First off just want to say that I'm forever grateful to my gm, I'm having an amazing time finally getting to be a player. This is a very small issue but I'm curious if it's ever come up in anyone else's games and how it was dealt with.
We're playing extinction curse, currently on book 2. I play a barbarian and took fighter dedication at 2 and AoO at 4. Before we had a character with AoO, monsters were very careless. They casted things in our faces, did regular strides away from characters for whatever reason, etc. We did the same to monsters, unless we found out they had AoO in which case we did the usual counterplay of 5 ft steps, etc. But ever since my character got the ability to AoO, suddenly all monsters are being super careful and taking steps and such. Its a little frustrating to me, and I end up calling out the gm, asking why they would do that. Sometimes he would think of a legit reason (some of their goons explained our tactics or something similar) but other times it would be a reason like they're just playing smart.
On the one hand, I want to be challenged. On the other, it's frustrating to feel like I so rarely get to use my feat or have to annoy the gm into letting me use it. I'm probably going to trade in my weapon for a reach weapon so the problem is minimized, but I wanted to hear others thoughts on this.
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For me as a GM depends of what the players are fighting.
Trained soldiers and seasoned mercenaries will step and be careful against any party member that is more armored and with a martial weapon.
Thugs and animals will not be careful but after they see it once they will be more wary about it and avoid to trigger it again if they can.
Mindless creatures like zombies will just not care and could trigger AoA several times in the battle against the same person.
Generally speaking it does sound like the GM is shutting down your feat choice and should let up. Unless the GM is having opponents spend recall knowledge actions on your character in particular. Or if the opponent is _always_ cautious and Steps away from people who don't have AoO.
However regarding Extinction Curse book two:
There's definitely more 'aware' opponents than average who do have a reason to know your common tactics/abilities. I won't say more since I'm not sure how far in, but its not surprising to me to see some of that in the beginning of the book, and some other places.
That's pretty much what I was thinking, but I wonder what the solution would be? I don't mean to sound rude but saying the solution is to offer a solution to solve the problem is a little obvious. How I would personally run it is similar to what you had written in the middle - after the pc attempts an AoO all the enemies become aware and take countermeasures.
Also maybe I don't fully understand metagaming, but I thought it was the player knowing things their characters don't, but acting as though their character knew them already? If my gm knew my character had AoO but the monster didn't, and the monster acted as if it knew the pc had AoO, isn't that metagaming?
Generally speaking it does sound like the GM is shutting down your feat choice and should let up. Unless the GM is having opponents spend recall knowledge actions on your character in particular. Or if the opponent is _always_ cautious and Steps away from people who don't have AoO.
However regarding Extinction Curse book two:
** spoiler omitted **
This is along the lines I was thinking. I would be fine if steps were always taken as a precaution, but this isn't the case. And I should say we are not very far at all into book two, we haven't ran into anything that would know us.
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Let me reinforce the opinion that different enemies should have different levels of awareness of combat. Hopefully at this point (and which NielsenE seems to confirm) there are in-game reasons why opponents have shifted their tactics. Hopefully you fight stupider (or more enraged) opponents later that let you shine.
Look at how a veteran player, if they had the movement, should bank around a frontline enemy to get to a juicier target behind them.
Why wouldn't the enemies too?
Fighters being the most common class (or "a common set of warrior skills" from an in-game perspective) for militant organizations, one would expect this. There's an early point where every intelligent or experienced enemy (whose proportions will only grow) should treat their martial enemies as having AoOs, especially since martials can get AoOs (or a very similar ability) via a feat.
A reach weapon may be what it takes. And if costs them an extra action to get around you, that is your feat paying off.
Reach weapon is going to be my band aid solution, yes. And if monsters (or whatever sort of intelligent enemy we face) treat all martials as if they have AoO, then I won't complain.
Is that how others' games are being played? I'm curious.
I don't have advice for you, except that my group establish collective that in world, AoO are rare, so everyone assume you don't have them until you have reason to know otherwise.
Having fought a kind of monster that had them previously is a good reason.
