Alternative view:
The pinned fighter starts with no facing, and thus the attacker is not in their vision arc, therefore:
- the attacker always counts as outside of their vision arc for the purpose of e.g. ‘Backstab’
- the pinned fighter has to ‘turn to face’ to make reaction attacks
better represents the pinned fighter having to suddenly defend themselves and react from having been previously scrabbling to keep their head down.
But rules are vague to the point of not covering this at all.
I’m updating this as have seen that the Ash Wastes Rulebook has updated the relevant sections.
ORIGINAL RULEBOOK (p50):
“PINNED: Fighters are generally Pinned as a result of being hit by enemy fire, and will need to spend an action to stand up, becoming Standing and Active.
If a Prone fighter that is Pinned ever comes into base to base contact with an enemy fighter, they will immediately stand up, becoming Standing and Engaged, without having to spend an action to do so. ”
(note above Specifically didn’t list as a free ‘Stand up (Basic)’ action, just that they changed their status, which in itself does not allow the owning fighter to choose their facing).
ASH WASTES RULEBOOK (p30):
”PINNED: Fighters generally become Prone and ‘Pinned’ as a result of being hit by enemy fire, and will need to spend an action to stand up, becoming Standing and Active.
If a Prone and Pinned fighter ever becomes Engaged by an enemy fighter, they will immediately perform a Stand Up (Basic) action for free (i.e. without having to spend an action to do so), becoming Standing and Engaged).”
In both rulebooks (italic descriptive text added in Ash Wastes Rulebook):
STAND UP (BASIC): “
For most fighters, quickly getting back to their feet when they have been knocked down is a priority. The fighter stands up, returning to Active status.
The controlling player can choose the fighter’s facing.”
So seems pretty clear now that a ’Prone and Pinned‘ fighter, upon becoming engaged with an enemy fighter, becomes ‘Standing and Active’ and the owning player can choose their facing, which unless their feeling particularly brave, won’t be to turn their back on the engaging fighter.
In addition, on p62 of Ash Wastes Rulebook they’ve expanded the call-out box on ‘Changing Facing’ quite a bit from the original rulebook; and the second paragraph makes this a bit more confusing, stating that “a fighter that changes their facing when Standing and Engaged will normally suffer negative modifiers to any HIt rolls they make. This represents the fighter turning quickly to confront an attacker.”
To me, that sounds as if RAI, they should suffer the -1 to hit for having to react quickly from being face down in the mud/ducking downto face their attacker.
But RAW, they change their facing as part of the free ‘Stand Up (Basic)’ action they receive, and this happens before the ’1. Turn to Face’ step of their reaction attacks, so would
not result in a -1 penalty. It also means that the controlling player can choose their facing before the ‘Backstab’ trait takes effect, so in most cases this would not trigger either.