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Can you have a readied action, who can be triggered by diferent actions?
We have this one in our game table:
The fighter declared that he readies his action: "If the evil wizard tries to flee from my threatened area or cast an spell, I'll attack him"
The GM says -after the evil guy moved and casted- that you cannot put that kind of trigger "By Rules, it's just "If A then B". Not "If A or B then C"
We say that the text for readying actions is:
Readying an Action
You can ready a standard action, a move action, a swift action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the condiTIONS (plural) under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condiTION. (Singular)
We said clearly that you can ready just ONE action: A "If he cast I'll attack and if he flees I'll get my bow" is out of the question -you're not readying ONE action, but readying TWO-
So... What do you think? It's ok to use the "OR" word in the trigger?
"You can ready a standard/free/move etc action"
" ...in response to that condition."
It's singular. You choose one action in response to one trigger.
For this reason, we don't allow "OR" in it, otherwise you basically can do whatever you want.
Example:
I ready my action to perform an attack if he moves or casts a spell or blinks or takes a five foot step or casts defensively or drinks a potion or...
you get the idea.
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I am involved in the same game than Souhiro. This is a very important issue since the alluded warrior moved previously to flank the wizard and wanted to make sure he either prevented the wizard's spellcasting or at least have the chance to attack before he got out of reach.
I believe allowing just one trigger for a readied action leaves the gate open for metagaming:
So, this guy readied to attack my BBE wizard if he casts an spell, great, I'll just move him away 5 feet and cast the spell anyway...
@alex1976: you can't do anything you want with a ready action, just the action you prepared but (RAW) it is clear you can have more than one trigger. IMHO, of course.
More opinions? Any official answer or FAQ would be appreciated.
Plural "conditions" does not necessarily imply "a or b". It could mean "a and b". It could mean both, actually. But the point is that it is not "clear you can have more than one trigger".
To clarify what I mean:
I ready an action to make an attack at an enemy who casts a spell and looks at me - this is ONE trigger that has two conditions.
I ready an action to make an attack at an enemy who casts a spell or looks at me - this is TWO triggers that each have one condition.
I think the first is allowed (but you might miss your chance to attack a guy who casts a spell without looking at you so you would probably never limit your readied action this way - but it's still allowed if you want to). I am not so sure that the second is allowed, for reasons that Alex mentioned (if you can just chain an unlimited number of triggers together with an unlimited number of "or" conjunctions, then you get to ready your action for EVERYTHING you can imagine).
In addition, even the wording in the RAW is ambiguous:
To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition.
Note the first bolded "conditions" (plural) and the second bolded "condition" (singular).
I guess it could go either way, but the infinite "or" scenario makes me inclined to prefer the singular interpretation.
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So if the player reworded his trigger by saying : "I ready an attack if he does anything else than surrender" you would allow it?? It basically covers more actions than what he actually said without using "or" in that sentence.
I have just read a phrase that I liked, regarding this ready action issue: "Do not ruleslaw as a DM, and your players will not be forced to ruleslaw you in return..."
I am involved in the same game than Souhiro. This is a very important issue since the alluded warrior moved previously to flank the wizard and wanted to make sure he either prevented the wizard's spellcasting or at least have the chance to attack before he got out of reach.
I believe allowing just one trigger for a readied action leaves the gate open for metagaming:
So, this guy readied to attack my BBE wizard if he casts an spell, great, I'll just move him away 5 feet and cast the spell anyway...
@alex1976: you can't do anything you want with a ready action, just the action you prepared but (RAW) it is clear you can have more than one trigger. IMHO, of course.
More opinions? Any official answer or FAQ would be appreciated.
You are looking at this I assume:
"To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition."
I presume the bolded section is your focus here.
The LAST word in that paragraph can't be ignored here.
For example, I will describe the conditions that will trigger my firing of a crossbossbow.
Condition 1-door opening
Condition 2-human being the creature opening door
Condition 3-human is wearing the red shirt I saw earlier
These are multiple conditions, and can also be described this way:
If the man I saw before (the one in the red shirt) opens the door, I will fire my crossbow into his chest.
It would appear that you are reading it more like this:
Condition 1-door opening
Condition 2-someone coming down hallway (also visible from where you are standing)
Condition 3-enemy currently in melee (a third potential target) moves closer to me.
If you read it the second way, I can see where there would be some debate.
At our table, we use the first way, sort of like programming:
If A, then B, where A is a description of the single event that triggers B, though A can have multiple components to clarify it, like the guy in the red shirt example.
The second way would look more like this:
If A, then B
If C, then B
If D, then B
It's three different situations that trigger one action, which I don't think is the intent of the action.