But against humanoid enemies, we always assume they don't have them unless we've fought that specific person before.
Our GM behaves the same, not acting on reaction abilities that he knows we have until the monster would know by seeing them or having an ally inform them.
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As a GM, I've made a point of having even otherwise smart enemies run face-first into an attack of opportunity from the party fighter once in a while - in-game because the ability to take AoOs is relatively rare and it's reasonable for people to not always expect them. I've seen my players get caught by surprise when a monster has the ability, after all, so the reverse seems fair.
Out-of-game, however, the reason is simply that it makes the player of the fighter feel good about her abilities and have more fun, and that really should be a GM's #1 goal.
I'm not likely to have the highly competent boss I've been building up for a dozen sessions do it, but random mooks? Definitely. Give the party chances to shine.
It makes it all the more sweet when you crush them later. D:<
(Kidding, of course... mostly...)
That's pretty much what I was thinking, but I wonder what the solution would be? I don't mean to sound rude but saying the solution is to offer a solution to solve the problem is a little obvious. How I would personally run it is similar to what you had written in the middle - after the pc attempts an AoO all the enemies become aware and take countermeasures.
Also maybe I don't fully understand metagaming, but I thought it was the player knowing things their characters don't, but acting as though their character knew them already? If my gm knew my character had AoO but the monster didn't, and the monster acted as if it knew the pc had AoO, isn't that metagaming?
Metagaming is any character using knowledge that that character should not know. It can be a player using his or her knowledge about the game setting. It can be the GM giving knowledge about the PCs to an NPC that should be ignorant. I have even seem a player metagaming another player to claim a victory for his character while the other player's character took the risks (What is the most horrific example of meta-gaming you have ever experienced? / Metagame Like You Like To #47).
In my current PF2 Ironfang Invasion campaign, my players have learned that all hobgoblin soldiers know Attack of Opportunity. They had encountered the Hobgoblin Soldier, which has AoO, and the Hobgoblin Heavy Trooper, which I converted to PF2 using the Hobgoblin Soldier as a starting point. They assumed, therefore, that the Ironfang Legion trained their soldiers in Attack of Opportunity. Yet the Hobgoblin Archer from PF2 Bestiary 1, page 207, does not have Attack of Opportunity. They just assumed it did.
It is possible that Gaulin's barbarian looks like a fighter and every smart opponent knows that fighters are trained in Attack of Opportunity. Or he looks like a 6th-level champion, which can learn Attack of Opportunity. But looking like a fighter or champion is unlikely for a barbarian with fighter dedication. Is he wearing heavy armor? Is he wielding an advanced weapon? Is he using a fighter's special stance? If not, then it isn't obvious. Barbarians are known for not making Attacks of Opportunity, because they fight with an unsophisticated style. The GM is metagaming unfairly against the barbarian.
A compromise would be to claim that the opponent used Recall Knowledge (War Lore) to judge the barbarian's stance and realized that the barbarian was ready to make an attack of opportunity. This would require the opponent to spend an action at the beginning of combat to size up the barbarian. And maybe more actions to size up other party members to figure out non-obvious abilities on them, too.
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It might be time to have a talk with the GM. I think with most healthy campaigns, players and GM talk about "hey, how is the game going, what's fun and what isn't as fun as it could be" - this shouldn't be like a hefty confrontation, it's friends talking about a shared hobby.
But the GM should consider their two hats. The GM has two hats: the designer hat and the monster hat. The designer hat is the one the GM wears when coming up with an adventure that will be fun for everyone to play. The designer wants fun challenges for the players, difficult enough to be exciting but not so hard that they're unfair or TPK the party. The monster hat however, is what the GM puts on when playing the NPCs. When playing the monster, the monster should act according to its nature. A big dumb brute would act in big dumb brutish ways, and a cunning cautious one would act much more carefully.
So what for a player we could call metagaming - mixing player and character knowledge - is for the GM something similar: mixing up the hats. The designer hat knows everything, and sets out situations. The monster however, shouldn't know everything the designer knows, it should know just what the designer wanted the monster to know, to make a fun challenge.
