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I know discussion on this topic has died down a bit, but I really hope we can convince Paizo to adjust their stance on Attacks of Opportunity. What I want to see if that everyone gets AoOs, but martial characters like Fighters just get better ones.
So let's say the basic AoO goes like this: When an opponent in your threatened range moves from within your threatened range to a square outside your threatened range (except with a Guarded Step or Withdraw action), or takes an action with the Distracting tag when they are flat-footed with respect to you, you can use your reaction to take an attack of opportunity.
(On the movement bit: This way, an opponent can circle around you without provoking from you, as long as they stay in your threatened range, because it's assumed they're still facing you to keep their guard up... but it's the bit where they try to move away from you that provokes.)
(Distracting would be a tag applied toward things like "cast a spell that doesn't make an attack roll" and "interact with an object in the environment" and "make a ranged attack against a target farther than 5 feet away from" and so on.)
Then the martial AoO goes like this: When an opponent in your threatened range moves from within your threatened range to a square outside your threatened range (except with a Guarded Step or Withdraw action), or takes an action with the Distracting tag (even when not flat-footed against you), you can use your reaction to take an attack of opportunity.
(This lets martials better punish actions like spellcasting that a non-martial will have more trouble interrupting, because the martial doesn't require their opponent to be flat-footed.)
Then the fighter gets to take an AoO "upgrade" for free, of which the following are several potential options. Any character, including the fighter, can take more of these options as feats:
- Your threatened range expands by 5 feet. When someone within this expanded range takes an action that triggers your Attack of Opportunity, you can take a free Guarded Step toward that opponent as part of the reaction to use your Attack of Opportunity.
- You threaten the space around you when wielding a ranged weapon and can fire your ranged weapon as part of an Attack of Opportunity, out to the same range as your usual melee reach.
- When you hit with an attack of opportunity provoked by movement, the target stops moving. They can still take the rest of their turn, but cannot move.
- You get a bonus reaction each round, that can only be used for an attack of opportunity.
- At the moment when someone becomes flat-footed with respect to you, this provokes an attack of opportunity from you.
- An opponent provokes an attack of opportunity from you even if they move from a square you threaten to another square you threaten.
- An opponent you threaten who attacks someone other than you provokes an attack of opportunity from you.
- etc
This sort of thing would still let anyone try to control the battlefield a bit, without forcing the fighter into the role of sole tank... but it allows the fighter to be better at tanking.
I think people without reach might want more reliably useful things to do with their reactions than "hit people who run by in a very narrow band". Like how many AoOs do your non-reach characters usually get to make? Certainly not once per round.
Without reach, "do you get to make an AoO ever" is very dependent on GM tactics, so "reactions which are more reliable" (e.g. "attack someone within reach who attacks you and misses by 10 or more") would perhaps be preferable.
What if they get rid of AOOs entirely?
5E AOO rule is a bit rough because it still allows enemies to get behind you to attack the mages easily. It really has to be "moves form any threatened square" to make tanking work properly. Also that might get rid of large enemies hitting you for approaching.
One of the simplifications Paizo made in 2011 was to remove AOOs from the rules when they created the Beginner Box.
Perhaps they'll incorporate this in PF2