I feel like I haven't been clear on this, so I will just point out that using the Delay action allows you to act normally just later... the idea behind a readied action is for fast, simple reactions to things, not a free way to just do whatever you like, whenever you like.
Hope that helps.
So if the player reworded his trigger by saying : "I ready an attack if he does anything else than surrender" you would allow it?? It basically covers more actions than what he actually said without using "or" in that sentence.
I have just read a phrase that I liked, regarding this ready action issue: "Do not ruleslaw as a DM, and your players will not be forced to ruleslaw you in return..."
Nope, I would make him select a condition that would trigger his readied action. Saying "My trigger will be every imaginable condition except surrendering" is nowhere near the RAW, nor I am sure the RAI, of the Ready action.
What part of my previous post made you focus on the "or" as if that were the only objection I had? The real objection is using an infinitely large list of conditions that would ultimately cover everything that could be done by every combatant that could exist. A clever (and verbose) player could literally just list a few gazillion conditions that will trigger him doing whatever he wants to do. A cleverer player could just say "Hey, GM, you know I'm gonna spend the next 20 minutes describing my triggers, so why not just say I ready for all things and let us move on with the combat". Knowing that, the devs should have just made that the rule:
You ready to make your action on any trigger that suits your fancy; no need to specify it in advance, let's just assume you did and save the time to list all the possible triggers."
But they didn't write it that way and I have not heard that this erratum is forthcoming, so the assumption is that they wanted to the draw the line somewhere. Probably somewhere less than infinite triggers. Probably less than a million triggers. Probably less than a thousand triggers. Probably less than a hundred triggers. Probably even less than 10 triggers. Probably even less than 2 triggers.
Yep, one trigger. There's the line.
Yeah, that's it. "I ready an action to NOT cut his freaking head off if he falls to the ground and surrenders; else I do!"
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Actually, I'm very willing to accept "I ready an action to cut his freaking head off if he takes an aggressive action". I don't require the player to specify WHICH aggressive action.
On an unrelated note, my favorite readied action is:
I ready an action to CHOMP anything I can reach, but only if it's yummy!
(two conditions, one trigger)
(not really, since EVERYTHING is yummy...)
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Just to clarify, DM_Blake, I would never feel the need to issue an infinite number of clauses for an action. Even more than one trigger would be illegal if it affects more that 1 target (as per alex1976 example).
I just wanted to make a point that it is unreal to think that a warrior trying to kill a wizard (on the long term) or at least prevent his spellcasting (on the short term) will let him walk away just because he just happened to decide he was going to take a step back before casting his spell. Mainly because the warrior is likely to know that one spell is coming up right after that 5 feet step.
I think it is reasonable for a DM to allow certain rules flexibility. It is when there is no flexibility that ruleslawyering rears its ugly head...
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Heh, brutality jokes aside, the point stands that 'readying an action for if a command is disobeyed' totally makes sense.
So, actually telling the guy to surrender makes ready action more efficient?? That way you can attack him if he does nearly anything.
Sorry, I could not resist the temptation of some good ol' trolling ;D
I suppose it comes down to GM interpretation, but seems illogical to me not to allow that course of action. The police example (joking aside) is a perfect example of a ready and interrupt action.
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Personally, I like yelling "Surrender!" and then cutting down the opponent.
They should have readied an action to respond to someone yelling "Surrender!"
Heh, brutality jokes aside, the point stands that 'readying an action for if a command is disobeyed' totally makes sense.So, actually telling the guy to surrender makes ready action more efficient?? That way you can attack him if he does nearly anything.
Sorry, I could not resist the temptation of some good ol' trolling ;D
I suppose it comes down to GM interpretation, but seems illogical to me not to allow that course of action. The police example (joking aside) is a perfect example of a ready and interrupt action.
Actually, I'm inclined to agree with the idea. I have in the past said something to the effect of:
I use my action to, instead of attacking him, ready an action to attack him if he doesn't surrender, then as my free action, I give him the option to surrender.
Hardly a rules abuse, it's really just you being courteous, and giving an opponent a chance to live, rather than just cutting him down.
I agree with kurt.
I also don't think that the extra trigger from the initial question really matters.
If the fighter goes up to a wizard and readies an action to attack the wizard if he casts a spell, this is all perfectly reasonable.
It is also perfectly reasonable for a wizard to move away from a guy with a big sword who wants to hit him.
Can the fighter now attack the wizard using his initial readied action?
The answer is he doesn't need to, thats what AOOs are for.
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I agree with kurt.
