Opportunity Attacks Should Be Optional

[gniht]

I'm not sure how many of you have had this experience, but forcing one to take an attack of opportunity when you don't want to is supremely aggravating, and antithetical to the notion of player agency. I think the game should have a way to configure the conditions under which their character takes these, or at the very least toggle taking opportunity attacks on/off (on a per-character basis).
*edit*
*for those wanting examples of how this can be a problem, see my reply below.*

[Chimpy2345]

Suggestion, toggle parry or detect mode to avoid them. If you're running around mobs, you can also swap over to a sling.

I agree with what you're suggesting, but until then we at least have a minor work around

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by gniht:

I'm not sure how many of you have had this experience, but forcing one to take an attack of opportunity when you don't want to is supremely aggravating, and antithetical to the notion of player agency. I think the game should have a way to configure the conditions under which their character takes these, or at the very least toggle taking opportunity attacks on/off (on a per-character basis).

Can you give me an example of why you wouldn't want to take an attack of opportunity?

[grognardgary]

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

Originally posted by gniht:

I'm not sure how many of you have had this experience, but forcing one to take an attack of opportunity when you don't want to is supremely aggravating, and antithetical to the notion of player agency. I think the game should have a way to configure the conditions under which their character takes these, or at the very least toggle taking opportunity attacks on/off (on a per-character basis).

Can you give me an example of why you wouldn't want to take an attack of opportunity?

Be interested in hearing that one myself.

[drae_perin]

Player wishes to be invincible and never pay a price for strategic failures. what a clown

[𝑨𝖕𝖍𝖎𝖔𝖓]

Isnt a reason to ever toggle them off. All your attacks are timed and you don't control when those attacks happen other than clicking on the monster to start combat.

No reason since AoO are free attacks. You and your attacker are subject to them. Any movement if your attacker is in range, without the feats taken to avoid them, is going to provoke an AoO. Movement is probably the biggest one but not the only one.

[NoOne]

Originally posted by drae_perin:

Player wishes to be invincible and never pay a price for strategic failures. what a clown

Better rewrite the D&D rules for entitled idiot, everyone else has managed fine for 20+ years

[wendigo211]

If the OP is talking about stopping his avatar from performing AoOs on the enemy, then I do have to wonder why he would want to do that? If on the other hand he wants the enemy to stop performing AoOs on his avatar, then he can always lower the difficulty.

That said, there was an old bug, where the drift from the dance of death (the random steps the PC takes when he's fighting) could draw AoOs in fights against multiple opponents, even when the player didn't issue a movement command. Those AoOs are bad, and one of the reasons I'm glad NWN2 got rid of the dance of death.

[Wizard of Woz]

Originally posted by wendigo211:

If the OP is talking about stopping his avatar from performing AoOs on the enemy, then I do have to wonder why he would want to do that? If on the other hand he wants the enemy to stop performing AoOs on his avatar, then he can always lower the difficulty.

That said, there was an old bug, where the drift from the dance of death (the random steps the PC takes when he's fighting) could draw AoOs in fights against multiple opponents, even when the player didn't issue a movement command. Those AoOs are bad, and one of the reasons I'm glad NWN2 got rid of the dance of death.

Or pick up the appropriate feats to negate aoo.

[wendigo211]

Getting enough Tumble is generally easier.

[Yagger]

Originally posted by NoOne:

Originally posted by drae_perin:

Player wishes to be invincible and never pay a price for strategic failures. what a clown

Better rewrite the D&D rules for entitled idiot, everyone else has managed fine for 20+ years

pretty sure the op isn't asking for this, but also hasbro has already rewritten the rules for entitled clowns IE 5E+

[id795078477]

Assuming OP means disabling his PC's AoO (because if it's enemies then the difficulty slider or Spring Attack or Tumble do the job for the most part), I can imagine some cases when AoO could be undesirable:

-- That enemy mage casted a quickened Mestil's Acid Shield that you didn't notice and with your 6APR you burned through your HP like hot knife through butter. You wanted to stop attacking because you're down to 5HP but oh no - the enemy mage got scared you damaged him too much and decided to run. You do the AoO and you go meet Ao.

