Pole Fighting allows you to use a reach weapon against adjacent opponents, albeit at a penalty.
Do you still threaten at reach as well (albeit at a penalty)?
OR
Do you switch from threatening at reach to threatening adjacent?
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Pole Fighting allows you to use a reach weapon against adjacent opponents, albeit at a penalty.
Do you still threaten at reach as well (albeit at a penalty)?
OR
Do you switch from threatening at reach to threatening adjacent?
Since you can switch as an immediate, not as a swift I would say for almost all intensive purposes you can threaten both you just interrupt their action to switch your threatened area. I'm sad the polearm master didn't get the immediate brace like the phalanx fighter. Would make a decent homebrew feat off combat reflexes I guess.
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You can threaten one or the other at any given time.
However since you can change from a shortened haft position to a full grip and back again all as immediate actions it will (or rather should) almost never affect things in such a manner. For brevity sake it is easier to say you threaten both but must take the -4 on the adjacent squares.
You can threaten one or the other at any given time.
However since you can change from a shortened haft position to a full grip and back again all as immediate actions it will (or rather should) almost never affect things in such a manner. For brevity sake it is easier to say you threaten both but must take the -4 on the adjacent squares.
I know I'm kind of digging up the dead here, but I've been making a polearm master for a game, so been digging around for rules interpretations/clarifications.
As far as I can tell, if you end your turn threatening at reach (10') then you threaten at 10' until you spend your immediate action to switch to 5'. You are now stuck at 5' until your turn comes around, as you cannot use another immediate action to switch back until then.
Is this correct? I believe so.
I am divided over this, I had considered it before and since it didn't specifically say you would lose reach, I figured you could still threaten at 10' as well albeit with the penalty to hit.
Switching between 5 and 10ft reach is an immediate action. The rules for immediate actions are as follows:
Immediate ActionsMuch like a swift action, an immediate action consumes a very small amount of time but represents a larger expenditure of effort and energy than a free action. However, unlike a swift action, an immediate action can be performed at any time—even if it's not your turn. Casting feather fall is an immediate action, since the spell can be cast at any time.
Using an immediate action on your turn is the same as using a swift action and counts as your swift action for that turn. You cannot use another immediate action or a swift action until after your next turn if you have used an immediate action when it is not currently your turn (effectively, using an immediate action before your turn is equivalent to using your swift action for the coming turn). You also cannot use an immediate action if you are flat-footed.
Thus, you can only make the switch at most once per round. Once you switch, whether on your turn or on somebody elses, you have to wait until you can make another immediate/swift action before you switch again. Until that time, your reach is stuck at where it is, whether its 5 or 10 ft.
I'd note that you could use it on another creatures turn to make the switch if it is currently at 5ft and the creature is approaching, so that you could put it at 10ft to hopefully draw the AoO. But once you do that you are stuck at 10ft until you can make another immediate/swift action to change it again.