Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1030531Unless they turn a corner or just drop something to make a square difficult terrain!

I agree that AOOs aren't a perfect solution that can get messy, but I do think that they do a decent job of solving a potential problem... so long as everyone remembers when they're triggered.

You need AoOs if you don't have a rule stopping movement once in melee range. Otherwise protecting the wizard becomes annoyingly difficult.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030532You need AoOs if you don't have a rule stopping movement once in melee range. Otherwise protecting the wizard becomes annoyingly difficult.

That's what dungeon corridors are for!

I did kill a wizard on Sunday; the PCs sought out a fight with 4 bugbear muggers they knew were in a copse, in order to avoid paying a 50gp toll. The bugbears rolled well on init, one walked up to the wiz and critted him dead before he got a turn. It struck me how much deadlier a fight in the open could be, especially when the enemy have you surrounded.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030532You need AoOs if you don't have a rule stopping movement once in melee range. Otherwise protecting the wizard becomes annoyingly difficult.

Quote from: S'mon;1030534That's what dungeon corridors are for!

I did kill a wizard on Sunday; the PCs sought out a fight with 4 bugbear muggers they knew were in a copse, in order to avoid paying a 50gp toll. The bugbears rolled well on init, one walked up to the wiz and critted him dead before he got a turn. It struck me how much deadlier a fight in the open could be, especially when the enemy have you surrounded.

And that's why in 3.x/PF I'm a fan of reach weapons for the tanky characters.  (Or for tanky characters to pretend to be squishy - like a scrawny monk wearing cheesy moon & star robes.)

Again - I'm not a huge fan of how AOOs are executed, but you need something to allow beefier characters to block for the squishies when you're using a round-robin style initiative system.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030333Paizo has an article up about the Fighter:

http://paizo.com/community/blog/v5748dyo5lkm9?Fighter-Class-Preview

Highlights (lowlights):

-Once again, pretty much everything you'd expect a fighter to be able to do, like be useful with a shield, move and attack
-They're loading up the action economy with exceptions and trip conditions and other bullshit
-Wayne Reynolds likes pointy things

That sounds...really poor.

All the "good" things about being a Fighter, other than better bonii with weapons and a weakass AoO are feats. Which anyone can get.

Quote from: S'mon;1030534That's what dungeon corridors are for!

Yes, constrained environment does a great job of keeping the back line the back line (minus all the exceptions, of course). If we pretend that all games are going to take place in dungeons with 10' wide corridors and the party has two ranks of martial classes and followers to keep between the glass cannons and the enemies, then this is all unnecessary. These rules were added because people moved (at least partially*) (farther**) away from that play-style.
*Dungeon Crawling is still a vibrant part of many-to-most games. People just now want answers for the question of 'but what about when we're not in a dungeon?'
**overland travel has always been a part of the game, and it was pretty hazardous to MUs.

QuoteI did kill a wizard on Sunday; the PCs sought out a fight with 4 bugbear muggers they knew were in a copse, in order to avoid paying a 50gp toll. The bugbears rolled well on init, one walked up to the wiz and critted him dead before he got a turn. It struck me how much deadlier a fight in the open could be, especially when the enemy have you surrounded.

Yes, but... in real life, zone defense works. SCA, paintball, etc., -- I can guard the flag (/MU). If I see you moving toward the flag such that you'll cross my line of scrimmage (yes I am hopeless mixing my analogy) 15' to my right, I can move to block, and likely be successful. You will not get by, I will get a 'kill' hit on you, and you won't successfully engage the flag. That of course unless you are miles away more competent, or you do the sensible thing and 'kill' me first instead. It doesn't work in a game where one person moves on their initiative, then effectively freezes on the next person's turn unless you have some form of zone of control rules, be they 'AoOs,' rules stopping movement once in melee range, or the like. Held action kind of works (although in practice all it really does is give up your action to instead act on the opponents turn), but is really just a special type of AoO (in which case we're just arguing about the name/implementation).

AoOs aren't a problem that needs solving. Ignore a fella with his club out, get clobbered. PF2 is just making them unnecessarily complicated. The governing philosophy of this upcoming edition seems to be "crunch for crunch's sake."

Quote from: Willie the Duck;1030548Yes, but... in real life, zone defense works. SCA, paintball, etc., -- I can guard the flag (/MU). If I see you moving toward the flag such that you'll cross my line of scrimmage (yes I am hopeless mixing my analogy) 15' to my right, I can move to block, and likely be successful. You will not get by, I will get a 'kill' hit on you, and you won't successfully engage the flag. That of course unless you are miles away more competent, or you do the sensible thing and 'kill' me first instead. It doesn't work in a game where one person moves on their initiative, then effectively freezes on the next person's turn unless you have some form of zone of control rules, be they 'AoOs,' rules stopping movement once in melee range, or the like. Held action kind of works (although in practice all it really does is give up your action to instead act on the opponents turn), but is really just a special type of AoO (in which case we're just arguing about the name/implementation).

