Two provocative questions about Withdraw

[Li Shenron]

Withdraw
Withdrawing from melee combat is a full-round action. When you withdraw, you can move up to double your speed. The square you start out in is not considered threatened by any opponent you can see, and therefore visible enemies do not get attacks of opportunity against you when you move from that square. (Invisible enemies still get attacks of opportunity against you, and you can’t withdraw from combat if you’re blinded.) You can’t take a 5-foot step during the same round in which you withdraw.

If, during the process of withdrawing, you move out of a threatened square (other than the one you started in), enemies get attacks of opportunity as normal.

You may not withdraw using a form of movement for which you don’t have a listed speed.

Note that despite the name of this action, you don’t actually have to leave combat entirely.

Restricted Withdraw: If you are limited to taking only a standard action each round you can withdraw as a standard action. In this case, you may move up to your speed (rather than up to double your speed).

1) Is the highlighted part above enough to say you can't Withdraw from prone without standing up?

2) Why the hell did they change Withdraw to a specific full-round action? Nowadays you can't use it together with Total Defense, which was quite a very realistic way to really "withdraw" (in 3.0 you could either take 2 moves or take a move with +4AC, and in both cases the first square was not considered threatened).

 

[nsruf]

1) Is the highlighted part above enough to say you can't Withdraw from prone without standing up?

Crawling explicitly provokes an AoO, so it doesn't really matter.

2) Why the hell did they change Withdraw to a specific full-round action? Nowadays you can't use it together with Total Defense, which was quite a very realistic way to really "withdraw" (in 3.0 you could either take 2 moves or take a move with +4AC, and in both cases the first square was not considered threatened).

You couldn't "withdraw" with full defense in 3.0 either. Full defense is/was a standard action and if you perform a standard action AND move out of a threatened area, you suffer an AoO. In fact, withdrawing works exactly the same in 3.5 as it did in 3.0, only that 3.0 had the clause about the first square not being threatened in a double move, and 3.5 made it a separate maneuver.

 

[The Souljourner]

The text is to prevent you from withdrawing by climbing up a wall, swimming away, etc. since if you're having to make a skill check to do it, you're obviously not able to do it carefully enough to not open yourself to attack. That being said, maybe a penalty to the check is appropriate, so really good climbing rogues could do it in such a way as to not draw an AoO.

And as for the second... while they sound like they should be able to be used together, they are actually different things. One is moving careful so as not to open ones self to undue attacks, and one is to not move very much and do your best at defending yourself. One requires movement and focuses on making that movement safer, one restricts movement, and focuses on making all attacks at you more difficult.

If you want to move and up your AC, take mobility and expertise, with 5 ranks of tumble fighting defensively, you can have +8 to your AC and +12 vs. attacks of opportunity due to moving. That's pretty damn good.

-The Souljourner

 

[AuraSeer]

2) Why the hell did they change Withdraw to a specific full-round action?

The old rule was not explained clearly, and confused more people than any other part of 3.0. The result of your initial movement depended on what else you chose to do in the round, which was unusual and not easy to learn.

In 3.5, you actually have a little more freedom to do things while Withdrawing, because you can take free actions. The old rule was that your starting space was still threatened if you did anything except move-- if you cast a Quickened spell you could not . (Technically, you couldn't even drop an item or speak out loud, though I don't know any DM who would enforce it that far.)

You never could use Total Defense while withdrawing, because TD is a standard action.