Kiting with 5' Steps???


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Hey all. So I'm DM'ing a campaign and one of my players wants to ready a 5' step for when a monster attacks him. Said character is attacking with Dwarven Longhammer, so he has reach. So the plan is the monster moves in to attack, player takes his AoO from reach and 5's out. Does this somehow negate the monster's attack? The only way I would think that's possible is if the monster moves his 30' and the 5' step puts the character out of range, but I assume from the Ready action description that the monster can still continue moving closer (if it has movement left) and attack. "If the triggered action is part of another character's activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action."
Correct me if I'm wrong.


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Yes. Interrupt as in the temporal flow, not as in keep from doing.


He can ready a move action if he wants to get further away. Although, if he did include a 5 ft step as part of his readied action, the 5 ft step would not provoke (they never do). I think the best think to do would be ready action to 5 ft step towards the monster and attack, when it is 10 ft away. PC gets an attack, and monster is adjacent to his enemy carrying s reach weapon. If the monster wants to continue using his move action so he can back up and attack, he will provoke can attack from the PC.


Bustler got it in one. :)

Now, on the other hand, if the bad guy dies, he has *also* been interrupted in the 'keep from doing' sense ;)

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Sjark wrote:

Hey all. So I'm DM'ing a campaign and one of my players wants to ready a 5' step for when a monster attacks him. Said character is attacking with Dwarven Longhammer, so he has reach. So the plan is the monster moves in to attack, player takes his AoO from reach and 5's out. Does this somehow negate the monster's attack? The only way I would think that's possible is if the monster moves his 30' and the 5' step puts the character out of range, but I assume from the Ready action description that the monster can still continue moving closer (if it has movement left) and attack. "If the triggered action is part of another character's activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action."

Correct me if I'm wrong.

This trick pretty much goes south when the monster itself ALSO has 10 foot reach.


LazarX wrote:
This trick pretty much goes south when the monster itself ALSO has 10 foot reach.

Or the monster falls for it once and decides to just murder someone else instead. Or if 1v1, decides that two can play that game and a tense stare down follows where whoever makes the first move loses.


Excellent! Thanks guys. And thanks for the ideas too *grinning maniacally*


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You'll get a lot of debate on exactly what the consequence of readied actions are for other characters, but I agree with your interpretation.

Your player moves using a readied action, and the monster can continue his move action (assuming he did not use up all his movement).


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Claxon wrote:
the monster can continue his move action (assuming he did not use up all his movement).

I really think that would depend on what the trigger for the readied action was. For instance, if it was something like "an enemy gets close enough to attack me," sure, the monster could just continue to move. But what if it was "a monster tries to attack me?" In that situation the monster would have already completed a move and then initiated a standard action. How is it moving again?

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder PF Special Edition, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Ciaran Barnes wrote:
He can ready a move action if he wants to get further away. Although, if he did include a 5 ft step as part of his readied action, the 5 ft step would not provoke (they never do). I think the best think to do would be ready action to 5 ft step towards the monster and attack, when it is 10 ft away. PC gets an attack, and monster is adjacent to his enemy carrying s reach weapon. If the monster wants to continue using his move action so he can back up and attack, he will provoke can attack from the PC.

In this scenario the PC still only gets to move on his turn. (you can only ready an action, you can't ready both an action AND a move) So unless his AOO dropped the monster, it's still going to get it's attacks, including pounce if it has it before the PC can make his 5 foot move.


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Pathfinder Maps Subscriber

The counter is for the monster to move adjacent to this PC and ready its own action. Because the PC has reach, he will get an AoO while the monster moves in, but he was going to get that anyway (readied action or not).


