FASA Games, Inc.

Found something interesting while reading up on the whole "Fighting Retreat" thing in early D&D (places like enworld.org, etc).

oD&D, B/X, etc: When you are "In Melee Combat" (i.e. you are next to a melee enemy, and one of you has engaged the other) you can't make a normal move to move away. Your ONLY options are to Retreat (move away at full movement, no attacks, take a free "Attack of Opportunity" from the enemy you are moving away from, no Shield AC mods and all enemies get +2 to hit you for this round), or a Fighting Withdrawal (1/2 move, can still attack, can still use Shield, etc).

Has anyone here played Earthdawn like this?

Nope. Never.

Admitedly, I have sometimes granted a free hack against certain opponents/PCs who don't tactically withdraw from combat - IE: Flee! Most significant cases were those that involved Social Defence targeted talents/spells/powers - IE: causing the target to haveoverwhelming urges to flee (fear abilities) orrefocus their rage (taunts).

The general rule to grant such an attack was if the target left themselves open to it (IE: blindsided/ambushed) and was slow enough for the attacker to capitalise on this advantage. In this regard, the attacker had to have been holding an action/stated previously that they were intending the attack/action or usually be within their attack range - IE Movement distance, in which I used the comparative Initiative & Movement Rate table from 1st Edition GM pack/ED Companion to resolve how far the target could get before the attacker responded.

Not that this isn't Way Too Late, but... just since I'm here and have a few minutes, I wanted to note that I have used Giving Ground, and when I have, it's been awesome. I had a Swordmistress who had to hold off against a Wyvern when she was only 2nd Circle -- no chance to actually fight it, but she just had to distract it for a little while. She used Defensive Stance and Giving Ground and... well, it got exploding dice on the second round that left her one point short of Death, but if she hadn't been Giving Ground, it would've been an Armor Defeating Hit, so it totally saved her life.

Good tale, thanks Utsukushi.

I like these type of scenarios, and think I'll bring back some of this tactical maneuvering with my mass combat Unit rules.

Never, most of our players haven't dug that deep into the rules.