Hero Point to "Act Out of Turn"


Rules Questions


This came up tonight, and I can see the discussion going either way.

I was playing a wizard when I was approached by a mini-boss in the middle of combat. Not knowing anything about the mini-boss, I activated my Ring of Invisibility on my turn and then attempted to move away. The boss could See Invisibility and attacked me with an Opportunity Attack. I had 42 HPs left, and thought I'd just tank the attack. It turned out to be a crit, and due to Power Attack, Bull's Strength, and Barbarian Rage, he smacked me for 58 points of damage, which would have killed me.

I had a single hero point, and wanted to use it to act out of turn. I wanted to cast Teleport and just teleport to the corner of the room, behind some tankish characters. I thought this was allowed as I would interrupt his action with a spell, which would have provoked an attack of opportunity if he had combat reflexes and I chose not to cast it defensively.

The GM argued that he would still hit me with the attack and kill me, especially because I waited to see how much damage was being dealt to me. I think he would have let me get away with it had I instead cast the spell before the damage was rolled.

How should this have worked, and what other options were there for me?

By the way, the GM is a nice guy, and awarded everyone a free Hero Point so I could use two and stabilize myself instead of dying. I don't want to sound like I'm unhappy with the GM's decision, I just thought it worked differently than he ruled and want clarification for the future.


So, the way this works is as a readied action but it has a problem in that it has no set criteria for the readied action. As most readied actions it is up to the GM to accept your terms for the readied action.

With that said, I think it is pretty reasonable for you to declare the acting out of turn after the hit but before the damage is rolled. The reason is, once the damage is rolled you have already decided to accept the hit. However, at that point you can mitigate the damage if you have means to do so. Example, a Cure Spell might keep you alive right before you die.

If the GM did not give you the chance to declare before he rolled the damage it is on him and he should allow you to declare. But, if you saw the crit roll and then decided to still take the damage, you suffer the hit.

From your description of things it sounds like you decided to see if you can survive the damage and I agree with the GM's call.

My concept of how this works:
1) Monster hits
2) Player option to Act Out of Turn and prevent the hit. If yes, skip 3 and 4. If no, proceed to 3.
3) Monster rolls damage.
4) Player option to Act Out of Turn to mitigate the damage but cannot prevent the hit, the hit has occurred. Mitigate in this case means something that would somehow reduce or maybe heal the damage before you die or fall unconcious.

BTW, one of my groups uses Hero Points just like this. It has saved us a number of times.

- Gauss


Gauss, in step 1, would you as the GM let the player know the hit was a critical threat? In step 1.5 would you let the player know if it was a confirmed critical? After either point would you still let the player interrupt?


That is not something the GM can keep from the player due to various game mechanics regarding critical hit negation. There are a number of magic items and abilities that *by choice* the player can activate to specifically negate a critical hit. The GM must inform the player it is a critical hit.

- Gauss


IMO the problem with this is.. who is going to use the 2 point option if you let the 1 point option work this way?

Act out of Turn lets you act when its not your turn- b ut in this case you have already acted this round. It doesn't say it allows you to act twice in a round.

So if your init is 1 and the bad guys all have 20 19 and 18 you could use a hero point to go before any one of them (with a move or standard action, as per HP rules).

What the OP is really trying to do is spend 1 point for the 2 pointer, which states:

Spoiler:
Cheat Death: A character can spend 2 hero points to cheat death. How this plays out is up to the GM, but generally the character is left alive, with negative hit points but stable. For example, a character is about to be slain by a critical hit from an arrow. If the character spends 2 hero points, the GM decides that the arrow pierced the character's holy symbol, reducing the damage enough to prevent him from being killed, and that he made his stabilization roll at the end of his turn. Cheating death is the only way for a character to spend more than 1 hero point in a turn. The character can spend hero points in this way to prevent the death of a familiar, animal companion, eidolon, or special mount, but not another character or NPC.

Now for me personally:

If Wiz hasn't gone this round yet and Big Bad targets him..

1)When the DM rolls and asks the Wiz his AC the Wiz can spend an HP to teleport out of the way.

2) When DM declares a potential critical Wiz can use an HP to teleport out of the way.

3) When DM declares the crit successful the Wiz can use an HP to teleport out of the way.

4) When the DM tells Wiz the damage and Wiz realizes he's a grease smear, he can spend 2 HP to not die- but his window for 1HP use is gone.

The rules, so far as I know, don't parse it out this "technically" but to me- once the DM tells you how much damage you've taken.. you've taken it.

This does require the DM to be aware of Hero Points (and other reroll mechanisms the PC's may have) and to behave accordingly.
(i.e. if the DM thinks the way I do about it, then it would be ass-hattery to roll all the die and then declare the PC takes 56 damage from a crit without telling him he'd been potentially critted, then actually critted, to allow him the opportunity to get a reroll or spend the HP.)

Not sure if thats houserules though, or just reading too much into the rules, or "rules as intended" but its how it reads to me.

-S


That's the way we played it. I thought I could tank the hit and continue my move to safety, and I was wrong. I had a summoned creature on the board that could cast cure spells, so I spent my two hero points and was healed the next turn when the baddie moved on to knock the monk unconscious. Thanks for the feedback.

Sczarni

Act out of turn work when you act out of turn. Boss wasn't even on his turn. AoO was simply a no Action.

After he confirmed critical I would grant you a reroll on his confirmation roll for 1 HP at my table whether you knew the total damage or not. This is my opinion on it.


Malag, act out of turn works in any situation that a readied action can work in. In this case, a readied action can work. Here is one such example:

Player: I take a standard action to ready an action. If the bad guy swings at me I teleport. Now I move.
GM: He swings at you.
Player: My readied action goes off.

So yes, act out of turn would apply. Being an AoO does not stop other AoOs or readied actions that trigger off of the original AoO. Heck, you can get a string of AoOs and/or Readied actions going.

- Gauss

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