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LazarX wrote:
Ciaran Barnes wrote:
He can ready a move action if he wants to get further away. Although, if he did include a 5 ft step as part of his readied action, the 5 ft step would not provoke (they never do). I think the best think to do would be ready action to 5 ft step towards the monster and attack, when it is 10 ft away. PC gets an attack, and monster is adjacent to his enemy carrying s reach weapon. If the monster wants to continue using his move action so he can back up and attack, he will provoke can attack from the PC.
In this scenario the PC still only gets to move on his turn. (you can only ready an action, you can't ready both an action AND a move) So unless his AOO dropped the monster, it's still going to get it's attacks, including pounce if it has it before the PC can make his 5 foot move.

The PC can make a 5' step as part of a readied action.

10 PC readies an action that triggers when the creature enters an adjacent square.
20 Creature moves in gets hit by AoO for leaving a threatened square.
30 Readied action is triggered.
40 PC takes a 5' step and attacks. (Now 10' away).
50 PC is out of range and the creature is out of options.
60 If creature hit points >0 goto 10 else goto 70.
70 Celebrate and move to next target.
80 End.

I absolutely hate this tactic. It is nothing more than gaming the system. My players and I have all agreed that it is not a valid option at our table. YMMV.


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Komoda wrote:
LazarX wrote:
Ciaran Barnes wrote:
He can ready a move action if he wants to get further away. Although, if he did include a 5 ft step as part of his readied action, the 5 ft step would not provoke (they never do). I think the best think to do would be ready action to 5 ft step towards the monster and attack, when it is 10 ft away. PC gets an attack, and monster is adjacent to his enemy carrying s reach weapon. If the monster wants to continue using his move action so he can back up and attack, he will provoke can attack from the PC.
In this scenario the PC still only gets to move on his turn. (you can only ready an action, you can't ready both an action AND a move) So unless his AOO dropped the monster, it's still going to get it's attacks, including pounce if it has it before the PC can make his 5 foot move.

The PC can make a 5' step as part of a readied action.

10 PC readies an action that triggers when the creature enters an adjacent square.
20 Creature moves in gets hit by AoO for leaving a threatened square.
30 Readied action is triggered.
40 PC takes a 5' step and attacks. (Now 10' away).
50 PC is out of range and the creature is out of options.
60 If creature hit points >0 goto 10 else goto 70.
70 Celebrate and move to next target.
80 End.

I absolutely hate this tactic. It is nothing more than gaming the system. My players and I have all agreed that it is not a valid option at our table. YMMV.

You would have to ready the action for when the creature attacks you, not for when it enters the square. In your scenario, there is nothing stopping the creature from just taking an additional 5 ft more of movement as it hasn't actually finished its move action.


Except that he has declared his actions, and while I agree with you, a lot of people do not.


Readied action triggers before the attack, not sure if there is anything that forbids or allows creature to change its action (attack) to move action, as his action still not happened (readied resolved before).

And i wonder about chraging as square becomes not the closes square you can attack from, but if the movement keeps creature in streight line can it continue moving as long as it have movement left and ends movement in the correct square?

Sovereign Court

If the creature has pounce - he could ready to move after its first swing to keep it from making the rest of them - like the one Swashbuckler Deed. Otherwise - won't do much as - unless it's already attacked - it can just finish its move.

Sczarni

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DarkPhoenixx wrote:

Readied action triggers before the attack, not sure if there is anything that forbids or allows creature to change its action (attack) to move action, as his action still not happened (readied resolved before).

This is how I view it as well.

EDIT: realized that was unclear. Readied actions trigger beforehand. If the creature still has movement left, it continues its move and makes its attack.


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Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber
Komoda wrote:
Except that he has declared his actions, and while I agree with you, a lot of people do not.

Nowhere in the rules does anyone "declare" actions. They just get resolved. If the monster has at least 5 ft of movement left, he steps in and wails.

Now if the readied action was "if I get attacked" then there could be a problem. But moving is not an issue.


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Why isn't this character just using readied actions to trip lock with AoOs, Combat Reflexes, and Enlarge Person? Bonus points if you ready actions to trip the opponent once they are no longer prone so they have to spend their full round getting up and getting bashed.


