Attack of opportunity and monsters - more deadly than intended?

The more I look over how Attack of Opportunity works in this system, the more I feel like it starts having unforeseen issues with monsters that have it just because of how many actions wind up interacting with it. One big source of trouble is the number of actions and feats that, thanks to using certain "subactions" as part of them, bring in a manipulate tag that makes it more dangerous/subject to interruption than it probably should be. Magus Spellstrike was the first thing to bring the issue to my attention with its Cast a Spell subaction, but while I've seen plenty of discussion with good points both ways on that being intentional, things get a lot crazier when you bring all the feats that allow Interact actions as part of them that suddenly become terrible ideas if you happen to face an enemy with AoO. Quick Draw any sort of melee weapon? Your iaijutsu samurai who draws his blade fast as thought... will always eat a blade to the face first from the level 1 orc warrior. Rogue with Mug, who can cleverly lift an item when they attack? Get pounded by an enemy who doesn't even know WHY they did that if you succeed on the Steal check. And Reload is an Interact, pretty good argument by RAW Reload 0 would still have that manipulate trait even if it doesn't cost an action. Mobile Shot Stance becomes kind of pointless against AoO monsters if the ranged Strikes don't eat an AoO but every reload does. Most of the magic items at least seem smart about using Command instead of Interact but there are a couple of screwy exceptions like Dagger of Venom (free action to poison? Not so free now!). And it kind of sabotages groups who don't want to rely on healbot casters since Battle Medicine and champion Lay on Hands suddenly have issues once AoO enters the scene.

Worsening the issue is how many monsters have additional traits that compound the danger Attack of Opportunity brings. A large percentage of them have it with Reach attacks; you can ask all the fighters adopted by gnomes and trained in the flickmace just how valuable Reach can be for AoO. A fair number with 15 foot Reach to boot which gets pretty obnoxious with approaching them. The fact it's frequently "boss monsters" who have it causes problems because they're most likely fielded as above-level enemies for a party, so the increased likelihood of a crit on AoO increases the chance of a PC wasting actions. Don't get me started on the ones with "improved" versions of Attack of Opportunity. The monsters who can do multiple reactions for it can be bad enough, but the few who can interrupt on hit instead of crit can really mess up the action economy for PCs. My personal favorite, Mummy Pharaoh, who interrupts on hit AND can do it against concentrate actions, is so utterly, utterly broken. Want to activate ANY magic item, Hunt Prey, Devise a Stratagem, command an animal companion, Demoralize, or use a monk ki spell (or ANY spell even verbal only)? Get dunked on! Recall Knowledge? "I just remembered this is a bad idea!" *SMACK* "Damn it, what was I saying?!". Reach 10ft and mummy rot to boot. About the only limit is they at least don't have the "make multiple AoO" ability, otherwise everybody would stay the Abyss out of Osirion if they know what's good for them.

Now thankfully, especially with more recently released monsters, there seems to be some recognition of how AoO can have unintentional effects because I see a lot more specific reactions that only come up for particular actions and generally if they allow attacks don't allow interruption of actions too. But it still pops up often enough that it might not be a bad idea to make a few changes to prevent screwball interactions. At minimum I'm thinking maybe we need a blanket rule that any action that covers subactions should either have the traits of those subactions listed as part of it and/or be treated as overriding any traits of those subactions with its own. I have a sneaking suspicion part of the reason we have actions with unexpected vulnerability to AoO is the writers can't always remember which traits are included in those subactions, so this rule would prevent oopsies and confusion down the road. It would also help a bunch at the table, because I guarantee no group is remembering every single thing that should be subject to AoO, intended vulnerability or not, and this would at least make figuring that out easier if not perfect. I also think Battle Medicine and Lay on Hands should have some changes (or maybe feats at least, though they might become a feat tax) to support using them in an AoO environment, because I think moving group composition away from always needing a heal caster is a good change in Pathfinder 2E that should be encouraged, not undercut. Maybe Battle Medicine could get no AoO or at least increased AC against one at higher levels of Medicine skill?

Attack of Opportunity is one of those things that has a lot more twists to it than most people consider, because of how it can mess with Pathfinder 2E's fundamental action economy (not just extra attacks, but a chance to force an enemy to waste a precious action). And since PCs are far more likely than monsters to have actions beyond move/ranged attack/cast a spell that trigger it, use of it on monsters needs some consideration because it can get twisty surprisingly fast.