I also don't think that the extra trigger from the initial question really matters.If the fighter goes up to a wizard and readies an action to attack the wizard if he casts a spell, this is all perfectly reasonable.
It is also perfectly reasonable for a wizard to move away from a guy with a big sword who wants to hit him.Can the fighter now attack the wizard using his initial readied action?
The answer is he doesn't need to, thats what AOOs are for.
Not if he tales a 5-ft step, which is what the wizard did and does not provoke an AoO.
I'm not picky about conditions for readied action, as long as it's not "I'll do it as soon as I feel like it". It's also because I don't want metagaming to get in the way, because me knowing that a specific unit will take a hit for doing one specific action will alter the way I play it. I'm not saying that I'll avoid doing that action, maybe it's the opposite because otherwise it feels like I'm metagaming.
My point exactly. This was made worse in this case because it was a PbP game where the warrior's player made the attack roll in advance and rolled and obvious hit, which would probably had taken the wizard out of commission.
Not saying our DM metagamed. Just pointing out the potential for abuse is there if you do not allow more than one trigger.| 1 person marked this as FAQ candidate. 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Do you know what? By RAW and even by Alexd (The most restrictive answers) the "Or" conditios isn't allowed, but at least the "And" is.
And obviously, the "Not" is allowed!
So... Do anyone else knows the DeMorgan laws?
I don't even want to think about using formal logic to craft readied actions.
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Your DMs a jerk. You can do multiple conditions, its just what your character is watching for. Even with a hardline ruling the fighter could have done the exact same thing if he had said "i attack if he makes any sudden moves". one condition that would work if he cast or ran, plus if he drew a dagger or something.
Its a game people. try to keep it fun and realistic. The fighters not a robot running on C++
Most sensible answer so far. And before I get beaten to dead for supporting the first person who gives the warrior's player the benefit of the doubt, please allow me to elaborate.
I still don't get how some of the posters are willing to accept a vague, purposely obscure, catch-all trigger like: "I attack if he does not surrender" instead of "I attack if he tries to cast a spell or to move beyond my reach" just because there is a POTENTIAL abuse by allowing the unholy OR word ;D
The trigger set by the warrior player was not obscure, did not mean to be abusive and it is very clear rules-wise. Do you really prefer a player who gives deliverately vague conditions to bend the rules and make sure he gets his way? Or would you rather, as a DM, be willing to trust his goodwill and allow him to attack if you honestly were planning on the wizard doing anything that would trigger the OP conditions?
Which table will you rather be on?
RPG Superstar 2010 Top 32
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It say conditions, plural, so we just play "If he does something I don't like, I do X."
The readied action, however, is a very specific and pre-defined one - cast magic missile, attack with my sword, shield bash him in the face. The condition is basically "one false move."
It saves a lot of arguments - you are just holding a very specific action, and giving the opponent a chance. Your fist is in the air, your sword is hovering beside the opening door... if you don't like what you see it comes down.
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Sensible to whom? Not to the rules.
I thought we all agreed that this particular case was not contemplated in the rules, and therefore open to interpretation...
So, around this story, the only two things I would argue with the GM would be if the other player knew the trigger condition, the same thing would happen if the DM had metagamed my trigger on a NPC. Not that the trigger was legal, which should have been, and was not. That was a lost cause.
The other thing is that if the GM knew was not a legal trigger, he/she should have said in advance, so the player could change it to a legal one. Saying that it fails because was not legal was quite good trolling from his/her side.
Wether it was legal or not depends on the rules so again is not clear. But I wholeheartedly agree with you that giving the player the chance to change the trigger would have been the best solution by far ;D
Regarding the OP I'm inclined to consider it a 'Delay' rather than 'Readying an Action'.
Because the fighter is waiting to see what happens before he decides what/how he is going to act, he loses the initiative advantage of 'readying' (going before his opponent) and therefore takes his action after he sees what he does. In waiting for his opponent to act first he loses the initiative and thus Delays.
I tend to prefer treating these situations as 'Wait Until' instead of 'If [Condition(s)] Then [Action]'. With Delay or Ready there is some element of 'Waiting' going on. The Ready is more specific (and active) than the (responsive) Delay.
Yes really! You would be correct if the Ready Action was 'I'll attack if the wizard does anything other than standing very still...' OR 'If his heel lifts from the ground to move backwards I'll attack'
But the OP's fighter has stated he is waiting to see what the opponent does - either flee or cast - and is therefore responding to his actions.
Your statements appear to be based on what you imagine/assume he would be doing, not on what the fighter has actually stated he is doing. It could be construed that you are actually adding further conditions to his 'Ready Action' to cover all possibilities.