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chaoseffect wrote:
Claxon wrote:
the monster can continue his move action (assuming he did not use up all his movement).

I really think that would depend on what the trigger for the readied action was. For instance, if it was something like "an enemy gets close enough to attack me," sure, the monster could just continue to move. But what if it was "a monster tries to attack me?" In that situation the monster would have already completed a move and then initiated a standard action. How is it moving again?

This is why I said there is debate.

Because in your case you have a readied action for "when the monster attacks me". But readied actions occur before the triggering action. So the monster looks like it's about to attack you, but actually hasn't. This triggers your action. You move. The way I see it the monster never started the attack aaction, and can still continue to move. He does so (assuming he does not run out of movement) and then attacks you anyways.

This is to prevent gaming the system, as Komoda states.

I can see the other side of the argument, that by saying you are attacking and triggering the readied aciton that you have ended your movement and spent your attack action. But frankly, that's a b*llshit metagamey way to run it and as a GM I'll have none of it.

Grand Lodge

Claxon wrote:
chaoseffect wrote:
Claxon wrote:
the monster can continue his move action (assuming he did not use up all his movement).

I really think that would depend on what the trigger for the readied action was. For instance, if it was something like "an enemy gets close enough to attack me," sure, the monster could just continue to move. But what if it was "a monster tries to attack me?" In that situation the monster would have already completed a move and then initiated a standard action. How is it moving again?

This is why I said there is debate.

Because in your case you have a readied action for "when the monster attacks me". But readied actions occur before the triggering action. So the monster looks like it's about to attack you, but actually hasn't. This triggers your action. You move. The way I see it the monster never started the attack aaction, and can still continue to move. He does so (assuming he does not run out of movement) and then attacks you anyways.

This is to prevent gaming the system, as Komoda states.

I can see the other side of the argument, that by saying you are attacking and triggering the readied aciton that you have ended your movement and spent your attack action. But frankly, that's a b*llshit metagamey way to run it and as a GM I'll have none of it.

Then you're literally stuck in a state of limbo because then the player never 5' stepped because the monster never attacked. So either the monster can't continue moving, or you just deadlocked your game.

Sczarni

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It's not a deadlock.

You take your five foot step when your readied attack goes off.

When your entire readied turn is over, the round reverts back to my turn.

And I finish my movement and pound you.

Grand Lodge

Pathfinder Adventure, Rulebook Subscriber

The problem with that Nefreet is that a 5ft step and a move action are separate actions. Since you can't take a 5ft step and a move action to move, if you take the 5ft step by the rules you can no longer move.

Now, I always allow a 5ft step to be continued into a move action, with any resulting AoOs, but by a strict reading I am altering the rules to do so.

Sczarni

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That's not what I said.

Defender states, "I ready to attack my enemy and five foot step away when it attacks me".

Offender is 20ft away, and has a 30ft speed.

Offender approaches 20ft to attack.

Defender's readied action goes off, interrupting the Offender. Defender moves back 5ft.

Offender has movement left, and hasn't begun to attack yet (since readied actions go off before the action that triggered them).

Offender finishes movement (perhaps even moving 10ft more) and attacks.

Grand Lodge

Nefreet wrote:

It's not a deadlock.

You take your five foot step when your readied attack goes off.

When your entire readied turn is over, the round reverts back to my turn.

And I finish my movement and pound you.

If the trigger is "when I get attacked, I move back 5'" then you're altering the state of the trigger after the effect has gone off. If you didn't attack, then I didn't move. But then if you do attack, I do move, which makes it so you keep moving and not attacking so I didn't move.

It either works or it didn't. You either attacked or you didn't. If you attacked you can't move. If you didn't attack I didn't move.

Sczarni

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I can't have attacked yet, since your ready goes offer before my action.

Grand Lodge

Nefreet wrote:
I can't have attacked yet, since your ready goes offer before my action.

It seems to me you started swinging and I darted back 5' as you sliced through the air.