So when you're talking with the GM about how monsters all seem to be knowing too much, maybe it's a good idea to ask the GM "how would monsters know if I have AoO?" What process should a monster use to guesstimate that a PC has AoO capability? It should probably be similar to the one players can use.
- Does this enemy look super well trained, with gear in good shape?
- Is this enemy holding a polearm like it's planning something?
- Is the enemy standing in a position clearly intended to intercept people moving past?
It usually doesn't come as a complete surprise to the players when a particular monster has AoO capabilities. The same could go for monsters and players. When you see a sword & board character in heavy armor, you can guess he's got something up his sleeve, could be AoO or a champion reaction. Those are the stereotypical heavy armor sword and board classes.
The barbarian? Well, barbarians can have some No Escape style reactions. It's not entirely unreasonable to step away from them carefully too. Really, by level 6, most melee classes should have some kind of reaction; every one of these classes can get something. But whether that's a monk's Stand Still, a barbarian's No Escape, a rogue's Reactive Pursuit, or a ranger's Disrupt Prey, the monster doesn't necessarily know.
I would suggest having a talk with the GM about it, not an accusation but saying "when this happens I have felt that".
Personally I approach similar situations with a line of logic
- Is the foe tactically intelligent or does it have a wild sense of intelligence? If yes then it will ALWAYS be cautious and step away from anyone with a weapon if possible.
Otherwise like how my players treat monsters and npcs they will almost always just move away.
If the GM is doing it on purpose it is bad GMing imo, but sometimes it can be hard to see where we are making mistakes and everyone makes mistakes.
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You need to realize- Attacks of Opportunity are not just a source of damage. That was always a sweet bonus, but that has never been their main advantage. This ability is a source of FEAR.
The enemies are afraid to approach you. That is a powerful advantage. Enemies now HAVE to slowly tip toe when you are involved. You are severely reducing enemy speed just by standing there. Take advantage of it, and position yourself in key areas, such as directly in front of the casters.
Anyway, if you continue to have problem with it, could I recommend the strategy of Trip + AoO?
Basically you use the trip maneuver and when the enemy try to get up or crawl away from you they take AoO, if they don't get up the prone condition makes them flatfooted and have a -2 circumstance to their attacks, basically is a win-win situation for you and will make your feat come often.
My experience playing in PFS with a fighter with a reach weapon (and knocks enemies prone on crits) that's leaned pretty heavily into setting up AoOs: PFS GMs *usually* try not to metagame everyone knowing that I'm a fighter and will take AoOs. Many times enemies will be more cautious after the first one (particularly when some mook runs up and gets one-shot), which is fine.
But the other thing about AoOs, as lemeres was saying, is they do distort the battle even when enemies don't provoke them. Every enemy that takes two steps toward me instead of striding has lost an action they could have used to attack me. If they're stepping, they're going to have a harder time getting good positions for flanks. Every enemy that takes a step back to avoid provoking with a spell or draw a potion has lost an action they could have used to do something else. Every enemy that goes around me to get to an ally is losing speed that might prevent setting up a flank or eat another action. AoOs are strong, even when they're not triggering. Sometimes they're stronger when they're not triggering, because 5 enemies wasting actions moving around weirdly is often more of a penalty than one enemy triggering a strike (that might not hit) and the rest moving with impunity because you've used your reaction.
As a practical tip, even with a metagaming GM, learn and consider the limitations on steps. Difficult terrain becomes your friend, since foes will generally not be able to step into it. Step only works with land speed, not flying/swimming/burrowing/climbing. Creatures can't step while prone.
And as Kyrone says, trip is especially great for forcing enemies into AoOs, which was really half the point of my meteor hammer fighter build.
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As a tangent- zombies are usually presented as a "lesser" option for necromancers compared to skeletons. In 1e, they only get one move or standard action per turn normally, and in this system, they are permanently slowed.
...your GM is basically turning every single enemy into a 'zombie' by taking the 'strategic' option and spending more actions to tip toe. Your AoO is an AoE slow effect that stacks with every single other slow effect.
Let him meta game. And laugh inside.