Help me underatnd CHAEGE

[Uller]

so no AoO for people charging unleess they ready an action?

Not at all.

A Troll has 10' reach. A fighter with a battle axe charges the troll. When the Fighter moves from 10' to 5' from the troll, he has met the conditions from provoking an AoO(he as exitted a threatened sqaure, has moved more than 5' and is doing something other than a move). So the troll gets to take a swipe at him before the charge attack lands.

If the fighter was smart and charged with a longspear, he'd avoid the AoO.

Also...The fighter is charging past an orc with a scimitar. In doing so, he passes through 3 threatened sqaures. The orc may take a single AoO when the fighter exits any one of those squares.

 

[Dr. Zoom]

I've read on the board that one of the WotC published adventures(I don't recall which one, but even if I did, I wouldn't mention it to avoid spoilers) that gives a suggested tactic for a monster to climb out of a body of water and then charge the nearest PC. This amounts to a Move equivalent action followed by a partial charge.

Either this is an illegal series of actions or it is possible that a "circumstance" that allows a partial action is that you've willingly taken a move or MEA. I agree with the latter. I see no difference between drawing a sword as an MEA and readying a charge or drawing a sword as an MEA and performing a partial charge(skip the Ready part). However, it would be completely illegal to perform a partial charge followed up by an MEA. That's my $3.50 anyway...

I have it and I just finished running it for my group. This maneuver is suggested in the tactics section for the monster, and it is illegal according to the core rules. Someone from WotC admitted this, but that was a long time ago and I cannot remember who it was.