If I don't pull the trigger, the gun never fires. It's that simple. You can't have a readied action go off if the GM renigs and changes what triggered the readied action after the action has gone off.

Sczarni

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Like others have said, no amount of shenaniganry is going to create a "lock". The rules weren't meant to be abused that way, and no sane GM will allow them to work that way.


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Readying an action that includes a 5 ft step can only be done when the creature has not moved on his turn, so in this scenario we must assume that the creature did not move on his turn.

"I ready an action that when the guy with the reach weapon is 10 feet away, I will take a 5-ft step towards him and make an attack."

Does that work?

Grand Lodge

Nefreet wrote:
Like others have said, no amount of shenaniganry is going to create a "lock". The rules weren't meant to be abused that way, and no sane GM will allow them to work that way.

If a sane GM has a single opponent with a 5' reach that can't do anything because a single person in a party of players is playing intelligently then that GM has other problems.


The whole thing is a problem because Paizo has never clearly defined what an interrupt actually interrupts. Some interrupt you so much you can't do anything. Some just change the order of events.

Without a 100% clear definition from Paizo, this debate will be 100% circular. It applies to Readied Actions and Attacks of Opportunity very often, but I am sure it applies to other aspects of the game as well.

Look up "Trip Lock" arguments. They are abound on these forums and some are hundreds of posts long. Even though we all know the end result is no trip lock, there is still a debate as to why and what else is possible during trip AoOs.

Again, I am only pointing out that the debate looms large, not claiming a side in it, in this forum.

Grand Lodge

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Ciaran Barnes wrote:

Readying an action that includes a 5 ft step can only be done when the creature has not moved on his turn, so in this scenario we must assume that the creature did not move on his turn.

"I ready an action that when the guy with the reach weapon is 10 feet away, I will take a 5-ft step towards him and make an attack."

Does that work?

Yeah, that's a completely legitimate readied action.


Nefreet wrote:
Like others have said, no amount of shenaniganry is going to create a "lock". The rules weren't meant to be abused that way, and no sane GM will allow them to work that way.

You can create trip locks, but not 5' locks. The trip locks typically rely on reach and readied actions. I play a character that will be able to do this quite well due to Ki Throw and 15' natural reach on unarmed melee attacks as of 5th level. If I use Ki Throw to position the enemy at the far end of my unarmed threatened area with each trip, I'm able to juggle them into a single spot while still getting ridiculous AoOs. Not only that, but once I have 15' of natural reach (Enlarge + Aberrant bloodline Bloodrager), I'll be able to trip them into taking falling damage, as well.


No kiting, because this (the tactic described by the OP) would only get you one initial AoO anyway. After the first time, you're only 5 feet away, so the monster need only 5-foot-step in, which doesn't provoke. Also this is an AoO that the player would have gotten anyway. If all the player does is ready steps, he is trading doing anything (other than using a move action to do something besides move I suppose) for running away. And even that fails to keep the monster occupied if it stops chasing the player.

Also, if the monster feels like trading blows, it readies a swipe at annoying player next time he is in range and then moves somewhere such that annoying player will be in range after a 5 foot. Player gets his aoo, and monster gets its swipe.

Sovereign Court RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32

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I just wouldn't allow "when he attacks me" to be a trigger for a readied action. It's not like the guy moves up and swings his sword once - the weapon is constantly in motion, with little feints and test swings that are abstracted away by the system. There's no good way to tell which is the "real" attack until after it's resolved. My personal rule is that a readied action must have a [b]clear[/I] trigger that is easily observable and exists within the in-game reality - no triggering off of metagame concepts. I don't believe the game system is designed to allow characters to have a "perfect dodge" just by readying actions.

"When he moves adjacent to me" is a fine trigger. It also allows the enemy to continue moving and avoids causality loops.


ryric wrote:
My personal rule is that a readied action must have a [b]clear[/I] trigger that is easily observable and exists within the in-game reality - no triggering off of metagame concepts.

