Is "see" the same thing as "line of sight?"

[Kurgan]

It was so much easier for me back in the day when I just ignored the diagram and treated aiming with magic or throwing dagger/crossbow like the moves in chess using squares rather than drawing invisible lines from any part of a miniature's square to another...

I realize that looking at all these factors together you are increasing the number of possible scenarios where you can hit/cast on another character without having to move first, but still not allowing quite as many possibilities as you would under the EU rules (where aiming really only matters in corridors or when targeting outside of the room you're in). The recent update is interesting but I had thought they were just restoring a line that had been removed from the first printings, nothing more? I'll have to compare again myself later.

[HispaZargon]

The problem with the "tracing the straight line from any point of the Hero's square to the centre of the target square" concept is that if we assume that a character can lean to bring an enemy into his line of sight, who wasn't already, for the purposes of making a missile attack (which is effectively what the "the leaning to any point within his square" piece that you are suggesting emulates) then we must equally assume that said enemy can then lean in such a way that takes him out of the line of sight, so he doesn't get hit by the missile attack effectively cancelling this out.

Mmmm... another interpretation for the "tracing a straight line from any point of the attacker's square to the centre of the target square" approach could be assuming that how skilled is the target to evade the missile shot is covered by his Defend Dice basic atribute, so you don't need to care about what is doing the target (instead of assuming it can lean inside its square to avoid it), just what is doing the miniature who wants to shot...

In other words, according to the basic stats, for me has a different interpretation the Attack Dice than the Defend Dice. You know that in NA rules, all Attack Dice are in 95% situations linked to the type of weapon you are using. However the Defend Dice is assumed to be a number of basic Defend Dice plus some extra dice linked with the Armor you are using. Then, I think maybe the 'lean' action of the attacker could be part of the action of attacking from a distance, but the 'lean' action of the defender is already implicit inside its Defend Dice roll, so we don't need to care if the target is leaning or not inside his square when pointing to it in the game board.

Well, just giving another chance to this...

[Bareheaded Warrior]

And that is a fair point.

Personally, either approach works in specific terms of resolving the contradiction between LOS in the text and in the diagram, either changing the text as you propose or changing the diagram that I propose. My concern with the change you have proposed "tracing a straight line from any point of the attacker's square to the centre of the target square" is the unintended consequences caused by this not being "symmetrical" or "bi-directional".

This claim may need an explanation and an example!

"tracing a straight line from any point of the attacker's square to the centre of the target square" isn't symmetrical or bi-directional in the same way as tracing a straight line from centre of attackers square to centre of target square, i.e. centre to centre, or top left hand corner of attack's square to top-left hand corner of target square, i.e. top-left to top-left, and so on. In these examples the conditions are bi-directional, if I can trace a line from my centre to your centre then you can do the same back to me.

This isn't true for your proposal.

Why is this a problem?

How much this really affects gameplay will depend on player tactics and exploits but on a point of principle there is an issue.

Example: Orc with Crossbow placed on bottom right corner of the board, Dwarf with Crossbow placed one square vertically up from the bottom left corner of the board. If it is the Dwarf's turn then according to your proposal he can shoot the Orc, tracing a line from the bottom right of his square to the centre of the Orc's square, however if the positions stay the same and it is the Orc's turn he cannot shoot the Dwarf as no line can be drawn from any point on his square to the centre of the Dwarf's square. This means that the Dwarf can hold his position and shoot at the Orc repeatedly over the several turns that it will take the Orc to traverse that long passageway and the Crossbow armed Orc will not get any opportunity to return fire whatsoever.

There is a rule in HQ mentioned many times in the rulebook along the lines of "you may move and take an action, or take an action and move, but you cannot split your movement by moving, taking an action then continuing to move". One of the reasons for this rule is to prevent "pop up" attacks where a character moves out from an unseen position makes a missile, spell or other attack and then moves back into an unseen position, rendering their target unable to respond. This rule means that HQ avoids the need to implement complex rules around "going into overwatch", firing on your opponents turn and all that jazz.

I think your proposal breaks that principle.