A few questions regarding Charging (Pounce) and multiple attacks

[Hypersmurf]

:Shrug I do. A pounce, to my mind, represents a set of simultaneous attacks, not a single attack followed by that same attack and a series of other attacks.

But the Psychic Warrior, who gains the powerful charging ability of a lion, gets to make multiple sequential attacks with his longsword...

It seems as if you think I'm going to substitute programmatic adherence to the mechanic-text with programmatic adherence to labels; that's not at all what I'm suggesting.

So your interpretation of the mechanics of the ability Pounce possessed by a lion is influenced by the label, but if it were the ability Pounce - with the same text - possessed by a three-headed dog, your interpretation might be different?

-Hyp.

 

[Pielorinho]

So your interpretation of the mechanics of the ability Pounce possessed by a lion is influenced by the label, but if it were the ability Pounce - with the same text - possessed by a three-headed dog, your interpretation might be different?

Yes, actually. And I think this is unremarkable. Had the ability originally appeared on a cerberus, I'd pay less attention to the label, because folks don't normally think of dogs as pouncing; it's an odd pairing, and so I wouldn't tie it to a real-world behavior. Because the ability first appears on cats, and I know what a pouncing cat looks like, I can use that in figuring out how to adjudicate the ability.

Daniel

 

[Hypersmurf]

Yes, actually.

Eek!

Ninety degrees, as you say!

-Hyp.

 

[Pielorinho]

Indeed!

Daniel

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

because folks don't normally think of dogs as pouncing;

What about dinosaurs? Lots of them have Pounce, as well ...

It seems odd to draw your conclusions on how to rule an ability from only one segment of the "population."

 

[Pielorinho]

What about dinosaurs? Lots of them have Pounce, as well ...

It seems odd to draw your conclusions on how to rule an ability from only one segment of the "population."

Again, I'm not drawing them programmatically; I'm trying to take into consideration all the stuff I can find, and make a ruling that balances different things, including the literal mechanics of the rule, the name of the rule, the way I can see it working cinematically, the elegance of any particular interpretation, power balance, etc. Absolute consistency ranks pretty low on my list of considerations; my game won't crash to desktop if I interpret things in a slightly different fashion in two different cases.

The dinosaurs that have it are dinosaurs that I can imagine leaping on top of a foe and going crazy on them. With these dinosaurs also, it's easier for me to imagine a simultaneous attack from all their natural weapons than to imagine them running forward, slashing out with one talon, and then attacking again with that talon and all their other weapons.

Daniel

 

[billd91]

I agree that it is entirely possible that someone, when writing the pounce ability, wanted that to happen.

Unfortunately, that is not what they ended up writing.

"When you charge someone" = when you move up to twice your speed and make a single attack at +2

Really, there shouldn't be any debate on what the rules actually say - Hyp's got it exactly correct.

Whether or not you want to change what the rules actually say, or whether the rules don't say what we think the designer wanted them to say, is a separate discussion.

That's assuming that the writer, by saying charge, meant the D&D rule charge rather than the more generic term pulled from the dictionary: "to rush forward in or as if in a violent attack".

If he meant the latter, than the does not say that there's a single attack followed by a full attack. Because charge, as used in the sentence explaining what a pounce is, isn't clearly one or the other, there is plenty of debate on what the rules actually say. Hyp may be correct with one interpretation of what the author meant by the term "charge", but he isn't with another.

I do note that under Hyp's interpretation, in charge actions that explicitly don't include a single attack (bull rush and overruns as charges), a creature with pounce would still get their full attack after those actions had been adjudicated. If you agree with Pielorinho and others like me who think the full attack replaces the single attack at the end of charge, you wouldn't be able to.

I also think that the ability to swap out the single attack at the end of the charge for the bull rush or overrun certainly gives us hope that our interpretation is what the author meant since that's what our interpretation of pounce involves as well.

 

[Hypersmurf]

That's assuming that the writer, by saying charge, meant the D&D rule charge rather than the more generic term pulled from the dictionary: "to rush forward in or as if in a violent attack".

If he meant the latter, than the does not say that there's a single attack followed by a full attack. Because charge, as used in the sentence explaining what a pounce is, isn't clearly one or the other, there is plenty of debate on what the rules actually say.

So if he means "to rush forward aggressively", does that mean I can take the Run action, move 4x my speed, and then make a full attack afterwards? I rushed forward aggressively, so Pounce triggers?

Would I take double damage from a readied spear while taking this Run action?

-Hyp.

 

[Pielorinho]

So if he means "to rush forward aggressively", does that mean I can take the Run action, move 4x my speed, and then make a full attack afterwards? I rushed forward aggressively, so Pounce triggers?

Would I take double damage from a readied spear while taking this Run action?

For myself, the answers to these questions would be "no" and "no."

Daniel

 

[Hypersmurf]

For myself, the answers to these questions would be "no" and "no."

Well, yeah - the questions were aimed at billd91's proposal that 'charge' might not refer to the Charge action.

-Hyp.