have nice things", which is kind of sad.

[Sian]

"hey, lets take one of the least efficient builds and nerf it even more" ...

[nedz]

It's a House-rule.

You might want to point out the following feat which specifically allows someone to do this. If they could do it anyway why would you need a feat ?

Hold the Line — Complete Warrior p100

[Shining Wrath]

I think this may be a 4th Edition rule; you trigger AoO by entering a threatened square.

It's only a viable rule if there's ways to get around it. Suggest that a charging character who leaps into their attack avoids the AoO unless the target has a pole weapon braced against the attack; stuff like that. Otherwise it borks melee worse than melee is normally borked, which is pretty borktastic.

[Valtu]

It's a House-rule.

You might want to point out the following feat which specifically allows someone to do this. If they could do it anyway why would you need a feat ?

Hold the Line — Complete Warrior p100

Exactly! That's a very good way to put it.

[Cloud]

I think this may be a 4th Edition rule; you trigger AoO by entering a threatened square.

It's only a viable rule if there's ways to get around it. Suggest that a charging character who leaps into their attack avoids the AoO unless the target has a pole weapon braced against the attack; stuff like that. Otherwise it borks melee worse than melee is normally borked, which is pretty borktastic.

Definitely not a 4e rule. 4e and 3.5 you trigger an Opportunity Attack/Attack of Opportunity by leaving a threatened square, not entering one.

I must admit one of my first times playing 3.5 we thought entering threatened squares provoked, but after half a combat realizing how completely inane that would be we reread the rules. This does nothing but hurt melee characters. For what it's worth we realized that entering the square provoking was stupid when we just decided to wait for the enemy to impale themselves on our AoOs, which is ah, yeah, odd.

[KorbeltheReader]

This is a common misunderstanding of attack-of-opportunity rules. I know people who have been playing 3.5 for years who still get confused about this on occasion. If you have a good rapport with the GM, I'd recommend asking him if this is a house rule, and if then pointing out the explanation and examples in the PHB if he seems to think he's doing it right.

[Valtu]

The weirdest thing about this is that he's been DM'ing for some time, and 2 years for this group (aside from myself, a newer member of the group).

[Duke of Urrel]

I'm not so sure that this house rule simply makes mêlée attacking harder. It merely creates more opportunities for attacks of opportunity. With this rule, you will hesitate to enter a mêlée, but when you do, there's another chance for your opponent to make an attack of opportunity that the standard rules don't offer. Likewise, your enemy will hesitate to engage you in mêlée combat, but when he does, you can make an attack of opportunity against him. So you may lose some regular mêlée attacks, but you also gain some attacks of opportunity. That might just balance out.

[Andezzar]

It simply makes having reach greater than your opponent even better than normal, and yes, it is a houserule.

[Sylthia]

That's a house rule. I actually remember Spoony mentioning something like that on a Counter Monkey.

[Valtu]

This is a common misunderstanding of attack-of-opportunity rules. I know people who have been playing 3.5 for years who still get confused about this on occasion. If you have a good rapport with the GM, I'd recommend asking him if this is a house rule, and if then pointing out the explanation and examples in the PHB if he seems to think he's doing it right.

Oh it's definitely a house rule, no doubt about that. He actually introduced it just a couple weeks ago after we'd been playing this campaign since October. Mentioned that his other group convinced him it was a good idea. I still don't really see any advantage to it, but as I'm playing a gish who never charges, it's not impacting me personally at the moment.

We've got another campaign planned to run parallel to this one with different characters at some point though, and one of our party members will be a Centaur with the Centaur Trample feat, so this effectively kills the whole point of that. Maybe we can convince him to do away with this rule before that point.

[Andezzar]

Oh it's definitely a house rule, no doubt about that. He actually introduced it just a couple weeks ago after we'd been playing this campaign since October. Mentioned that his other group convinced him it was a good idea. I still don't really see any advantage to it, but as I'm playing a gish who never charges, it's not impacting me personally at the moment.So you never move more than half your speed to engage an opponent in melee or am I missing something about the houserule?

[NoACWarrior]

Well, with this house rule I'd abuse it in that I'd go lock down with standstill, pick up a spiked chain, get deformity tall, and bingo, not even a mounted paladin with a lance can touch me.

But this house rule is pretty redundant with the moving out of a threatened square, and the AoO would actually happen while the person in question WASN'T in a threatened square half the time. AoOs interrupt the action that occurs with the action being resolved after the AoO is resolved, movement into a threatened square would provoke an AoO before it actually happens, but with a target out of reach you simply wouldn't get an AoO.

OK - so lets say you, the fighter, have a GS and threaten all your adjacent squares, suddenly a wolf charges you and goes from 10 ft away to adjacent to you, you would get the AoO on the wolf as he leaves the 10ft square, but you DON'T have the reach to hit it. While the wolf moves from one adjacent square to the next one, you would get an AoO from this houserule, but it would be moot since you'd get an AoO as normal.

[Telonius]

Another interesting bit ... it also makes initiative more important. You could pull off a charge without drawing AoOs, but only if the opponent is flat-footed (and doesn't have Combat Reflexes).

[NoACWarrior]

Another interesting bit ... it also makes initiative more important. You could pull off a charge without drawing AoOs, but only if the opponent is flat-footed (and doesn't have Combat Reflexes).

No, you could still charge people with normal 5ft reach so long as you only enter 1 square of threatening. The AoO ONLY occurs when the action taken is first proposed, with the AoO being resolved before the action is actually taken, then the action being resolved.

This house rule as I see it doesn't really grant that much in that you already get an AoO for someone leaving a threatened square (you dont get 2 AoOs for 1 action) and would only be helpful if the moving creature was making a withdraw action from one threatened square to the next.

[Sylthia]

Is he following the 1 AoO per round? I've found that people often forget about that rule, or don't keep track, especially with larger combat party sizes.

[Valtu]

Is he following the 1 AoO per round? I've found that people often forget about that rule, or don't keep track, especially with larger combat party sizes.

Probably not, now that I think about it. I haven't noticed, but as someone else pointed out we've basically only been moving slowly to avoid this happening either way.

It may not matter much though, because our DM may not be our DM for much longer. More about that another time, or another thread, but it's iffy. Not because of this, just to be clear. That would be a bit silly haha.