Attacks of Opportunity

In DnD 3.5e, there's something that always bothered me about attacks of opportunity.  When moving out of a threatened square, you provoke an attack of opportunity - okay, I'm going to be using the term "attack of opportunity" a lot here, so let's shorten that to AttOpp.  That rule doesn't seem at all silly, but it breaks down in the following case - or at least it does in my book.

We have four characters in all:  The noble paladin (Pal), the clever rogue (Rog), the devious hobgoblin (Hob), and the insidious orc (Orc).  The paladin and rogue are fellow adventurers who have ambushed the dark alliance of the orc and hobgoblin.  The paladin has engaged the hobgoblin in melee, and the rogue used his crossbow to stay at range from the orc, hoping to fell the beast with his sneak attack.  However, due to poor luck, his crossbow misfired, and now it's the orc's turn to act.  Here's the setup on a battle grid (note that I've marked facing with white).

So, let's make sure everything is defined.  The rogue and paladin got the drop on the monsters, so they've had a surprise round.  During that round, the rogue acted at initiative 19, misfiring his heavy crossbow at the orc.  The paladin acted on initiative 10, using a partial charge action to engage the hobgoblin with his longsword.  During the first standard round, the rogue reloads his crossbow, taking the full round due to the misfire.  The hobgoblin acts on initiative 12, striking the paladin with his own longsword.  The paladin swings again, his blade deflected by the hobgoblin's shield.  At initiative count 8, the orc finally gets to act, and that rogue looks terribly vulnerable and full of blood to spill.  He charges the rogue.

Here's where our AttOpps break down.  The orc rushes forward to the closest square threatened by the paladin.  So far no AttOpp, but if he continues his charge one more square, he will be moving out of a threatened square, provoking an AttOpp from the paladin.

The paladin suddenly turns around as the orc is rushing by behind him, taking his AttOpp and striking the orc for 5 damage.  Meanwhile, the hobgoblin politely waits for the paladin to turn back around before reengaging combat with an opponent who has clearly left himself wide open.  Once the paladin has turned back around, combat resumes.

The orc continues his charge, brutally crushing the rogue with his greataxe for 10 damage.  Luckily, the rogue selected Toughness as his first level feat and has a high constitution score.  He's hurt, but still standing.

So how can we correct that breakdown there in the middle.  We could really care about facing - add to our AttOpp rules that to threaten a square, it must be within your field of view.  However, a clever player might just stand sideways in order to threaten the squares he finds tactically pleasing.

To fix that, we'd have to add rules that state that you must be facing the target you are engaging, but then we'd have to define every little detail for the rules lawyers out there (for example, how do you deal with diagonals?).  Basically, that rules out facing as a possible limitation if we want to keep combat quick.  So how can we do this?

I've already given a clue to my solution when I was describing the break point.  The real problem is that the paladin leaves himself open to attack by striking the orc, but the hobgoblin just stands there.  To quote our good friend, the Player's Handbook - "Sometimes, however, a combatant in melee lets her guard down.  In this case, combatants near her can take advantage of her lapse in defense to attack her for free.  These free attacks are called attacks of opportunity."

So, by definition, the paladin should provoke an AttOpp from the hobgoblin for lowering his defenses in melee, and that's what I propose.  In short, taking an AttOpp is now an action that provokes AttOpps.  Of course, you must limit this immediately else it be abused:  The attacker does not provoke the defender.  Without that stipulation, our paladin would attack the orc, provoking the orc, who chops the paladin in half along his way to kill the rogue.  That would just be stupid.

With this system in place, here's how our previous scene plays out.  Orc charges rogue, provoking an AttOpp from the paladin.  The paladin now has to choose if he wants to lower his defenses against the hobgoblin and take his AttOpp against the orc, or if he should let the orc pass unharmed.  Our paladin chooses to put himself at the risk in order to attack the orc and help his friend out.  He slashes the orc for 5 damage, but his defenses are down against the hobgoblin, provoking an AttOpp.  The hobgoblin now has flanking bonuses since the orc still threatens the paladin during the charge.  The hobgoblin takes his AttOpp against the paladin, dealing 4 damage.

With this system, combat gets a bit more straightforward since there won't be as many characters taking roundabout paths that avoid AttOpps entirely.  Instead, characters are more willing to rush by an enemy currently engaged in melee.  However, this makes AttOpps more risky, unbalancing the usefulness of feats like Combat Reflexes.

You could stop there if you wanted.  Combat Reflexes would now require much greater tactical planning in order to deal as many AttOpps as possible while provoking as few AttOpps as possible.  However, I feel that the usefulness of AttOpp feats is fairly dented, so I've modified Combat Reflexes. Under my rules, Combat Reflexes now allows one fewer AttOpps per round, but you no longer provoke AttOpps when taking them.  In case that doesn't make sense, look at the full writeup below:

Combat Reflexes [General]

You can respond quickly and repeatedly to opponents who let their defenses down.

    Benefit:  When foes leave themselves open, you may make a number of attacks of opportunity equal to your Dexterity bonus (minimum one).  For example, a fighter with a Dexterity of 15 can make a total of two attacks of opportunity in 1 round.  If four goblins move out of the character's threatened squares, he can make one attack of opportunity against two of the four.  You can still make only one attack of opportunity per opportunity.

    With this feat, you may also make attacks of opportunity while flat-footed.  You also no longer provoke attacks of opportunity when making an attacks of opportunity.

    Normal:  A character without this feat can make only one attack of opportunity per round and can't make attacks of opportunity while flat-footed.  Also, a character without this feat, when making attacks of opportunity, provokes attacks of opportunity (excluding the target of this attack of opportunity).

    Special:  The Combat Reflexes feat does not allow a rogue to use her opportunist ability (see page 51) more than once per round.

    A fighter may select Combat Reflexes as one of his fighter bonus feats (see page 38).

    A monk may select Combat Reflexes as a bonus feat at 2nd level.

How well does this work?  I've been using this system for six years now, and I feel that it has done very well.  Combat is leaner since we don't have characters going through some very exact and clear path between all the threatened squares.  Combat is more "realistic" - we don't have issues such as the case above.  This has added a fair amount of fun and changed up some tactics - if you need to withdraw, your ally can engage the enemy, allowing you to slip away.  And again, I've been using this for six years - it is tried and tested in various forms, and has survived through a longspear user, countless monsters, and the rare character specializing in AttOpps.  In short, it works.