So I was thinking about combat strategy, recently. (What would my character do? What might be useful in certain situations? What wouldn't? etc.) And it occurs to me that Total Defense is a stance, and as such, it does not inherently take up any time. And the text of Total Defense says that you may not take any attack actions. So, allow me to provide some hypothetical situations where taking the Total Defense stance seems legal, but not within the spirit of the rules and let me know how you'd rule, please...

1. I'm chasing down a lieutenant bad guy, but his minions are hounding me with ranged attacks. (Let's say they are throwing nets to try to catch me.) I could take a Total Defense stance which increases my Avoidance by my ranks in Reflexes while still running after the lieutenant. It seems to me that I shouldn't be able to take a Run action and still be in a Total Defense stance.

2. I'm casting a rite. Casting a Rite is not an attack action.
....2a. Let's say that the Rite is Eldritch Blast. Can I take Total Defense during the 2 rounds of Prep time? What about during the 1 round of casting time?
....2b. Let's say that I'm casting Blessing. Would that change your answer?

I'm inclined to say that #1 is not allowed, but by my reading of the rules, I think it is. It doesn't make sense to me, though. I'm also inclined to say that #2b is legal, and I'm on the fence about 2a. thoughts?

Scott

I'm more inclined to think 1 would be allowed but 2 wouldn't. Casting a Rite may not be an 'attack action' but it's a magical attack, so that would take your action. However, I can certainly see running in such a way as to increase your avoidance from arrows (ducking around a corner, using passerbys as cover, etc.)

Gentlemen,

Witch Hunter was not meant to be an exhaustive rule set, like D&D 3.x tried to be.

These rules weren't written to cover every extant circumstance that could come up, but the general ones.

For issues like the one you bring up, it would be up to the Grand Master, as it should be, to adjudicate the matter.

So if I were the GM and you said you were doing 1 and 2, I would say that you can follow the Bad Guy, but I'd say you could only move half as fast as you are weaving in and out, attempting to avoid attacks.

As for #2, I'd say no. One cannot cast a spell (as a general rul) and protect oneself from attack as well.

GMing - it's an art, not a science.

Thanks, Henry.

Just for clarity's sake, I wasn't looking for a technical answer, but rather a feel for what the other WH players out there would do. If I were running a home game, I'd make a rule based on (my own) common sense (which might be different from someone else's idea of common sense.) But since this is an organized play campaign, I wanted to get a feel for what other judges and players thought. Or find out if I just plain-old missed something in the rules that would clarify the whole thing. (I've only played this rules-set twice, so far.)

Thanks, again,
Scott

Eldritch Blast is a Magical Attack Action.

It is both.



And the Rite Description:



As to Henry's point, he is dead on that it is Grand Master's discretion on the exact interactions of the innumerable situations a game can present. Grand Master's discretion applies to shared-world play as well.