Someone above mentions the AoO, which would give the fighter the first opportunity anyway.
This is a simple matter of logic.
You say:
I ready an action to hit him with my sword if...
...he brandishes a weapon.
...he swings a weapon at me.
...he swings a weapon at my allies.
...he attacks me with a natural weapon.
...he attacks my allies with a natural weapon.
...he begins casting a spell.
...he begins activating a SLA.
...he begins activating any (Su) ability.
...he begins activating any (Ex) ability.
...he begins activating any class ability.
...he begins activating any racial ability.
...he appears to be concentrating on something.
...he reaches into a pocket.
...he reaches into a belt pouch.
...he reaches into a backpack.
...he reaches into a satchel.
...he reaches into his sleeve.
...he tries to activate a magic item.
...he points at me.
...he points at my allies.
...he says something that might be a spell.
...he says something that might be a command word.
...he says something that might be commanding his allies to attack.
...etc. (you can add to this list anything else you think of)
Now, you could do that. You could be that thorough. It's tedious, but you could. And if you could, then you should - if you leave something out, then that might be the thing the enemy does and you won't get your AoO, so you better be that thorough every time.
Or we could simplify it to:
I ready an action to hit him with my sword if...
...he does anything that I deem justifies hitting him.
Yeah, that's much simpler.
I suggest that if you're going to do the first one, then you should just save time and do the second one.
But wait...
This is where the logic comes in.
If you can do that, just ready your action to hit him with your sword NO MATTER WHAT HE DOES then why is it necessary to specify any condition or conditions at all?
Answer: it wouldn't be necessary. Period. If ALL POSSIBLE CONDITIONS trigger the readied action, then you don't need to specify conditions at all.
So now we can restate the simple version with an even more succinct version that says exactly the same thing:
I ready an action to hit him with my sword.
Sweet. Simple. Elegant.
Now you hit him with your sword no matter what he does and you didn't waste any time or words with unnecessary conditions.
Perfect.
Except, now it's definitely not RAW.
[b]RAW says you need to specify at least one condition that will trigger the readied action.[b] It's admittedly fuzzy on how many because in two consecutive sentences the rule says "conditions" (plural) and "condition" (singular) so there is ambiguity about how many conditions but there is no ambiguity at all about the need for at least one condition.
Now it's time for that logic to come in.
So if we cannot use any of these, what can we use?
How about:
I ready an action to hit him with my sword if...
...he swings a weapon at me or my allies.
...he begins casting a spell.
...he begins activating a SLA.
...he reaches into a pocket.
...he tries to activate a magic item.
Well, maybe.
But where do we draw the line? If "conditions" is truly meant to be plural, why would we allow the Less-Thorough Readied Action but disallow the Thorough Readied Action?
Answer: We wouldn't. If one is OK, then both are OK.
But we know the Thorough Readied action is not allowed (see previous logic) so that means the Less-Thorough Readied Action is also not allowed.
How about:
I ready an action to hit him with my sword if...
...he swings a weapon
...he tries to activate a magic item.
Now we're trying to re-draw the line down to just two conditions.
But if we can do the Least-Thorough Readied Action then we should be able to do the Less-Thorough Readied Action, but we know we can't. Therefore we also cannot do the Least-Thorough Readied Action.
Which brings us, through simple logic, to stating just one single condition which (as I've demonstrated in an earlier post in this thread) might be made plural with an "and", just not with an "or" - which validates the RAW using both "conditions" (plural) and "condition" (singular).
I believe, and seem to have demonstrated, that this is the only RAW interpretation that makes sense, though as I've also said, I'm personally not this strict in my games.
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I think the condition should be clear enough, and objective enough. Any external observer should be able to quickly and easily adjudicate whether the event matches the trigger or not.
"Unless he does what I just told him to" is broad but clear and objective. The wizard either complies, doesn't, or bluffs the fighter into thinking he complied. All of these can be judged by an external observer (GM, bystander), assisted by some Bluff/Sense Motive checks maybe.
"If he does something I don't like" is not clear and objective enough. It can't be fairly judged by anyone else than the fighter and that makes it an invalid condition in my eyes.
"If he does one of the following 20 things" is too complicated, too. Lists aren't okay. Broad categories are. "If he casts a spell or channels or uses a supernatural ability or activates an item..." is too much I think. "If he does anything magical" is a fine and clear condition.
DM is right.
You can't ready a move action AND a standard action.
Ready clearly says "You can ready a standard action, a move action, a swift action, OR a free action".
