Passing Strike vs. Held Action

[Gary Miles]

A speedster versus a villain with a Held Action:

 

Speedster (Blue Streak) is DEX 30, SPD 8, 37" Running. Blue Streak zips past the villain, who is about the half-way point of Blue Streak's Full Move.. We do a DEX roll-off, because of the villain's Held Action. Blue Streak makes his roll by a lot more than the villain. He attacks with his Passing Strike martial maneuver,scores a hit and rolls damage. He continues on (it is a Passing Strike, after all), coming to a stop 15" from the villain.

 

Since the villain had a held action, would you say he still gets to roll a H-t-H Attack versus Blue Streak as Blue Streak passes by? Or should he not get a chance because Blue Streak did his attack while moving, and is now clear-the-heck away from the villain?

 

My friend playing the villain is a power-gamer extraordinaire, and he says the villain should get to roll a H-t-H Attack. I say that since Blue Streak uses the Passing Strike, which ends up out of H-t-H range, the villain gets no roll.

[Steve Long]

Generally speaking I'd leave this to the GM, since reasonable minds may differ on how they want to handle this based on the type of campaign, campaign standards, special effects, and other considerations. If I absolutely had to declare a default rule, or if I were ruling for my own personal campaign, I would generally rule that since the Passing Strike went first, it was executed in full before the other character got to act, so the Passing Striker is now far away from him and he'll have to use a Ranged attack of some sort if he wants to hit him. However, I might change my mind depending on how the Target declared his Held Action. If all he said was, "I'm Holding my Action," with no specifics, the ruling just stated would stand. If he'd specifically stated, "I'm Holding my Action to make a HTH Combat attack against Passing Striker as soon as he's close enough," then I would be more inclined to let him try to slug Passing Striker as he runs past.