Quote:
Originally Posted by Lord Twig
I honestly don't see that supported by the rules anywhere
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Melee p6, Options; Wizard p6, Options; ITL p102, List of Options, all with identical text:
"During a turn, a player may change his mind about a figure’s option, as long as
• that figure has not yet acted, and
• that figure did not move too far to allow it to take the new option"
There's not a special case rule that says "You may convert your option to a Defend" that you're overlooking. It's just one of the applications of the general rule that you may change your option at any time as long as you still meet that new option's preconditions.
Dodge is Option (c), ITL 102. Shift and Defend is Option (k), ITL 103. So these are in fact ordinary options available to be chosen, and again not a special rule just for, say, an extra effort defense that replaces the action in some option like Attack.
So let's imagine you're the low DX figure. Init rolls, movement comes around, you choose, say, Shift and Attack. Attacks start from the higher adjDX figures, at some point targetting you, and you decide you don't want to risk some blow. You "change your mind about your figure's option" and pick Shift and Defend instead. You haven't acted yet, and you haven't exceeded the move allowed by Shift and Defend. So you Defend.
If you'd picked Move, and actually Moved more than a shift -- perhaps intending to run away -- in the movement phase, then when your turn came in the attack phase, you wouldn't be able to change your option to Shift and Defend because you've already moved too far for that option. Similarly, if you're a high adjDX figure, and you attack first, you can't then a few figures later suffer an attack and decide you want to Defend. You've already acted this turn when you did your own attack.
The same rule would allow you to do something like choose Shift and Defend with a high DX figure, watch the moves, and then on your early action snicker, say "fooled you", choose to switch to Shift and Attack, and stab the juicy wizard target that foolishly moved close, trusting that you were only going to Defend this round.
You can probably think of other reasons to opportunistically change your option. They're all covered by that one sentence.
(This is why Skarg and I were agreeing that there's not really any reason to choose an option before movement, as the RAW has it, because it's so easy to change your mind. Your actual movement performed will restrict your choice. But of all the options that allow, say, a shift, it doesn't matter which one you choose. For that matter, you could choose "Move", move just a little in accordance with shifting rules, and then change to Shift and Attack, even though Move doesn't allow an attack. So it's just as easy not to declare an option before movement at all. You still want to think about how much you can move and how that constrains you. And you still want to study your opponents' moves to get some idea of what they might not be able to do in the actions phase. But the actual declarations of a choice aren't binding compared to the movement.)