I don't remember the exact language from when readied actions first became a game mechanic, but I believe it has always been a thing that you can be specific, or you can be general, but you absolutely must be clear.


Joe loves Rules - I interpreted the OPs question as potentially working like this:
Offender with 30' move is 20' away
You have reach weapon
You have readied an action to attack and step 5' when this opponent enters one of your threatened squares

Action
Offender moves 10', is 10' away in your threatened area, this triggers your readied action
You attack and step back 5', Offender is now 15' away from you
Offender moves 5' more, now back in your threatened area
Offender continues moving 5' more, triggering your AoO for your reach weapon
If these two attacks didn't stop the Offender (trips or fatal damage) then Offender ends adjacent to you (5' away), having moved 25'. Offender then attacks.

I've read a number of the trip-lock threads. IMHO most GMs will opt for this kind of flow - you get your attack for using a readied action and your AoO for using a reach weapon, but if they have the move, the opponent will get to you.


ryric wrote:

I just wouldn't allow "when he attacks me" to be a trigger for a readied action. It's not like the guy moves up and swings his sword once - the weapon is constantly in motion, with little feints and test swings that are abstracted away by the system. There's no good way to tell which is the "real" attack until after it's resolved. My personal rule is that a readied action must have a [b]clear[/I] trigger that is easily observable and exists within the in-game reality - no triggering off of metagame concepts. I don't believe the game system is designed to allow characters to have a "perfect dodge" just by readying actions.

"When he moves adjacent to me" is a fine trigger. It also allows the enemy to continue moving and avoids causality loops.

When a round was 1 minute long, years ago, attacks counted as the "good" attacks for the round, much like you describe. Now they represent the actual attacks. There is no rules basis to disallow "when he attacks me" as a trigger.


Isn't one movement counts as one opportunity?


Yes. And 3 movements also counts as one opportunity.

Grand Lodge

If the player abuses the "when he moves next to me", have the monster continue movement as described above with a readied action of his own "to attack when I am attacked". The bad guys RA will interrupt the PC's RA. Note: Next round the bad guy will act 1st relative to the PC since the bad guys readied action occurred before the PC's initiative wise. This will prevent a 5' step lock and expose the PC to a round of full attacks before trying it again.

If the player abuses the "when attacked in melee" RA, have the monster range attack or bypass the PC enough the Bad guy can attack another player if the 1st steps out of range.

To the original question, movement will simply continue as the PC interrupts the movement phase of the bad guy, not stop it. He can simply finish the move and hit him normally (if enough movement remains).

Grand Lodge

Grey_Mage wrote:

If the player abuses the "when he moves next to me", have the monster continue movement as described above with a readied action of his own "to attack when I am attacked". The bad guys RA will interrupt the PC's RA. Note: Next round the bad guy will act 1st relative to the PC since the bad guys readied action occurred before the PC's initiative wise. This will prevent a 5' step lock and expose the PC to a round of full attacks before trying it again.

If the player abuses the "when attacked in melee" RA, have the monster range attack or bypass the PC enough the Bad guy can attack another player if the 1st steps out of range.

If it's one on one and they both are standing there readying actions to attack when they're attacked then neither one is attacking and neither action goes off. If the readied action is "when he moves next to me" then there isn't any problem to begin with as the monster still has movement and can just keep moving up to the PC after he 5' steps back and then make his attack.


Pathfinder Adventure Path, Lost Omens, Rulebook, Starfinder Roleplaying Game Subscriber

I think we're all pretty much in agreement that readying around movement doesn't cause issues, but readying around attacks can.

I'm curious what the thoughts are regarding readying when attacked, and then you get charged?


RegUS PatOff wrote:

Joe loves Rules - I interpreted the OPs question as potentially working like this:

Offender with 30' move is 20' away
You have reach weapon
You have readied an action to attack and step 5' when this opponent enters one of your threatened squares

Action
Offender moves 10', is 10' away in your threatened area, this triggers your readied action
You attack and step back 5', Offender is now 15' away from you
Offender moves 5' more, now back in your threatened area
Offender continues moving 5' more, triggering your AoO for your reach weapon
If these two attacks didn't stop the Offender (trips or fatal damage) then Offender ends adjacent to you (5' away), having moved 25'. Offender then attacks.