This.

You need some method of area control when you're playing with round-robin initiative.  Frankly - it's one of the main reasons that more complex initiatives are worth considering, because it can make moving around the battlefield far more dynamic, especially as it pertains to melee protecting and/or closing in on ranged squishies.  

But if you stick with the KISS initiative system, you need something else to represent the dynamic.  3.x/PF chose AOOs.  (My biggest gripe with it is being able to 5ft away and use ranged attacks/spells with no penalty unless the melee guy has reach.)  For the most part it works.

OD&D and AD&D also have AoOs. They just don't call them that. Check the rules for fleeing. However, those rule sets seem based on the assumption of distinct battle lines and don't really comprehend the possibility of trying to walk past a fighter in a 10' hallway (the OD&D rules are pretty clear, though...your only legal movement direction is "away" if mini bases touching, no circling around to the other side). So 3.x takes what was already there and abstracts it so that rather than being written to deal with battle lines of infantry marching against each other, it can handle a small group of individuals wandering about with no obvious "toward" and "away" direction, i.e. what had become standard D&D adventuring by the late 1980s.

Fighting withdrawal -> 5-foot step
Fleeing -> full move within melee reach + AoO

So if you use 3.x's rules with formed battle lines of hirelings, you end up with results very similar to 0e and 1e. In fact, 3.0's rules about movement and AoOs are a refinement of what's in the 2e Combat & Tactics book. This has stuck with us through 4e and 5e, but its origins are classic.

Quote(My biggest gripe with it is being able to 5ft away and use ranged attacks/spells with no penalty unless the melee guy has reach.)

What? I don't understand what you're saying here. Why should ranged attackers have a penalty if they're at range?

Quote from: S'mon;1030530I think on balance the whole idea of the opp att as a standard feature is a bit silly - I noticed this running Pathfinder Beginner Box, that not having it at all made for a better game. And as Lindybeige has pointed out, the opp att is pretty unrealistic too. IRL people get killed fleeing when chased and run down, not at the moment they flee.

IRL people don't wait for their initiative count to attack...

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Never had a problem with AoO in my games. I think they're a useful rule for a turn based combat system.

My problem with AoO is they make retreat suicidal. I don't like to have monster always fight to the death because A) losing your morale and fleeing is what intelligent monsters should do, and B) carrying out every combat to the bitter end of annihilation is time-consuming. The problem is that if I say the gnolls retreat when half their numbers are dead, AoOs mean that when three gnolls turn tail and run, they're probably going to get killed anyway. If they survive the initial melee AoO, a round of ranged attacks usually finishes them off.

D&D really needs better disengage/flee/retreat rules. I've gotten to the point with 5E that I'll probably end up house ruling something.

Quote from: Haffrung;1030563My problem with AoO is they make retreat suicidal. I don't like to have monster always fight to the death because A) losing your morale and fleeing is what intelligent monsters should do, and B) carrying out every combat to the bitter end of annihilation is time-consuming. The problem is that if I say the gnolls retreat when half their numbers are dead, AoOs mean that when three gnolls turn tail and run, they're probably going to get killed anyway. If they survive the initial melee AoO, a round of ranged attacks usually finishes them off.

This can be a problem even without AoO. Retreat from the average party, and they're likely going to pursue and run them down, or go spells/archery/thrown and gun them down.

QuoteD&D really needs better disengage/flee/retreat rules. I've gotten to the point with 5E that I'll probably end up house ruling something.

This I would agree with.

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030561What? I don't understand what you're saying here. Why should ranged attackers have a penalty if they're at range?

Because it's an exploitation of the initiative system which AOOs were designed to solve - but then they gave that one workaround. If the initiative system were more fluid the melee guy would likely remain in the archer/caster's face, making shooting/casting difficult for them.

Quote from: Haffrung;1030563My problem with AoO is they make retreat suicidal.

Retreat typically is suicidal after Alexander the Great made annihilating resistance rather than resolving a border dispute the goal of Western warfare. Losing morale isn't an intelligent response; it's your panic reflex kicking in. During the conquest of Byzantium, invading Muslim armies hunted down and slaughtered Greek, Egyptian, and Levantine defenders down to the last man after they broke and fled.  Despite knowing this, Byzantine infantry would still flee after the tide of battle turned. Pursuing fleeing infantry in order to kill them all was so common in the Middle Ages that William the Conqueror faked flights at Hastings in order to draw the English into pursuit.

Quote from: Charon's Little Helper;1030568Because it's an exploitation of the initiative system which AOOs were designed to solve - but then they gave that one workaround. If the initiative system were more fluid the melee guy would likely remain in the archer/caster's face, making shooting/casting difficult for them.

Do you have another initiative system in mind?

Quote from: fearsomepirate;1030569Pursuing fleeing infantry in order to kill them all was so common in the Middle Ages that William the Conqueror faked flights at Hastings in order to draw the English into pursuit.

You don't say... that's giving me ideas.