Quote:
Originally Posted by Helborn
I think if you re-read ITL 111 you'll see that the attacker still needs to move 3 hexes before the defender gets +1d. He gets +2DX and the Pole Arm sequence after even 1 hex but not the +1d. The attacker still needs to move 3 vexed just not in a straight line.
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Thanks Helborn. I was looking at Melee 12. ITL 111 goes into slightly more detail, but the part that was tripping me up is the same in both: "If a pole weapon is used
against a charge attack, it also gets the extra die of damage,
whether or not the enemy moved in a straight line [emphasis mine]." I guess I was taking the "not in a straight line" part of that to also mean not necessarily 3 hexes. Then again, doesn't this wording of the rules actually decouple the +1d damage effect from the 3 hex minimum movement rule? The only requirement for the bonus damage dealt out by the defender
in this case is explicitly a charge attack. By definition a charge attack can be only one hex. So if the last portion of the attacker's movement
does not have to be 3 hexes in a straight line, then does it have to be 3 hexes at all?
One would never actually move (the last) 3 hexes in a
non-straight line to charge attack, because they'd become adjacent on the 2nd hex of that motion. Then they would either (1) be forced to stop there, short of 3 hexes motion, because they'd stepped into one of the defender's front hexes and thereby become engaged, or (2) have no reason to take another step if they
weren't already in a front hex; if you're already in your opponent's side or rear hexes, it's better to attack from where you are without taking that 3rd step if it puts you in one of the defender's front hexes.
What I'm getting at is that there is an implication here that the 3-hex charge by the attacker is not required for the defender to dole out the +1d damage bonus, which would make that bonus applicable even if the attacker moved only 1 or 2 hexes.
Not that I suspect that's the intention of the rule's wording at all.
[I change my mind in my next post!] I'd take the rule to mean "whether or not the enemy moved in a straight line,
as long as the enemy moved at least 3 hexes". If I was playing the defending character, I could complain if I wasn't allowed the +1d bonus damage against my attacker when that attacker only moved 1 hex, because technically that satisfies the charge attack that is explicitly the only requirement for the pole weapon defender to get that bonus.
As GM I had to manage plenty of instances of players getting just that picky :)