Readied actions vs invisible opponents


Rules Questions


Hey folks,

So I've been trying to find info on this, and I haven't found something in these threads that deals specifically with such a situation.

I have a wizard in my game that has readied an action to cast Magic Missile against the next enemy that takes a hostile action against the party.

There is a bandit standing right behind her, who is currently invisible thanks to a potion. Said bandit is next up on the initiative, and is about to stab the wizard with its rapier.

How is the readied action handled in this case? I know that the rule is that they happen right before the triggering attack, but is there a clause for when the PC that has readied the action is unaware of said attack? Would the readied action trigger right after the attack? Would it not trigger at all in this instance, only to trigger against another enemy hostile act later in the initiative?

Any thoughts on this are much appreciated. Thanks in advance!

Liberty's Edge

The wizard is the one determining whether an action is hostile. The readied action will be triggered by the first action that the wizard perceives as hostile. Invisible attack will not trigger it


So if this is the last "hostile" action in the round, would the wizard then lose her action altogether? Or could she just take the readied action AFTER the attack by the invisible attacker?

I get that she is unaware of the attack for obvious reasons, but I'm trying to figure out if it would be possible for her to still cast her readied Magic Missile against her attacker after he surprises her with a rapier in the back.

Thanks for the input! :)


The readied condition doesnt end at the end of the round, it would carry over into the next round and would only be wasted if not triggered by the time the wizard's next initiative would come up.

I would allow the Wizard to use their readied action after the invisible attack is made against them. I would not let it pre-empt the attack like a normal readied action (in the case where the MM dmg could drop the attacker), but that's probably my own interpretation rather than strict RAW.


Thanks for the input guys!

I was considering doing just that, allowing her to use the readied MM against the attacker who just got the jump on her. It makes the most sense really, since that guy would be the most immediate threat to her anyway.


It's kind of a moot point in this situation, you wont be able to target an invisible attacker with MM since it requires line of sight.

That being said, if it was something that didn't require line of sight you can target the square they are in after they've hit you, or if you have scent/tremorsense/blindfight you can do it before they hit you (although you will have to roll for their 50% concealment miss chance).


Ridiculon wrote:

It's kind of a moot point in this situation, you wont be able to target an invisible attacker with MM since it requires line of sight.

That being said, if it was something that didn't require line of sight you can target the square they are in after they've hit you, or if you have scent/tremorsense/blindfight you can do it before they hit you (although you will have to roll for their 50% concealment miss chance).

He's talking about a retaliatory attack after the Invisibility has dropped, though.


Reactions happen just before the thing that triggers them. In this case he won't have a valid target until after the thing that is triggering his reaction. Again, if he was just trying to club the guy over the head it'd be fine, but since the guy was invisible (and therefore not a valid MM target) before the attack he is perfectly safe from that readied magic missile.

Before the bad guy hits the wizard he is not a valid target for MM, so he cannot react with a MM.


That's a very pedantic reading of the rules. There's nothing that forces the wizard to react precisely before the initiating action. In fact the devs have said that's more of an initiative bookkeeping thing than a real description of the flow of actions.

For example, someone can ready an action to attack someone who opens a closed door, even if they can't technically target the person before the door is opened.

Liberty's Edge

I think allowing readied actions to happen after the triggering event opens a whole can of worms. YMMV


So you be counter pedantic and set the trigger to "an instant passes after someone's invisibility drops", achieving the same result in a much less elegant fashion.


QuidEst wrote:
So you be counter pedantic and set the trigger to "an instant passes after someone's invisibility drops", achieving the same result in a much less elegant fashion.

That's exactly how i'd do it actually haha, as long as i knew that my attacker was invisible to begin with. But if you don't know ahead of time that your attacker is invisible then you're SOL as far as line of sight spells go, its a preparedness thing. In this case a nice heavy stick will be a better tool than a magic missile.


How does that make any sense? If an attacker turned visible the instant before he attacked, you could target him and attack with a readied action, but if he turns visible a half-second later, after he's already attacked, you can't?

Can you explain that in any way that makes any sense?


*shrug* that's how the rules work, you can house rule it any way you want, but by the rules a readied action happens before the thing that triggered it.

Unfortunately in this case you have an invalid target until after the selected trigger, so if you want to have a valid target you need to choose a different trigger, or a different action.

If you use 'a few seconds after the next hostile action against the party' as your trigger then you are covered for line of sight spells, it would be a smart thing to do if you want to counter invisibility with line of sight spells.

This is a strength of invisibility vs LOS spells honestly. As i said before, a nice heavy stick will not have this problem since you have a 50% chance to hit instead of a 0% chance.

EDIT: please note, i'm not trying to claim that this makes sense in a real world way, im just saying this is how the base rule set works.


