Readied attack vs movement while greased.


Rules Questions

Grand Lodge

So the situation is I'm a rogue standing next to an opponent that is standing in grease. On my turn I ready an action to attack triggered by them moving. This would give me a sneak attack due to them having to roll an acrobatics check making them flat footed.

And then they start to move. Now here's the part where it gets tricky. At what point do I attack? They have to roll the acrobatics check. Do I attack before they roll? If I have to attack after they roll, what if they fail their check? They haven't actually moved, but their movement is what triggered them falling which should trigger my action as they still tried to move. But since they failed the roll are they flat-footed or not since they're not moving?

Any insight would be appreciated.


Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

Your declared trigger is your target moving. If they fail the acrobatics check, then they can't move and can't trigger your readied action. If they fail it too badly, they fall prone (a free action that does not provoke).

The grease spell says nothing about targets becoming flat-footed, but the acrobatics skill does. It says "While you are using Acrobatics in this way, you are considered flat-footed and lose your Dexterity bonus to your AC (if any)". "in this way" refers to the first sentence of the paragraph that says "You can use Acrobatics to move on narrow surfaces and uneven ground without falling." It does not specifically say greased or slippery surfaces, but most people include those too.

EDIT: Per Murphy below, rephrase your trigger.


From the moment they declare the move and when they are finally on a square without grease, they are considered to be using Acrobatics and are flatfooted. Furthermore, the wording on the skill suggests even if they fail and fall, they would be flat footed (at least as they fall).

The difficulty is that readied actions technically occur before the triggering action. The acrobatics check is required to move out of the square as well. You basically have two separate competing 'before the move' actions and that's going to be the GM's decision.

If one applies some consideration to the issue at hand, it is perfectly understandable that the goal is to attack after the acrobatics check but before they leave the square, so I'd allow it in my game. You could try to craft the readied action to be regarding them leaving the square, which cannot happen if they fail the test and thus must allow the attack after they pass the test.

Grand Lodge

Can I ready a "mechanical trigger" as in something along the lines of "a readied attack for after they roll acrobatics?"


I'm not sure if you could do this but say you ready to attack them once they are flat-footed. I think that should cover everything you want.

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