If you ready an action to hit him, he can 5 ft step, if you ready an action to follow him, he can cast defensively and cast anyway.
Rules wise, you cannot do what you wanted to do. There are feats for this: Step Up
Benefit: Whenever an adjacent foe attempts to take a 5-foot step away from you, you may also make a 5-foot step as an immediate action so long as you end up adjacent to the foe that triggered this ability.
If you ready an action to hit him under a circumstance that includes a 5 foot step, you hit him when he 5 foot steps. Yes you miss out on the opportunity to AoO him when he does something after that, but at least you swung at him [which, if I recall correctly, was part of the intent behind the OP.]
If the OP wanted to hit him no matter what, just hit the enemy on your turn.
If you want to disrupt spell-casting then leave it to a Ranged User.If you want to force a Defensive Casting, then get Step Up or Reach Weapon (and start a whole new discussion about whether you can threaten with armor spikes while using a 2h weapon)
If you haven't moved at all during the round you readied your action, you can take a 5' step as part of your readied action.
A simple "I'll attack when he starts casting" is sometimes enough because of that, and inexperienced GMs don't see it coming.
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There's a risk of course. If you ready an action in such a way that a 5ft step itself triggers it ("he does anything other than surrendering"), you get your chance to strike before the wizard starts casting, not during. So you won't interrupt his spell. It does come close to guaranteeing that you'll some of what you want no matter what he does, but you're not as certain that you'll get everything that you want.
@Letric: there is a way to 5ft-step during a readied action, but you can only do that if you didn't move during your turn.
You can take a 5-foot step as part of your readied action, but only if you don't otherwise move any distance during the round.
There's a risk of course. If you ready an action in such a way that a 5ft step itself triggers it ("he does anything other than surrendering"), you get your chance to strike before the wizard starts casting, not during. So you won't interrupt his spell. It does come close to guaranteeing that you'll some of what you want no matter what he does, but you're not as certain that you'll get everything that you want.
@Letric: there is a way to 5ft-step during a readied action, but you can only do that if you didn't move during your turn.
You can take a 5-foot step as part of your readied action, but only if you don't otherwise move any distance during the round.
Thanks for pointing it out, didn't notice it. I guess I'm on the side of hitting first and letting the ranged Ready Actions, seems more productive.
OP, I agree with your DM. You don't choose two different things. but you can put qualifiers on one thing. I attack the first enemy in reach. I attack the first enemy skeleton in reach. I attack the first enemy skeleton in reach that is wielding a dagger. All one thing, but adding conditions onto when that one thing is triggered. Not I attack the first or second enemy in reach. Nor I ready to attack if he does this or that. As these have two options that trigger.
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If you ready an action to hit him under a circumstance that includes a 5 foot step, you hit him when he 5 foot steps. Yes you miss out on the opportunity to AoO him when he does something after that, but at least you swung at him [which, if I recall correctly, was part of the intent behind the OP.]
That was exactly the player's intent. Disrupt the spellcasting or at least wound the wizard before he got out of range. Ready action was, as you say later, the better tool to get the job done. And the player moved to flank previously that turn, so he couldn't take the 5-ft step to follow the wizard. Thus he placed both conditions to make sure the mage did not get away.
That is esentially the point. You can make a long and tedious list of actions to trigger an attack, but the only real benefit of readying in most cases is preventing the wizard from blasting your group's asses into oblivion.
There is no point in preparing an action to interrupt some foe pointing a finger at my PC, reaching into a pocket or anything else that is not prevented by damaging him/her in the act. If I want him dead, I would just attack him in my turn or just state "I attack if he does anything hostile"
See in your example of the intent he's readying two actions. He wanted to do A or B. Just because both involve hitting doesn't make it all one trigger.
There is no point in preparing an action to interrupt some foe pointing a finger at my PC, reaching into a pocket or anything else
Except that pointing a finger might be prelude to using a spell or SLA or other ability that requires a target. Some of those other abilities might not even directly provoke, so maybe you just want to whack him now. And reaching into a pocket might mean pulling out something dangerous, like a grenade or an imp. Maybe the guy even has something he can use INSIDE the pocket like slipping a Ring of Invisibility onto his finger, or rubbing a Word of Recall item to activate it - all without even pulling it out and making his intent obvious.
Won't you have egg on your face if you ready your action to prevent him from casting a spell but he reaches into his pocket (not spellcasting so doesn't trigger your readied action) and then Poof! He disappears.
Better to be safe than sorry. Better to be thorough than sloppy. Ready for EVERYTHING.
Except that readying for everything is not the RAW or the RAI, but who are we to worry about such trivial things as rules?