(A) Opportunity attacks are DUMB
This is archival material from previous blog
This mechanic is prevalent in various systems. When fighting on a grid every person threatens some of the squares around it. If enemy is within threatened range and tries to step away the person can make an attack of opportunity. It came from DnD as a means for front line fighters to prevent enemies from going straight to strike magic-users. I understand this is a solution for a problem but it creates a whole set of other problems. Especially when you combine it with turn based initiative and set of squishy wizards.
Why are attacks of opportunity dumb? First â they make grid combat really non-dynamic. I saw a lot of threads of people complaining their combats are very static because as soon as PC gets in range with enemy they both are locked until someone is dead (weird prevalence of combat to the death and incentive towards players being murderhobo sociopaths is a topic for another article). And itâs not weird â it is the most efficient way of combat given these strange physics. When wounds rarely affect combat ability and youâre fighting with full power until 0 HP (NPC usually dead, PCs and their allies usually have safety triggers). And the idea of opportunity attacks and staticity of combat sips into other systems.
Second â itâs wildly unrealistic. Youâd need to constantly check every person around you to just wait for them to go away. If you have the focus and opportunity to attack at any moment why would you wait for them to leave? They get advantage when they move away from you. You have to get to them and then attack. Unless you have long weapon directed towards them and they very slowly turn their back on you then no, youâre not in a good position. Iâm not sure why any combat-focused systems still incorporate that mechanic, itâs like purposely making boring static combat because you didnât have any other idea for it than grid+turn initiative+make-your-wizards-squishy (you could at least give them armor).
From what Iâve heard GURPS works around it neatly. Basically you have Wait action which means when youâre not exactly occupied with anything and enemy moves around you then strike is possible. But in any other circumstance youâre probably too busy attacking/defending/DOING stuff than waiting for someone to move AWAY from you. Pathfinder 2nd edition finally bailed out of it too. Attack of Opportunity is a feature of one class and it can be on a grid in turn based combat because wizards stopped being super fragile.
Okay, so in order to remove Attack of Opportunity from combat without breaking it one can do few things, some of which I already explained. You may stop entirely with the whole squishy wizard trope. Canât you make it kung-fu wizard if you gotta stick to tropes? Or magic knight? Another thing could be bailing of grid combat. Before pandemic Iâve heard a lot of people not using grid for combat instead resorting to âtheater of the mindâ but hard for me to say how it works with online gaming. In case you really need some visual representation you can always go for Zones as it is in Fate. Or recommended by AngryGM â Old School Hack (which has other great ideas too). I love them, because you donât get lost but wont spend your turns counting how many squares to move and worrying about ranges. You may also change amount of actions available during combat â if people can only Move or only Strike on their turn you can predict and react before they strike squishy wizard. Changing initiative from personal to group initiative will probably help too.
All of these things just to remove Attack of Opportunity. And you couldâve just give some fighters Brace Maneuver.