Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Virago" data-source="post: 105798" data-attributes="member: 2045">The literal argument again...Karinsdad said:The bottom line is that 5-foot steps do not provoke AoOs (see glossary)...and that shields give a shield bonus.  And a full round action "consumes all your effort during a round."And "a character with more than one attack per round must use the full attack action in order to get more than one attack."  Which, in light of flurry of blows, etc., ( they're not just talking about extra attacks from BAB), means that when you're hasted you can't actually take a partial attack action of any kind, since you need to take a full attack action to get more than one attack.The AoO rules only allow one 5-foot step per round.No.  If one is arguing literally, there's nothing that states that you can't take a full-action and a partial action, and get 5' steps with both and avoid AoOs with both steps.This is assuming the p. 121 MEA quote is taken as applying only to MEAs, which it does, since it's in the MEA section.  "When you move no distance in a round.. you may take one 5' step either before, during, or after the action."  The move equivalent action.  Each type of action states if it can take a 5' step, and this is the text on how the 5' step of MEAs work (goes the argument).Admittedly this leads to a strange state of affairs where the MEA step is weaker than other steps.  But if you're committed to following poorly-written rules to the lettter, what do you expect?Seperately, there is also logical counterargument, which is very strong if you're a literal reader: p. 117 most certainly does not say that "if you take two five foot steps, you must provoke an AoO with both of them."I don't think Artoomis ever dealt with these arguments effectively.  He argued that the MEA quote should be read generally.  But if you assume that to be true, you don't need the glossary or p. 117 at all; so the whole "three quotes" argument is pointless, unless you get the rather silly idea that taking a 5' step is not "moving any actual distance."  Even if you like that idea, the logical counterargument shows that there's still no contradiction.Belief that p. 121 is general is all you need.  If you don't believe that, then yes, haste gives an extra 5' step, depending on if the other step is an MEA step.  ...I agree that the original intent of the rules was for only one 5' step a round.  However, it's not even clear in the literal rules, while lots of stuff no one would take literally is quite plainly stated.  Whether it's "literally stated" in the poorly garbled rules should, I think, be the last argument to sway anyone on whether or not they should get two 5' steps with haste.  Stronger arguments:(1) It's not what the rules say, but it's what they mean.(2) It's imbalancing/not imbalancing.(3) It defies common sense (or doesn't).I'd say (1) goes to the non-steppers, (2) is questionable, and (3) goes to the pro-steppers.To sum up: the hyper-literal reading aspect of this issue is both inconclusive and pointless.I'd rather not hash this out anymore on Artoomis's poor thread <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" />  Sorry.  Back to your regularly scheduled programming...</blockquote>

Verification