Nope. Not more powerful than intended as far as I can tell, though yes, significant enough to adjust one's tactics to (and not to assume enemies don't have it like some posters advise!). This power level goes for the PCs too, should your fighter get the jump on enemies that don't have their weapons out. And in PF2, what's good for the goose...
The Mummy Pharaoh, for example, is gaining its improved AoO around the same time a Fighter can (9th vs. 10th), so even that's within the same range as Fighter PCs. And lots of monsters mirror the Fighter.

Generally I agree with Castilliano - AoO is working as intended.

Though there are some valid edge cases that Mad Dog Mike brought up, such as Mobile Shot Stance not effectively doing anything - you still take AoO when using a bow in melee range.

But I think that those edge cases should be fixed in the specific feats and abilities rather than making sweeping changes to Attack of Opportunity or reactions in general.

So putting in an errata for Quick Draw that prevents reactions based on the interact action caused by drawing the weapon. Similarly for Mobile Shot Stance - put in an errata to prevent reactions because of reload if the reload is done as part of the Strike with the ranged weapon. Things like that.

Mobile Stance Shot is fixed by the GM saying - that is silly and allowing it to work as intended. Then Paizo issuing errta.

Sadly there are far too many of these, and GMs will always argue over if something is intended or not.

The bottom line is according to the designers AoO is supposed to be uncommon in PF2. If you are using monsters with it all the time then as a module designer and a GM you are getting it wrong.

Martial player characters of course will pretty much all take an AoO or similar eventually. I guess I see it as one of the ways that the system helps the heroes, while still appearing to be balanced.

The Mummy Pharaoh, for example, is gaining its improved AoO around the same time a Fighter can (9th vs. 10th), so even that's within the same range as Fighter PCs. And lots of monsters mirror the Fighter.

Oh, heh, you're right, didn't even see the fighter had a "punish concentrate actions" ability, though as a feat it is a choice among several other powerful options, and as a stance it might interfere with other choices. Honestly even with those limitations I'm not sure that's terribly good idea to allow even PCs to have AoO on concentrate actions though considering how silly it can get (another amusing one in Intimidating Glare - you can literally cut somebody for looking at you funny!). I would rather concentrate stay a "you can't use this while your brain isn't working right" type trait rather than opening up a bigger can of worms.

Though I think the real concern for me balance-wise when it comes to PC AoO vs. monster is PCs have more actions that are vulnerable to the AoO. I haven't been able to do a thorough survey obviously, but there aren't a lot of abilities in most monster stat blocks I see that would be unusually vulnerable to a PC AoO. There aren't a lot of Interact actions to mess with; even with that anti-concentrate fighter feat I've only seen one ability thus far in a monster stat block that's likely to be used in combat with that tag (Focused Gaze on the Shemhazian demon, maybe the creatures with Intimidate also if the GM remembers to have them do Demoralize). It doesn't seem like many spell-like abilities have any special tags beyond some that affect type of damage as a rule, so for most monsters the only time they're subject to AoO is if they move far, cast spells, or use ranged attacks, and quite a few can get around even those thanks to Reach or special abilities. Whereas PCs seem to be getting an ever-increasing number of abilities that can trigger an AoO, and I'm concerned some are doing so unintentionally because somebody forgot what traits would be included in a "you can do these actions in a way that is more action friendly" feat write-up.

Honestly for me, more so than somehow limiting monster AoOs (which I'm willing to accept you guys are right about being OK), I'm much more interested in making it clearer which actions are subject to one for PCs. If I know I'm likely to eat an attack, I can try to play with the monster's reactions or at minimum know I'm gambling when I do something. The current "have to remember which subactions have traits that get an AoO" setup makes it a little too easy to gotcha yourself if you aren't paying attention. If all these little "oddities" really are supposed to be subject to AoO, so be it, but I do want it easier to realize it, which I think having the manipulate trait or whatnot on the main ability would help with remembering rather than having to recall which subactions have which traits. And I do think some support for parties running without ranged heal casters would be nice, even if it's additional feats or something, and there's room for things below "immune to AoO" like improved AC against one or similar that would keep the gamble there but don't make the odds as terrible.

Oh, and a pure rules question since I swore there was language somewhere that prevented it but I couldn't find it while I was researching this topic; is there something specifically that prevent Attack of Opportunity from going off on a creature that's unnoticed to you? I'm positive there's something RAW to prevent the fighter or monster from suddenly tagging an invisible silent person they don't even know exists, but beyond common sense my reading couldn't locate the reason. Otherwise Steal gets really, REALLY funny if the rogue decides to mess with the fighter - "Why did I just randomly stab behind me just now? And how come there's blood on my sword?" :).

