Swordsman Archive
Thread: Attacks of Opportunity
Hello, fellow swordsmen,
I, like the rest of us, am concerned with our honorable profession's place in this world. Pistoleers are rediculous, and we have seemingly no place in PvP - though we fear ranged combat, marksmen do not fear melee. However, as a player of the D&D 3rd Edition (of the d20 OGL), I think there is a solution - attacks of opportunity.
In D&D, a fantasy pencil/paper RPG, melee is obviously the name of the game. Their are also marksmen with bows and crossbows, and magic. In combat, there is an elaborate and elegant system of rules called "attacks of opportunity." These represent free attacks a melee character may make when someone in his threatened zone (a five foot radius) performs something that drops their guard - including running away at full speed (as opposed to a slow tactical retreat), firing a missile weapon, making an unarmed attack vs someone armed, casting a spell, and so forth. This keeps the melee and bow users in balance. Mages/Archers can pick off swordsmen; however, if a swordsmen closes distance, its game over for the mage/archer unless they have melee skills of their own. Since running away "provokes" an attack of opportunity (attack of op for short), you cannot "kite" in D&D unless you are very agile or fast. Secondly, firing an arrow at close quarters also provokes - it is difficult to take a shot at extreme point blank, since the swordsman has a very pointy thing pointed at your eyes. Unarmed attacks (by characters unskilled with unarmed combat) provoke; representing the hestitancy off someone without a weapon trying to fight someone armed for the situation - you wouldn't risk punching someone if you knew he could slice off your hand, right? This would take care of Pistol Whip and such - a Pistoleer can melee other marksmen, but he would not be able to go toe to toe with someone equipped with a real melee weapon. (Unless, of course, this is episode 26 of "Cowboy Bebop," and it's that last fight between Vicious with sword and Spike with pistol - but obviously a situation like that is not going to come up often 
)
Anyhow, if anyone has any comments/ideas about this, maybe we could send an idea like this to the devs - this would give us meleers a leg up against marksmen without undermining their abilities.
James
Mifune Shimmen, Tarquinas, Naboo