I've read a number of the trip-lock threads. IMHO most GMs will opt for this kind of flow - you get your attack for using a readied action and your AoO for using a reach weapon, but if they have the move, the opponent will get to you.

What you are describing is clearly a different kiting attempt from what the OP described. OP clearly described the step as the readied action and the attack as coming from an AoO and not readied action. This does not work for the reasons I stated above. Your described kiting attempt is an interesting concept that has different answers which probably deserve their own thread for the benefit of future rules seekers searching this forum.

Grand Lodge

Chemlak wrote:

I think we're all pretty much in agreement that readying around movement doesn't cause issues, but readying around attacks can.

I'm curious what the thoughts are regarding readying when attacked, and then you get charged?

I don't see a problem with it.

This isn't intended to be a snide remark or a jab at Nefreet, but I'd imagine he'd change/continue the charge to the target. If you'd do it differently I'd like to know how.

Silver Crusade

I don't see any problem here. Like people said, no sane GM will allow this tactic to deny an attack to the incoming foe. If it has movement remaining it moves 5' more then attacks. Seems totally legitimate.

I do take minor exception to the PC using this tactic, mostly because there are better tactics. The PC might consider "I ready an action to attack the first foe tocome within reach" instead. That gets the PC two attacks (one readied action and one AoO) before the foe is adjacent. If the PC did not move at all on their turn then it's also fine to tack on a 5' step.

Sczarni

claudekennilol wrote:
Chemlak wrote:

I think we're all pretty much in agreement that readying around movement doesn't cause issues, but readying around attacks can.

I'm curious what the thoughts are regarding readying when attacked, and then you get charged?

I don't see a problem with it.

This isn't intended to be a snide remark or a jab at Nefreet, but I'd imagine he'd change/continue the charge to the target. If you'd do it differently I'd like to know how.

The tactic of sidestepping 5ft could work against a charging opponent.

Envision the matador.

But it'd only work if your 5ft step could get you out of the charge line, because otherwise the bull just continues its charge another 5ft.

Grand Lodge RPG Superstar 2015 Top 32, RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32

Nefreet wrote:
The tactic of sidestepping 5ft could work against a charging opponent.

Now wait a second:

Earlier, Nefreet wrote:
your ready goes off before my action.

Charging is a single, full-round action.

So the readied action to 5ft step to the side when the charger gets in range will, according to your own explanations earlier in the thread, happen before the full-round action made to charge.

I think there might be a flaw in your logic, Nefreet.

Sczarni

Jiggy,

The charger can continue to "connect" the charge even though you readied action to 5 ft. step away. This is all happening in the same round. There are circumstances though if you 5 ft. step behind cover which might block the charge in that case.

@Sjark
This entire tactic is fundamentally wrong in general. Even if it was completely legal by the rules, which is not, it will provide nothing good to combat encounters. This would merely prolong combat overall and I can guarantee that players wouldn't like it if GM was using the same tactic against lv 15 barbarian with CR 1/3 creature. It's both annoying and pointless from both sides.

Liberty's Edge

Malag wrote:

Jiggy,

The charger can continue to "connect" the charge even though you readied action to 5 ft. step away. This is all happening in the same round. There are circumstances though if you 5 ft. step behind cover which might block the charge in that case.

@Sjark
This entire tactic is fundamentally wrong in general. Even if it was completely legal by the rules, which is not, it will provide nothing good to combat encounters. This would merely prolong combat overall and I can guarantee that players wouldn't like it if GM was using the same tactic against lv 15 barbarian with CR 1/3 creature. It's both annoying and pointless from both sides.

Ratatat-at (sound of 15th level BarBar just drawing a bow and firing).

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