D&D 4e Opportunity Attacks Were Perfect

Or at least better than I initially thought

I started my D&D journey with 4th edition back in 2012. I was hooked right away and loved everything about the game.

Unfortunately, though I didn’t know it at the time, 4e was already a dead version by the time I purchased those first rulebooks. It was very hard to find a group to play with and I found myself needing to shift my attention to Pathfinder as the only game in town.

I like Pathfinder and enjoyed all my sessions playing it, but 4e was always special to me.

Fast forward a few years and Wizards of the Coast releases D&D 5e. This is also a game that I loved from the get-go, but they clearly scrapped nearly everything they had experimented with in 4e and went back to something that more closely resembled 3e (and, by extension, Pathfinder).

It worked and D&D is once again at the top of the heap.

There are some rules, however, that I wish had made transition to 5e. I constantly refer to monsters as being Bloodied. I have created Minions for some of my encounters. I like the simplicity of healing surges. And many others.

As I have been revisiting 4e, I’ve even found some rules that I had long forgotten were different in that version of the game. One such rule change involves Opportunity Attacks.

Here is the rule for D&D 5e that I have grown accustomed to.

You can make an opportunity attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach.

By comparison, the rule in 4e says this.

If an enemy leaves a square adjacent to you, you can make an opportunity attack against that enemy.

Note the subtle, but very important difference.

The trigger for an Opportunity Attack in 5e is the creature moves out of your reach. Enemies can move around you in a circle all day long, but until they actually step out of your reach, they are safe from Opportunity Attacks.

In 4e, the trigger is more basic. Just moving out of a threatened square provokes an Opportunity Attack. You provoke such an attack even if you are moving from one threatened square to another. This is illustrated in the 4e Player’s Handbook (p290) where it shows a character provoking an Opportunity Attack when moving between two squares threatened by the same enemy.

This may not seem like much of a difference, but the implications are huge.

In 5e, the freedom to move around an enemy without provoking an attack means you do not need to be as concerned about positioning. In short, the rule is less complicated.

In 4e, you need to be much more mindful of where your character is moving. Just moving a single square to try to get into a flanking position could be deadly.

To assist with this, 4e has the Shift action. You use your movement to shift 1 square without provoking an Opportunity Attack. Tactical movement is a greater part of the game.

Now I started this post by asserting that 4e Opportunity Attacks were perfect. And I think they are. When I first returned to the 4th edition rules and noticed this difference from 5e, I was skeptical. My gut told me that this would not do and I would need to house rule an exception.

But the more I looked at it and played the game again, the better this approach seemed.

If a character is engaged with an enemy and standing in a threatened square, then it is logical that if they were you turn their attention to moving, that would present an opportunity for the enemy to strike. It wouldn’t make sense for the character to be able to freely move around the enemy so long as they stay within range.

Not to mention, by writing the rule in this way, it introduced an entirely new level of movement strategy that must be employed. Characters cannot move at will around an enemy. Every single movement on the battlefield has to be carefully assessed.

This all fits perfectly with the tactical nature of 4e and is definitely something that was lost in the Shift (pun intended) to 5e.

I know there will be some that read through this and shake their fists while shouting that this rule is what existed in D&D 3e, 3.5e, and Pathfinder. This is not a D&D 4e creation!!!

I know. I am not claiming it is. Other than being called an Attack of Opportunity instead of an Opportunity Attack, the rule in D&D 3.5e and Pathfinder is the same as what we have in D&D 4e.

In fact, the rule in Pathfinder is a verbatim copy of the rule as written in v3.5.

Pathfinder 1e (Core Rulebook p180)

Moving: Moving out of a threatened square usually provokes attacks of opportunity from threatening opponents.

D&D 3.5e (Player’s Handbook p137)

Moving: Moving out of a threatened square usually provokes an attack of opportunity from the threatening opponent.

For comparison, Pathfinder 2e changed the wording, but retains the approach that any movement out of a threatened square will provoke an Attack of Opportunity.

All these versions got it right. Instead of a Shift, they have rule that allows for a 5-foot-step to avoid such an attack.

And keep in mind that I am in no way saying that what exists in D&D 5e is wrong or even bad. It is just a different approach to the rule and I would argue that these other editions allow for more interesting tactical combat.

Let me know your thoughts.

---

Deals

If you want to support what I do, please use these links as you do your holiday shopping.

Paizo dropped a new humble bundle containing a bunch of legacy 2e products. This is not the new remastered content, but still some great stuff that can be used with any game. 25 items for $25.

---

Support the channel when you make purchases…

The above affiliate links help to support the channel at no additional cost to you.