Anyone ever replaced Attacks of Opportunity with Engagement

[tedcahill2]

Engagement is a mechanic from the Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity computer games. It's really similar to Attacks of Opportunity but from just reading how it works I think it provides better tactical options.

Engagement Rules: If you move into the attack range of an opponent equipped with a melee weapon that opponent can choose to engage you. If they do so your current movement stops. You can move around and take actions freely from within your opponent threat range, but if you try to leave their area you are subject to a disengagement attack, which your opponent gets a bonus to hit on. By default each character/NPC/monster can only engage a single opponent. Some abilities increase the number of opponents you can engage.

What I really like about engagement is that it actually allows you to protect your back line in a meaningful way. It's not exactly like a taunt skill from an MMO, but it does force enemies to either take the long way around you to get to your back line, or spend a could turns moving past you. It also means that an archer or mage can't as easily kite around a melee fighter.

Has anyone ever tried implementing anything like this into their D&D game?

[Telonius]

You'd have to exclude the Charge attack from this sort of a setup; otherwise melee loses its biggest offensive weapon. As you've described, all any character would have to do to foil a charge would be to equip a reach weapon. It would be impossible for a Medium character to charge a Large or larger opponent. The standard equipment for a melee type would go from Greatsword to either Guisarme with Short Haft or Spiked Chain.

[tedcahill2]

You'd have to exclude the Charge attack from this sort of a setup; otherwise melee loses its biggest offensive weapon. As you've described, all any character would have to do to foil a charge would be to equip a reach weapon. It would be impossible for a Medium character to charge a Large or larger opponent. The standard equipment for a melee type would go from Greatsword to either Guisarme with Short Haft or Spiked Chain.

So I think some tweaks would need to be made for this to port to D&D really well. Reach weapons would need to be figured out, I know the system this comes from has reach weapons but it doesn't restrict attacking to adjacent squares the way D&D reach does.

[gkathellar]

13th Age uses an engagement mechanic. You may want to take a look at that.

[Eldariel]

Haven't heard of it but this sounds like a massive improvement to the system. I'm not necessarily sure the reach weapon question is that big of a problem either; pikes are supposed to excel against charges and having someone get inside your threatened range should be a big drawback to using a reach weapon. If anything, this would fix a few things in the system (though you'd still need to figure out a fluid way to make it possible to ready movement to match your opponents to block them without losing your turn if they do something else).

[ericgrau]

What I really like about engagement is that it actually allows you to protect your back line in a meaningful way. It's not exactly like a taunt skill from an MMO, but it does force enemies to either take the long way around you to get to your back line, or spend a could turns moving past you. It also means that an archer or mage can't as easily kite around a melee fighter.
Outside of the bonus to hit, AoO's seem to be more effective at protecting the back line than engangement.

5e does something similar to one part. AoOs only trigger when you leave melee threat range rather than when you leave a threatened square.