I think in general the system is working as intended. That being: one big intention behind the system is that no tactic is always always good. For any particular trick you have there are some monsters when you shouldn't do it but resort to a plan B or C.

I got to play my magus for the first time yesterday (Starlit Span, with a propulsive bow) and also leaned heavily on having a monk dedication together with Arcane Cascade, decent Strength and Attack of Opportunity. When it looked like we might be fighting a golem with resistance against non-bludgeoning attacks, well, I have options for that. If I have to fight an enemy with AoO - I can do okay with amped up punches. It's not ideal, but I'm only down to plan B (beat with fist), not to plan F (eff it, flee).

The magus class design really isn't that you should be spellstriking every round. You'd like to but you're not meant to be able to. So you should build accordingly.

Oh, and a pure rules question since I swore there was language somewhere that prevented it but I couldn't find it while I was researching this topic; is there something specifically that prevent Attack of Opportunity from going off on a creature that's unnoticed to you? I'm positive there's something RAW to prevent the fighter or monster from suddenly tagging an invisible silent person they don't even know exists, but beyond common sense my reading couldn't locate the reason. Otherwise Steal gets really, REALLY funny if the rogue decides to mess with the fighter - "Why did I just randomly stab behind me just now? And how come there's blood on my sword?" :).

I would phrase this question a bit more broadly: can you use free/reactions triggered by something if you aren't aware of the trigger? I don't think the CRB answers that, but I would rule No.

Oh, and a pure rules question since I swore there was language somewhere that prevented it but I couldn't find it while I was researching this topic; is there something specifically that prevent Attack of Opportunity from going off on a creature that's unnoticed to you? I'm positive there's something RAW to prevent the fighter or monster from suddenly tagging an invisible silent person they don't even know exists, but beyond common sense my reading couldn't locate the reason. Otherwise Steal gets really, REALLY funny if the rogue decides to mess with the fighter - "Why did I just randomly stab behind me just now? And how come there's blood on my sword?" :).

Using a reaction is a conscious choice. So when the trigger happen, if your character is not aware of it, they just don't perform their reaction as they don't know they have a chance to do so.

I sometimes use my Animal Companion to trigger all AoOs. Knowing that an enemy has AoO and getting rid of it is worth the few HPs my AC takes. But I agree, in this edition, there's a problem with AoOs.

After seeing a Magus in play, they hit pretty hard. I can see why giving a chance for an AoO to stop Spellstrike was built into the game. Magus spellstrikes are pretty brutal. I'm not sure I will change it as I can't see anyway for a creature to stop them other than a critical hit on an AoO.

I think AoOs are mostly fine for everything else.

Keep in mind that boss fights are meant to be pretty hard, not to say scary.

That specific pharaoh mummy is some sort of enhanced clay golem ( way less chance to hit, but a stronger curse and AoO ), and it's a rare monster ( so by default, more difficult than common ones ).

Against a lvl 6 party, that enemy is probably going to deal a good amount of damage, but after the first time you see an enemy has AoO, you can deal with it

- No casting while within his reach
- No stride while within his reach

And that's it

What could trick players there is that the enemy is by default in disruptive stance, and because so able to trigger his AoO even on verbal spells or any other action with the concentration trait ( like recall knowledge ).

But that's it.
AoO is imo fine, since it always gives the characters/enemies a choice no to trigger it.

That specific pharaoh mummy is some sort of enhanced clay golem ( way less chance to hit, but a stronger curse and AoO ), and it's a rare monster ( so by default, more difficult than common ones)

Rarity has nothing to do with power. Not for spells, feats, ancestries, classes, archetypes or creatures.

Mummy pharaohs are rare because pharaohs are/were rare so fewer of them could be turned into mummies compared to the much more common mummy guards.

HumbleGamer wrote:

That specific pharaoh mummy is some sort of enhanced clay golem ( way less chance to hit, but a stronger curse and AoO ), and it's a rare monster ( so by default, more difficult than common ones)

Rarity has nothing to do with power. Not for spells, feats, ancestries, classes, archetypes or creatures.

Mummy pharaohs are rare because pharaohs are/were rare so fewer of them could be turned into mummies compared to the much more common mummy guards.

