Dive! Dive! Dive!

General ACKS Forums Ask the Autarchs
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So my players went up against an aerie of hippogriffs last night and a good time was had by all, even the guy whose Ruinguard lost a finger, two teeth, and will be on bed rest for the next month with a pair of broken arms.

This morning, I checked the campaign forum and saw that one of my players had looked up hippogriffs’ stats and noticed that dive attacks only do double damage from the talons, not the beak. (Oops…) This got me looking at the dive attack rules on p.150 more closely, which led to noticing that I had been incorrect to interpret dive attacks as a variant on charge attacks. Although they do double damage “like a charge”, the dive attack rules never actually say that flyers have to move at all to use dive attacks.

Is this correct? If so, is there any reason for a taloned flyer not to use a dive attack every round when fighting an opponent in open terrain?

Related bonus question: Do the ACKS rules support any kind of “move through” or “move by” attack (to use Champions/Hero System terminology)? It came up last night because it would make sense for hippogriffs (among other flyers) to swoop down on a target, claw at it, and then fly away before it could retaliate, regardless of whether they’re able to get a grip and carry it off or not. Similarly, a mounted fighter might ride past a target, attacking as they pass, without stopping to engage in an extended melee.

The only thing I can find along these lines is the Overrun maneuver/combat trick, but, if I’m understanding it correctly, a successful Overrun just lets you move through opponents, it doesn’t damage them or affect them in any way other than possibly shoving them to the side a little so you can get past.

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This question seems to have fallen through the cracks, but, since I hate seeing posts that just say “bump”, here are the answers I’ve come up with on my own:

Dive Attacks: A creature with the ability to make dive attacks may do so any time they move to engage an opponent, provided that they have room to fly (i.e., “in open terrain”, although just how open it needs to be depends on the creature’s wingspan). The move may be any distance; dive attack is a separate option from charge attack and does not require movement which would qualify as a charge. When making a dive attack as part of a charge, the talon damage remains only doubled and is not further increased by the charge. If the flyer is continuing an engagement or the opponent has moved to engage the flyer, it may still grip its opponent if both talons hit, but it does not get the doubled talon damage and may not fly off with the opponent until the following round.

Move-by Attacks: When using the Overrun maneuver, you may attack any target which you successfully overrun, up to your normal limit on attacks per round. This decision must be made immediately after determining that the overrun was successful and before moving further - you can’t make an overrun past several targets and then choose at the end which one to attack. If, at the end of your movement, you are in position to attack another enemy, you may only do so if you have remaining attacks which were not used during the overrun maneuver - using Overrun can never increase your total number of attacks made in a round.