Full Withdrawal Question

[Mergy]

When making a full withdrawal, is there any restriction on where one moves? This came up in a game today, where a player wanted to do a full withdrawal that involved moving away from the enemy and then circling back around.

[Starglim]

You move up to double your speed as you choose. You don't have to leave combat (p. 188) so it's perfectly legal to finish your move in a square threatened by an enemy, including the enemy you withdrew from.

Note, however, that you only avoid AoO for the first square that you leave (ask your GM what happens if you return to that square during your double move).

[Cheapy]

Withdraw is withdrawing safely from the square you're in, not from combat.

That's kind of a neat idea.

[Mergy]

Fair enough. That was my interpretation as well; is it possible that in 3.5 you were required to move as far away as possible from the enemy?

[Cheapy]

Just checked, and 3.5 didn't have that rule either. It also says

Quote:

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

[Mergy]

Yet another badly-labelled move. Add it to the list. They could have called it 'strategic movement' or something like that and not had any issues.

[Skylancer4]

Mergy wrote:

Yet another badly-labelled move. Add it to the list. They could have called it 'strategic movement' or something like that and not had any issues.

What issues would that be? The name is appropriate for the action, you are withdrawing from a specific location. Not quite sure how the name of the action is problematic in any way.

[Mergy]

The argument that one cannot withdraw away and around an enemy comes from the term 'withdrawal'.

[TriOmegaZero]

Just like 'retreat' is 'advancing in another direction'.

Some people are entirely too legalistic about names. Enough that the Expeditious Retreat spell used to specifically mention that the name does not mean the user is forced to flee when he casts it. :/

[Cheapy]

It's local to the square you are in.

[Skylancer4]

with·draw /wiTHdrô/ Verb: 1. Remove or take away (something) from a particular place or position

Again, the name fits the action, not sure how it would become problematic. The action protects the character from attack for the initial movement from the starting location, the most important part of the withdraw action. Anything following that first "step" is normal movement. Essentially the only difference between a double move and a full withdraw action is the protection afforded on the initial move, where you end up is irrelevant.