It seems it does if you compare similar creatures between them, looking at their rarity.

Unique ones are also stronger.

But the same can be said about either items and feats ( the classic one I can think about it is the witch glacial heart, which is understandable why it is rare ).

This, obviously, regardless what paizo said about rarity.

Ancestries are the perfect example how rarity works in terms of "powercreep".

Fly

Common > Nope
Uncommon > lvl 9 ( temporary ) or lvl 17 ( permanent ).
Rare > lvl 13 ( permanent )

Size Increase

Common > Nope
Uncommon > lvl 17
Rare > lvl 13

Mad Dog Mike wrote:

Oh, and a pure rules question since I swore there was language somewhere that prevented it but I couldn't find it while I was researching this topic; is there something specifically that prevent Attack of Opportunity from going off on a creature that's unnoticed to you? I'm positive there's something RAW to prevent the fighter or monster from suddenly tagging an invisible silent person they don't even know exists, but beyond common sense my reading couldn't locate the reason. Otherwise Steal gets really, REALLY funny if the rogue decides to mess with the fighter - "Why did I just randomly stab behind me just now? And how come there's blood on my sword?" :).

I would phrase this question a bit more broadly: can you use free/reactions triggered by something if you aren't aware of the trigger? I don't think the CRB answers that, but I would rule No.

Adding on to this, even if it could "trigger" I fail to see how you would target an unnoticed creature. There are rules for targeting hidden creatures, since you know where they are, and even undetected if you guess where they are correctly, but for unnoticed characters you don't even know there's something there, so how do you guess the square it's in in order to try and target it?

Though there are some valid edge cases that Mad Dog Mike brought up, such as Mobile Shot Stance not effectively doing anything - you still take AoO when using a bow in melee range.

Not doing anything isn't entirely true. It works just fine if you're wielding a crossbow or a firearm. Depending on how your GM is feeling, a monster with multiple reactions could AoO twice against an archer if you didn't have MSS but only once if you did, since there are two separate triggers.

Nope. Not more powerful than intended as far as I can tell

I actually sort of wonder about this. Like, the developers clearly intended for AoO to be what it is, there's no question about that.

But I wonder if they realized how big of a deal it would be. Look at how much guides value reaction-attack granting feats and how much monsters with AoOs can warp battlefield expectations. Feels like the more I play PF2 the more I see people treating AoOs as a really big deal and that wasn't as much the sentiment when the system was newer.

I do think AoOs are a big deal. Yeah maybe bigger than at original publication time.

And I'm not surprised to see them frequently on bosses. Because a boss who only gets to act once per round is a bit.. static against a whole party. Needs some kind of out of turn thing to add some more pacing to the combat. AoO is the most obvious one in the bag to grab, but it could also be something else.

If the players can figure out roughly how it works, how it's triggered, that's good - then they can start trying to figure out tactics to play around it. Which is fun; so as a GM there's no need to make it difficult to see what triggered the reaction.

Mad Dog Mike wrote:

Oh, and a pure rules question since I swore there was language somewhere that prevented it but I couldn't find it while I was researching this topic; is there something specifically that prevent Attack of Opportunity from going off on a creature that's unnoticed to you? I'm positive there's something RAW to prevent the fighter or monster from suddenly tagging an invisible silent person they don't even know exists, but beyond common sense my reading couldn't locate the reason. Otherwise Steal gets really, REALLY funny if the rogue decides to mess with the fighter - "Why did I just randomly stab behind me just now? And how come there's blood on my sword?" :).

I would phrase this question a bit more broadly: can you use free/reactions triggered by something if you aren't aware of the trigger? I don't think the CRB answers that, but I would rule No.

The CRB does answer this. It is in the Section on Effects

In regards to whether it could potentially trigger to just waste the reaction, for hazards and spells it is clear that you can't react to something that you can't perceive. The general case isn't spelled out that I could see.

https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=390
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=843
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=442
https://2e.aonprd.com/Rules.aspx?ID=843

I haven't had much of a problem with AoOs at my table, both as a GM and a player. They're good, but they can be played around. From a player perspective fighting monsters with AoO, just cast hideous laughter.

breithauptclan wrote:

Though there are some valid edge cases that Mad Dog Mike brought up, such as Mobile Shot Stance not effectively doing anything - you still take AoO when using a bow in melee range.

Not doing anything isn't entirely true. It works just fine if you're wielding a crossbow or a firearm. Depending on how your GM is feeling, a monster with multiple reactions could AoO twice against an archer if you didn't have MSS but only once if you did, since there are two separate triggers.