The Raven Black wrote:
The wizard is the one determining whether an action is hostile. The readied action will be triggered by the first action that the wizard perceives as hostile. Invisible attack will not trigger it

An invisible opponent is not a valid target for Magic Missle.


The Raven Black wrote:
I think allowing readied actions to happen after the triggering event opens a whole can of worms. YMMV

Yes, e.g. perma tripping becomes a thing.


Jagster87 wrote:

So if this is the last "hostile" action in the round, would the wizard then lose her action altogether? Or could she just take the readied action AFTER the attack by the invisible attacker?

I get that she is unaware of the attack for obvious reasons, but I'm trying to figure out if it would be possible for her to still cast her readied Magic Missile against her attacker after he surprises her with a rapier in the back.

Thanks for the input! :)

I would say that the mage would be able to take the readied action after the backstab. She would lose the ability to "interrupt" (which in this case is largely meaningless unless it has the possibility of knocking the enemy unconscious) due to not being able to perceive the threat before the attack.


Snowlilly wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
I think allowing readied actions to happen after the triggering event opens a whole can of worms. YMMV
Yes, e.g. perma tripping becomes a thing.

Huh? With a READIED ACTION you can absolute keep trying to trip someone right as they get up. You just can't do that with an AoO, and you won't get the +4 to hit for them being prone if you wait until they are on their feet.


_Ozy_ wrote:
Snowlilly wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
I think allowing readied actions to happen after the triggering event opens a whole can of worms. YMMV
Yes, e.g. perma tripping becomes a thing.
Huh? With a READIED ACTION you can absolute keep trying to trip someone right as they get up. You just can't do that with an AoO, and you won't get the +4 to hit for them being prone if you wait until they are on their feet.

Readied action precedes the triggering action.

If you ready an action to trip when someone else stands up, the trip attempt occurs prior to the person standing. The person acting can still stand after your trip attempt resolves.


Snowlilly wrote:
_Ozy_ wrote:
Snowlilly wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
I think allowing readied actions to happen after the triggering event opens a whole can of worms. YMMV
Yes, e.g. perma tripping becomes a thing.
Huh? With a READIED ACTION you can absolute keep trying to trip someone right as they get up. You just can't do that with an AoO, and you won't get the +4 to hit for them being prone if you wait until they are on their feet.

Readied action precedes the triggering action.

If you ready an action to trip when someone else stands up, the trip attempt occurs prior to the person standing. The person acting can still stand after your trip attempt resolves.

Sigh, no. Nobody should enforce readied actions like that, otherwise you force players to say, "I ready an action to attack for the first thing the creature does immediately after they stand up."

You should just let them say: "I ready an action to trip a creature as soon as it stands up." Because otherwise you're being needlessly pedantic.


_Ozy_ wrote:
Snowlilly wrote:
_Ozy_ wrote:
Snowlilly wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
I think allowing readied actions to happen after the triggering event opens a whole can of worms. YMMV
Yes, e.g. perma tripping becomes a thing.
Huh? With a READIED ACTION you can absolute keep trying to trip someone right as they get up. You just can't do that with an AoO, and you won't get the +4 to hit for them being prone if you wait until they are on their feet.

Readied action precedes the triggering action.

If you ready an action to trip when someone else stands up, the trip attempt occurs prior to the person standing. The person acting can still stand after your trip attempt resolves.

Sigh, no. Nobody should enforce readied actions like that, otherwise you force players to say, "I ready an action to attack for the first thing the creature does immediately after they stand up."

You should just let them say: "I ready an action to trip a creature as soon as it stands up." Because otherwise you're being needlessly pedantic.

This is an example of a house rule, which is fine. Just don't go saying the people not using your house rule are wrong to do it some other way


How on earth is avoiding overly pedantic trigger cases a house rule?

Again, using pedantic RAW still allows a readied action to trip, you just have to word the trigger action in a stupid fashion instead of using common sense.

You can still do it, by RAW.


right, but the fact that you are 'avoiding' or skipping over pedantic trigger cases is a house rule. you are literally ignoring part of the rules because they are inconvenient. I'm not saying you are wrong to do that! they are overly pedantic after all, but i am saying you are wrong for claiming that other people are wrong for not 'avoiding' pedantic trigger cases

if you get different results when you follow the rules the way you want to than when you follow them pedantically then you can be pretty sure you've introduced a house rule


I'm only saying that because the devs had said on more than one occasion that the game is DESIGNED for people to add their own common sense to avoid exactly these sorts of scenarios. This is one of those occasions.

When RAW requires a player to modify:

"I ready an action to attack as soon as someone opens a door"

to something like

"I ready an action to attack as soon as someone who just opened that door does anything else, such as blink or breathe, or look around, or really just exist."

to allow them to attack someone who just opened a door. Then RAW is actually wrong.

