Shattered Kingdoms

I have noticed that while my character is defending himself his attack speed falls slightly compared to when he is not.
Being in a group and having the other guy taking hits rewards me with some added weapon speed. Was this intentional?

Are you using a reaching weapon?

Hm, yes I do. But standing in front row on both occasions.

Reaching weapons seem to suffer a penalty to speed if you are being hit.

Some of them, anyways. I'm not sure on the specifics of this.

Also not sure if it's intentional or not.

It's intentional but it has nothing to do with you being hit. Reach weapons are balanced for reach combat, so if you are using them like a normal melee weapon you get less attacks per round.

So sitting in the second row would wield the number of attacks that I should be having with that weapon?

You might want to check into this one a bit more just to confirm that you don't have any interference. Empirically, I've noticed that while using a reach weapon I typically get a full complement of attacks on the front row as long as I haven't actually taken damage.

Actually, that's intentional. It's assumed you can space yourself out a bit, even if you are in the front row, as long as you are not fighting someone toe-to-toe.

Okay, but it can make a substantial difference when you have the opening advantage and get a round of lucky parries / dodges.

So being front row and hitting someone in second row is normal speed? What if you are front row, targeting second row in an enemy formation and being targeted yourself by a front row enemy?