Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Captain_Willard 04-17-07, 08:21 AM	1.) Has anyone ever tried this? 2.) If so, how did it work out? 3.) How do you think the game would benefit/suffer from no AoO?
SilvercatMoonpaw 04-17-07, 08:24 AM	There was a thread about this a while back, and a solution was propose that would eliminate AoOs but still keep what they did for tactical combat: 1. Roll Initiative as normal, but have people call out their actions backwards. 2. Actions are not actually resolved until they have all been called out, when the DM resolves them all in one large moment. This allows (to use the example situation on that thread) the guards of the princess who have a higher initiative than the commner guy trying to kill her to state their actions for the round as trying to block the assasin.
Karish 04-17-07, 12:11 PM	Silvercat pretty much wins it there. It also pretty much makes my whole, "Look at me, I'm a warlock with high dex and improved initiative who is at point blank range casting eldritch blast at you" thing work much better. :D
Khementari 04-17-07, 01:59 PM	Removing AoO requires some alterations to combat and feats that revolve around AoO. I removed AoO from my game and everyone is happy all around. It has created a sense of freedom in combat instead of a culture of strictly counting squares to optimize AoO. Using AoO it got to the point where AoO became such an issue half of our night was consumed by this kind of activity. People don't want to sit around and watch while someone counts squares and prepares for one action like it's a movement of a roman army. After a while players didn't even want to bother trying anything daring or fun because of AoO. Now the life of combat is exciting again.
Shadowhowler 04-17-07, 04:19 PM	Yeah, I have issues with how AoO are used... I'm not certain if I want to remove the system entirly, but I am certain I want to at least alter it to some degree. I have not yet decided how to go about it tho.
Khementari 04-17-07, 05:00 PM	Well it really depends on what kind of game you want to run. When you take a look at the combat rules and make note of every instance an AoO happens and then you reference what feats involve AoO it comes down to how much work you want to do and if you think it's worth it. My game is still d20 D&D but it's a distant cousin of what is represented in official SRD form. You can't just say AoO don't happen anymore. You have to have to look at what happens when I try to disarm? What does the Improved disarm feat do now? What happens when I use an unarmed attack on an armed opponent? The real issue for most people is that you can't maintain compatibility with all the books on the market(or half of them, or any of them really). --But for me maintainling compatibility isn't a problem because I never wanted to. I like to design things for my own world and nothing you buy from a store is going to make it into my game.
TheDragonmaster 04-17-07, 05:38 PM	What would happen to the bright new shiny Chain-Tripper-Karmic-Strike-Defensive-Throw-Robilar's-Gambit-Fighter your PC brings to the next session?
SilvercatMoonpaw 04-17-07, 09:54 PM	@Shadowhowler and Khamentari: The backwards initiative system takes out the need to really re-think the feats that deal with it unless you want to keep them for some reason.
Khementari 04-17-07, 10:48 PM	It may take out the need for you to do any work, but it doesn't really make any sense. Stating your action doesn't mean anything to the mechanics of the game.
Shadowhowler 04-17-07, 11:25 PM	Also, as I said... is is not nessasarily my intention to entirly remove the AoO from the system, there are times where they make sense to me... but I need to re-work it, becuase there are times when they don't make any sense at all. I actually just finished a post on this very subject somewhere eles. :)
Sphyre 04-18-07, 12:42 AM	AoOs aren't that clunky of a mechanic... they were in 3.0... but 3.5 they are pretty simple - and the 5ft step makes them pretty easily avoidable. That being said, go ahead and take it out. But I don't understand why I keep seeing people wanting to remove the mechanic that disallows (shamelessly ripped from someone else's post a few years back but I remember it well) the ability to run upto a dragon, moon it and call it names, and then run away, and the dragon can't do anything during your entire action to stop you from doing so.
Steely_Dan 04-18-07, 03:19 AM	Apparently in d20 Star Wars Saga the AoO rules will be going through some subtle changes to smooth them out/speed up game play.
SilvercatMoonpaw 04-18-07, 10:27 AM	Stating your action doesn't mean anything to the mechanics of the game. The intention is that people with higher initiative can react to people with lower initiative without a bunch of rules saying when they are allowed to do it or not.
Steely_Dan 04-18-07, 10:32 AM	What would happen to the bright new shiny Chain-Tripper-Karmic-Strike-Defensive-Throw-Robilar's-Gambit-Fighter your PC brings to the next session? Most DM's shun that build. Hence a good case for excluding AoO, so people don't try in the first place to whip out this clichéd build.
enlightened 04-19-07, 07:52 AM	1.) Has anyone ever tried this? When did the concept see print? 2000? That means people played D&D for 26 years without them ..............without any problems.
Captain_Willard 04-19-07, 08:13 AM	When did the concept see print? 2000? That means people played D&D for 26 years without them ..............without any problems. Old news – heard it a million times – I have been playing since 1987. I'm talking about its impact on the current edition…
SlinkyTWF 04-19-07, 10:10 AM	IIRC, in the 1st ed, if you leave an enemy ZoC, you gave that enemy a free attack. AoO is the same concept rewritten to make more sense from a mechanical standpoint. If you don't use it, then expect any enemies with superior numbers to just run through the gaps in your defenses and trip up your casters. Only way you can stop it is to either fill every space with a barrier of some sort.