If you want to call that a 'house rule' instead of just applying a dose of common sense as the devs intended, I won't lose sleep over your classification.


Well, it is a house rule until they change the actual rule. thats actually the definition of 'house rule' isnt it? just because its widely accepted and used doesnt change the fact.

I don't know what your opinion is, but if there is anywhere i want to see people being pedantic (slash be pedantic myself) about the rules its the official rules forum...


Change what rule? I'm not asking for a rules change.

I'm saying is that it makes no sense for a GM to require a PLAYER to incant some obscure trigger formula to allow the CHARACTER to do something that the rules allow and that everyone understands is the goal.

I call that common sense.


Which is fine, all im saying is that if you get a different result when you follow your common sense than when you follow the rules exactly then your common sense is a house rule. I have never and will never say that you shouldn't do exactly that, but if somebody asks me how the rules work, on the rules forum, then im going to give them the pedantic step by step process as well as i know how. If they then decide to ignore the pedantic reading for ttheir own common sense then that's great!

Liberty's Edge

_Ozy_ wrote:
Snowlilly wrote:
_Ozy_ wrote:
Snowlilly wrote:
The Raven Black wrote:
I think allowing readied actions to happen after the triggering event opens a whole can of worms. YMMV
Yes, e.g. perma tripping becomes a thing.
Huh? With a READIED ACTION you can absolute keep trying to trip someone right as they get up. You just can't do that with an AoO, and you won't get the +4 to hit for them being prone if you wait until they are on their feet.

Readied action precedes the triggering action.

If you ready an action to trip when someone else stands up, the trip attempt occurs prior to the person standing. The person acting can still stand after your trip attempt resolves.

Sigh, no. Nobody should enforce readied actions like that, otherwise you force players to say, "I ready an action to attack for the first thing the creature does immediately after they stand up."

You should just let them say: "I ready an action to trip a creature as soon as it stands up." Because otherwise you're being needlessly pedantic.

Readied action triggers on condition met.

Many people confuse condition and action because of the rule of readied action going off before the action that triggered it.

But you can state conditions that are not an action. In which case the readied action goes off as soon as the condition is met.

Tripping readied action will be declared like : as soon as creature X is up from prone, I trip it. Perfectly valid condition that is not an action, thus the tripping readied action goes off when the creature is standing and not before.

The condition should NOT be " as soon as the creature starts to stand up from prone", because then the readied action will go off while the creature is still prone.

Conditions for a readied action should be clear, and a GM who abuses this to frustrate players should reread the "don't be a jerk" rule


Ridiculon wrote:
Which is fine, all im saying is that if you get a different result when you follow your common sense than when you follow the rules exactly then your common sense is a house rule. I have never and will never say that you shouldn't do exactly that, but if somebody asks me how the rules work, on the rules forum, then im going to give them the pedantic step by step process as well as i know how. If they then decide to ignore the pedantic reading for ttheir own common sense then that's great!

I just don't get where you're coming from. I'm not changing any rule, which is what house rules do. I'm allowing the players to state what they want to happen, and then, because the rules allow it, I let it happen.


_Ozy_ wrote:
Ridiculon wrote:
Which is fine, all im saying is that if you get a different result when you follow your common sense than when you follow the rules exactly then your common sense is a house rule. I have never and will never say that you shouldn't do exactly that, but if somebody asks me how the rules work, on the rules forum, then im going to give them the pedantic step by step process as well as i know how. If they then decide to ignore the pedantic reading for ttheir own common sense then that's great!
I just don't get where you're coming from. I'm not changing any rule, which is what house rules do. I'm allowing the players to state what they want to happen, and then, because the rules allow it, I let it happen.

If someone says 'i ready an action to magic missile the next creature that makes a hostile action towards the party' and the next creature that makes a hostile action towards the party happens to be invisible, what happens?

Pedantic Reading wrote:
Nothing, the creature was not a valid target for MM when your condition was met. Your readied action is wasted because your trigger was met but you could not cast because you did not meet all the pre-requisites to cast MM. the creature continues to attack your party member.
Common-sense Reading wrote:
You use MM on the creature when he attacks. The creature then continues attacking your party member.

I'm saying these two outcomes are different, and if you were following the same rule(s) in both cases then they would be the same outcome instead. That means at least one of them (but possibly both of them if my pedantic reading is incorrect) is a house rule.

EDIT: if you were to flip it around and the player was the invisible one and you allowed the NPC to MM them then the player could rightly claim that their cleverness in knowing this particular weakness of LoS spells is not being rewarded when it should be.


There is no RAW anywhere that says the DM must use a pedantic interpretation of the player's words to disallow something that is explicitly allowed by the rules.

