Withdraw Action and Prone

[Steve Shippy aka Beerwolf]

In our session yesterday, we had a character fall prone and then decided to take a full withdraw while in combat. Neither full withdraw or prone guidance stated whether it could occur. Has there been a ruling on it?

[Bizbag]

A ruling, I don't know, but I don't see why not. The Prone text doesn't mention moving, but the Crawl action under Move Actions does. The Withdraw action states that you can move double your speed, and the text under "Crawl" says that you can move 5 feet (which threatens AOOs).

Strictly speaking, withdrawing is a full-round action. It is not a "use my move action to crawl 5 feet, then use my standard action as another move action to crawl 5 feet", so how your GM decides depends on how rigorous one applies RAW.

I think it's a perfectly fair interpretation to say "you can withdraw 10 feet if you are crawling, and the first square does not count as threatened (but the second one may)."

If it helps, the 3.5 rules worded this differently; they didn't list Withdraw as a specific action, it just said that, if all you did was move, and not any other action, your first square was unthreatened. Then again, the strictest rules lawyer would say that Crawl is a move action but not a move.

In other words, common sense says yes, RAW ambiguously say no.

[Komoda]

I think common sense says no.

Could you withdrawal while climbing if you didn't have a climb speed? You can withdrawal when using normal movement. Crawling is not normal movement.

And when we look it up:

CRB wrote:

You may not withdraw using a form of movement for which you don’t have a listed speed.

[Speaker for the Dead]

It does have a listed speed, 5'. I like Bizbag's answer. It was well reason and seems to make sense. I can totally visualize someone rolling out of combat as a withdraw action.

[Komoda]

No, it doesn't. It has a limit on what it can do.

Climb 20
Speed 30
Fly 40
Swim 20

Those are speeds.

While a normal level 1 commoner can climb, and swim, he doesn't have a climb speed or a swim speed.

This is a very important distinction.

Other feats, such as the Monkey Style line of feats allow you to move while crawling.

And according to D20 SRD.org, the wording in 3.5 was the same full round action.

[Mojorat]

Crawling 5 feet is a full round action I believe that provokes attacks of opportunity. You can't do it as a withdraw.

[Avatar-1]

Not sure where the text is for this, but being prone next to a melee attacker is notoriously dangerous specifically because there's very little you can do to not take another hit.

The trip rules were changed between 3.5 and Pathfinder where in 3.5 you could "re-trip" someone who was prone as an attack of opportunity - so they could never get up. You can't do that anymore because the attack of opportunity happens while they're still prone, not after they get up.

Still, when you're prone next to an enemy attacker (or 2 or 3), getting up provokes, you can't move away (without provoking, using crawl), you can't 5ft step away. I believe there's a spell that can be cast on an enemy to make it stop taking attacks of opportunity - this is one of the few things in the game, short of making that enemy draw another attack of opportunity or casting some sort of blinding/paralysing spell on them, to get away.

[Starglim]

Steve Shippy aka Beerwolf wrote:

In our session yesterday, we had a character fall prone and then decided to take a full withdraw while in combat. Neither full withdraw or prone guidance stated whether it could occur. Has there been a ruling on it?

You can't withdraw by crawling for the reasons already laid out, but it wouldn't help you if you could, as the withdraw action allows you not to provoke an AoO for leaving the first square of your movement. You provoke anyway for the action of crawling.

You can use Acrobatics as a full-round action to move 5 feet while prone without provoking an AoO.

The blessing of fervor spell allows you to stand up without provoking as a swift action, as one possible benefit.

[Seraphimpunk]

crawling is movement. i would think that withdraw would shield you from the AoO provoked from that movement.

Mojorat, Crawling is a Move action in pathfinder, with a speed of 5 ft.
see the combat section of the prd, and search "crawl".

Quote:

Crawling: You can crawl 5 feet as a move action. Crawling incurs attacks of opportunity from any attackers who threaten you at any point of your crawl. A crawling character is considered prone and must take a move action to stand up, provoking an attack of opportunity.

i'd agree though that you can use Acrobatics to move at half speed, to go 5 ft. without provoking. or fast-acrobatics to go full speed.

I miss the explicit option to use Acrobatics to stand up without provoking an attack of opportunity from standing up as a move action.

You could also go full defensive as a standard action, and use a move action to crawl five ft. you'd at least negate their bonus to hit you while prone. maybe more if you have enough ranks in acrobatics to get the +6 to ac instead of +4 for full defense.

[Komoda]

If you have a speed of something, it will list it as Crawl 10 ft.

Take this example: Speed 10 ft., swim 50 ft. from the Adaro in the Bestiary III.

You can climb 1/4 your speed. You do NOT have a climb speed of 1/4 your speed.

You can swim 1/4 your speed. You do NOT have a swim speed of 1/4 your speed.

You do not gain any of these benefits:

CRB Swim Skill wrote:

Special: A creature with a swim speed can move through water at its indicated speed without making Swim checks. It gains a +8 racial bonus on any Swim check to perform a special action or avoid a hazard. The creature can always choose to take 10 on a Swim check, even if distracted or endangered when swimming. Such a creature can use the run action while swimming, provided that it swims in a straight line.

You do not have a crawl speed. You cannot withdraw while crawling.

[Seraphimpunk]

so an earth elemental could withdraw while prone, by just earthgliding away ?

[Komoda]

Sure. Just as a human can be prone and withdraw via fly if the spell is active. They are not crawling in either case.

[Bizbag]

Komoda wrote:

If you have a speed of something, it will list it as Crawl 10 ft.

<snip>

You do not have a crawl speed. You cannot withdraw while crawling.

I agree with you, that if one prefers to strictly interpret RAW, you do not have a "crawl speed" for the purposes of taking a Withdraw full-round action.

It is, however, a Move action, so a player is entitled to use their standard action to crawl twice for a total distance traveled of 10 feet. This, combined with how the rules for withdraw *used* to be phrased in the older editions, is why I think it makes sense for a GM to rule that you can, effectively, Withdraw this way. I would understand completely if said GM decided to not allow it as well.

As an ad hoc ruling, I'd probably have the player make an Acrobatics check to be able to do so.