-- You want to take action, like use the item in combat, for instance, use a healing potion because you're down to last 5HP - and you were just a split second late because the enemy moved away. You do the AoO first, waste animation frames on that and catch an arrow from the enemy's friend. You go meet Ao. Again.

-- You are in a scripted scenario "beat the baddie till low HP, they will talk, you can progress a quest in a certain manner if you convince them", but some such scripts don't actually reset the hostile marker from these enemies - because yes, you can do scripted talk to hostiles just fine. And then.. you guessed it, the enemy moves for some reason (likely because it was too far away for the dialogue scene after the script fired), you do the AoO, interrupt it and make it count as if you decided to go full ballistic on them instead of negotiating (or you just kill them outright because low HP).

There are unintended consequences of your PC not doing what you want, yes. Though these are few and far between, they do happen. The worst class for that is ... drumroll... monk! Because you will have high initiative and you can't really "unequip your weapon just in case" for stuff like scripted sequences (well, you ARE the weapon).

Although I believe, you need some dozens of hours of playtime to catch one of those.

[gniht]

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

Originally posted by gniht:

I'm not sure how many of you have had this experience, but forcing one to take an attack of opportunity when you don't want to is supremely aggravating, and antithetical to the notion of player agency. I think the game should have a way to configure the conditions under which their character takes these, or at the very least toggle taking opportunity attacks on/off (on a per-character basis).

Can you give me an example of why you wouldn't want to take an attack of opportunity?

This problem has the greatest impact on dedicated caster builds, but can also affect melees. Essentially when you declare an action, it goes into the queue. This represents your character's intention to do something, provided he/she is able when their next available action in the round comes. If an enemy provokes an attack of opportunity it can actually strip your action away and replace it with melee attack on the target who provoked the opportunity attack. This is effectively 'mind control' over your character and removes player agency because you no longer have control over what your character does in this instance. In the case of a melee build, you may have intended to activate your improved knockdown on a priority target, but instead this opportunity attack can redirect your action to the new target. In both cases the player declares an action and instead does something else instead.
what's even worse is that this "free attack" has now put you into attack mode, and you have to then wait until the next available phase to get back to doing what you wanted to do. I have had this delay result in the death of my characters to die many times.
As was mentioned earlier by @Chimpy2345 there are mechanisms in game that can help you mitigate this. If you play single player or are on a server where sticky modes is enabled you can activate parry mode. if you have no parry skill you will never riposte and for casters this is one way to avoid taking opportunity attacks. Obviously this method doesn't work for melee builds because you need to be able to attack. But even in the case of casters this is not a reasonable solution because it deprives you of your combat mode, which could be used for defensive casting. One can also equip a ranged weapon, thus avoiding attacks of opportunity. If you're a caster build, and a ranged mob fires on you, then your character will automatically enter combat mode with floaty text going over your head "out of ammo" repeatedly. this is still a problem because it will delay your ability to cast your next spell. furthermore, you cannot benefit from the magic staves appropriate for your caster class.
At the end of the day the fact is that opportunity attacks can and do remove player agency, forcing you to do something you may not have wanted to do, and potentially removing your ability to do something you did want to do.

[Zopheir]

Originally posted by gniht:

snip

OK. You've hit on some real points (don’t listen to those ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ who assumed you were terrible at the game), especially for casters and anyone trying to play strategically beyond just 'whack-a-mole' combat.

Bioware streamlined 3e for real-time and AoOs were one of the casualties. For 99% of the game, it works. Adds some tactical nuance, punishes dumbassery. But those edge cases such as the acid shield trap, potion-block, script-breaking do expose the cracks in that simplification. Monk in a cutscene is just hilarious jank.