I kind of think the "eat two opportunity attacks" result would result in the GM receiving a ranged Attack of Opportunity dice throw in response :). At least from one creature; multiple creatures/PCs have always been able to respond to the same trigger, right?

Castilliano wrote:

Nope. Not more powerful than intended as far as I can tell

I actually sort of wonder about this. Like, the developers clearly intended for AoO to be what it is, there's no question about that.

But I wonder if they realized how big of a deal it would be. Look at how much guides value reaction-attack granting feats and how much monsters with AoOs can warp battlefield expectations. Feels like the more I play PF2 the more I see people treating AoOs as a really big deal and that wasn't as much the sentiment when the system was newer.

As I noted, pure AoO abilities seem to go down in availability after Bestiary 1, 2 & 3 both have a lot more conditional reactions even if there are still some AoO creatures in both. So I think there's some consideration that it shouldn't go on as many enemies as it seems to early on. Unfortunately it went on enough popular enemies since it came early on, so there's kind of a possible issue there.

I do think AoOs are a big deal. Yeah maybe bigger than at original publication time.

And I'm not surprised to see them frequently on bosses. Because a boss who only gets to act once per round is a bit.. static against a whole party. Needs some kind of out of turn thing to add some more pacing to the combat. AoO is the most obvious one in the bag to grab, but it could also be something else.

The action differential of one "big enemy" to a party has been noted as an issue in 5E D&D too, even with legendary/lair actions. Most of the theorycrafting on encounter builds I've seen for that has suggested it's actually better to have minions or some other distraction like a hazard so there's some tactical considerations against just focusing the boss down. Do folks think that's a good philosophy for Pathfinder 2E as well?

I will say it's the fact AoO can disrupt actions that makes me worry about it enough to raise this topic. Taking damage is a good discouragement that adds important tactical concerns, but disrupting actions (especially since many of the vulnerable effects are 2-3 actions) pushes up against one of the fundamental principles I think any RPG has to respect: "Make sure the players are able to play the game". Any effects that can wind up making the players not able to do anything on their turns, if overused, can get excessively frustrating very quickly for the player because all they can de facto do is sit around and watch everyone else do all the interesting things. Attack of Opportunity by its nature can become a constant "strip away major actions every turn from someone" if it comes up too often or disrupts too easily. Basic AoO has enough limitations on it (particularly needing a crit) that it can be a fair risk/reward and challenge, but the problem with it on monsters is it tends to be tied to traits that make it more powerful and potentially wreck that balance. Reach being a popular co-trait makes it a problem if the GM does the obvious trick of running them up against the person who need susceptible actions; the PC can wind up needing more actions to escape than the monster needs to keep them in range. Making it disrupt on hit instead of crit or target concentrate actions (which can disproportionately wreck certain otherwise OK melee class builds like Investigators or animal companion users or just people who Demoralize on third action) push it into dangerously effective at shutting someone down. And what works fine on a boss (who as mentioned has an action deficit to begin with so stripping actions can be fair) can become bad if it's on multiple opponents or if the encounter is designed so it's too difficult to escape the effect. Add in PCs have more actions that provoke AoOs than monsters and there's a potentially disproportionate impact on the PCs from facing AoO than vice versa.

I think the other consideration is that unlike 1E there's no Concentration check mechanic to mitigate the loss of action part while keeping the damage part. Casters could build to at least get a fighting chance to pull a clutch action off at the cost of getting hit; only thing in this system is a class feat to have a 30% chance to prevent disruption, which is much worse odds. There's no AoO-proof movement beyond Step either; Acrobatics tumble isn't a thing and there's no Mobility feat or similar either. So in certain respects AoO's interrupting effects are a lot more powerful now than previously. I'm concerned a lot of design went with the previous edition philosophy of "AoO can make these actions more dangerous" and missed that it's now "AoO can make these actions downright impossible to pull off", especially all the monster designs that threw in aggravating traits.

Anyway, sorry for the wall of text, but I hope I explained my concerns better. It sounds like most of you believe it's OK, and I'm willing to defer to folks who've probably had more opportunity to play 2E than me anyway. I guess maybe the real take-home lesson is to respect that AoO is rarer but a lot stronger than it used to be, and maybe to be careful you don't abuse it to over-shut down certain PCs like spellcasters who used to have more options to deal with it.