Safely Approaching Pole Weapons

[MikMod]

Originally Posted by xane

Depends.

Skirting around the hex (around 5' away) but not attacking would not result in a defending polearm bonus, because it is not an attack (this is disputed in another thread), whereas actually closing ground rapidly to attack, is not "moving slowly", and is going to risk getting painfully skewered before you get there.

You don't just nonchalantly saunter up to someone and whack them with a sword.

Well, it seems to me that moving the absolute minimum of 1 hex is not 'closing ground rapidly' by definition. That's why you have to have moved enough to count as 'charging', that is, 3 hexes.

In fact, it's running up to a pole-user that you DONT do, because throwing yourself onto a big spike hurts more than a cautious approach. Surely that's just common sense?

Also, as per my examples, there is a downside to avoiding the 'receive charge' additional damage, via a slow approach, and that is that the pole user gets to hit you twice before you can attack them. So I wouldn't characterize that as 'sauntering'.