"Mind control" is melodramatic. But the core point is legit: forced actions interrupt your plan. Could they have made it more granular? Toggleable AoOs? Smarter AI? Maybe. But that's UI hell and engine-melting complexity for marginal gain. Radial menus are already kind of a mess.

NwN aimed for accessible and a bit tactical. For that compromise they stuck the landing pretty well.

[𝑨𝖕𝖍𝖎𝖔𝖓]

Originally posted by gniht:

Originally posted by Wizard of Woz:

Can you give me an example of why you wouldn't want to take an attack of opportunity?

This problem has the greatest impact on dedicated caster builds, but can also affect melees. Essentially when you declare an action, it goes into the queue. This represents your character's intention to do something, provided he/she is able when their next available action in the round comes. If an enemy provokes an attack of opportunity it can actually strip your action away and replace it with melee attack on the target who provoked the opportunity attack. This is effectively 'mind control' over your character and removes player agency because you no longer have control over what your character does in this instance. In the case of a melee build, you may have intended to activate your improved knockdown on a priority target, but instead this opportunity attack can redirect your action to the new target. In both cases the player declares an action and instead does something else instead.
what's even worse is that this "free attack" has now put you into attack mode, and you have to then wait until the next available phase to get back to doing what you wanted to do. I have had this delay result in the death of my characters to die many times.
As was mentioned earlier by @Chimpy2345 there are mechanisms in game that can help you mitigate this. If you play single player or are on a server where sticky modes is enabled you can activate parry mode. if you have no parry skill you will never riposte and for casters this is one way to avoid taking opportunity attacks. Obviously this method doesn't work for melee builds because you need to be able to attack. But even in the case of casters this is not a reasonable solution because it deprives you of your combat mode, which could be used for defensive casting. One can also equip a ranged weapon, thus avoiding attacks of opportunity. If you're a caster build, and a ranged mob fires on you, then your character will automatically enter combat mode with floaty text going over your head "out of ammo" repeatedly. this is still a problem because it will delay your ability to cast your next spell. furthermore, you cannot benefit from the magic staves appropriate for your caster class.
At the end of the day the fact is that opportunity attacks can and do remove player agency, forcing you to do something you may not have wanted to do, and potentially removing your ability to do something you did want to do.

Your ranged attack argument also works for spells. If your out of range of course theres not gonna be any AoO. You could also argue that all the automatic actions by the game is mind control under your definition.

Ranged is subject to the same AoO as anyone else thats moving in combat in melee range. Casting a spell in someones face will also provoke them.

If your getting so close to your enemy you / they are getting AoO on you or you on them- thats because your casting spells in their face, moving yourself, or they are in melee range moving or casting and thats something youre / they are doing and part of the rules.

Except you dont really have any player agency, other than movement and putting actions or spells in a queue, and everything beyond that is timed and automatic.

Combat Example: 
You've attacked a group of gnolls. You hit your first target once and then get an AoO on a 2nd target that has moved to the side of you. You then turn back to your first target and continue attacking your original target as per your first issued command. Provided you dont move. This is all automatic and done by the game.

I don't remember it canceling any of my actions or spells but I havent played any casters recent.

Sticky combat modes is a late quality of life feature that was added much later and only in EE. Before then ALL combat modes automatically disabled on movement, casting a spell, or any other action where your concentration on that action isnt maintained.

[Prince Raymond]

Another potential turn-off to AoO's, and extra attacks in general, is the fact they form their own -5 progression that stacks with the progression of normal attacks. It has happened on more than one occasion that my character's AoO was done at a negative BAB due to the overwhelming penalties applied to it. Prior to 1.68, AoO's were done at full BAB as they were originally designed because there was no progression for extra attacks in NWN. It simply did not exist. All versions of the game up to 1.67 had attacks being done as they should.

My point is an automatic attack your character does most likely can't be helped in certain situations. The undocumented additional penalty to that attack, which never should have been put in NWN to begin with, CAN.

What was once my passion became my obsession. What was my obsession became my mission. What was my mission has become my quest.