That's not a house rule. That's called not being a DM dick.


if you want to use house rules to give your players special anti-invisibility powers then that's fine, very generous of you. Don't insult me when i don't want to do it your way


If the PC's know they're fighting creatures that are/have been invisible, then it's okay for that wizard to say "I ready an action to Magic Missilethe first one that appears out of invisibility".
Completely legal by the rules, and the Magic Missile would go off after the attack roll was settled, because he doesn't drop out of invisibility until he has attacked.

What's not okay, however, is to let your players break the rules by using "I ready to MM the first creature that takes a hostile action against us" as a legitimate trigger against an opponent coming out of invisibility. The hostile action is happening before the invisibility is gone, therefore the still-invisible creature is not a valid target for Magic Missile.


Ridiculon wrote:
if you want to use house rules to give your players special anti-invisibility powers then that's fine, very generous of you. Don't insult me when i don't want to do it your way

What are you talking about? What special anti-invisibility powers?

Is there a trigger condition that would allow the player to attack with his magic missile in the stated condition? Yes.

Why do you demand that the player speak a special trigger incantation instead of just stating what he wants his character to do?


bigrig107 explained it _Ozy_, if the players don't know that the enemy is invisible then letting them use magic missile on the guy with a readied action is a special anti-invisibility house rule. If they do know he's invisible then i agree that letting them hit the guy would be equivalent to doing the math in your head instead of on the paper


Ridiculon wrote:
bigrig107 explained it _Ozy_, if the players don't know that the enemy is invisible then letting them use magic missile on the guy with a readied action is a special anti-invisibility house rule

Er, no it isn't. It's letting them shoot the guy after he turns visible.


ok, i have explained it as well as i know how and i can see that you still don't understand why someone would follow these rules in this way. that's cool. as i've said before you are allowed, and encouraged, to play in the way that is fun for you and the group you play with.

we've derailed this thread pretty good, and at this point i will only be able to repeat my attempted explanations (see above). so without further ado i bid you good day sir!

The Exchange

Is appearing from invisible with a bloody weapon stuck into the body of a comrade counted as a hostile action? Does the answer depend on whether 'action' is a word or a game term?


brock, no the other one... wrote:
Is appearing from invisible with a bloody weapon stuck into the body of a comrade counted as a hostile action? Does the answer depend on whether 'action' is a word or a game term?

the issue is that the OP is using magic missile with his readied action, and has used a trigger which results in him having no valid target for his magic missile when the trigger condition is met

if he had instead tried to hit the invisible guy over the head with a stick we wouldn't have argued over it


Here's an example of a pedantic trigger that would work, by RAW:

I ready a magic missile to attack the first viable target that has obtained the condition "initiated a hostile action against me or my allies".

This trigger would allow an attack on someone appearing from invisibility, as well as trigger and interrupt an attack by a visible person.

No GM should require a player to state that particular trigger exactly as worded, and RAW doesn't mean you can[t allow the player to shorthand this trigger to:

"I ready an action to attack the next enemy that takes a hostile action".

It's not about RAW vs house rules at all.

The Exchange

Ridiculon wrote:
brock, no the other one... wrote:
Is appearing from invisible with a bloody weapon stuck into the body of a comrade counted as a hostile action? Does the answer depend on whether 'action' is a word or a game term?
the issue is that the OP is using magic missile with his readied action, and has used a trigger which results in him having no valid target for his magic missile when the trigger condition is met

This is only true if the word 'action' is taken as the game term, implying the standard action taken to make the attack, which has indeed started when the person becomes visible and can be targeted.

With the english context of the word, that person is still engaged in hostile action when they become visible.


_Ozy_, in this situation letting those two phrases be equivalent is adding meaning to the players words based on information they do not have. If they did have the information then it would be shorthand, but since they dont have the information that the next enemy is invisible then they cannot act on it. Letting them do so is only possible through DM fiat, aka a house rule.


brock, no the other one... wrote:
Ridiculon wrote:
brock, no the other one... wrote:
Is appearing from invisible with a bloody weapon stuck into the body of a comrade counted as a hostile action? Does the answer depend on whether 'action' is a word or a game term?
the issue is that the OP is using magic missile with his readied action, and has used a trigger which results in him having no valid target for his magic missile when the trigger condition is met

This is only true if the word 'action' is taken as the game term, implying the standard action taken to make the attack, which has indeed started when the person becomes visible and can be targeted.

With the english context of the word, that person is still engaged in hostile action when they become visible.

eeehhh, as long as it was understood by the table that you'd be leaning more towards english definitions rather than pathfinder ones. but you still have to put their action in the turn order somewhere, which leads you right back to the issue that 'a readied action occurs just before the action that triggers it'.


1 person marked this as a favorite.
Ridiculon wrote:
_Ozy_, in this situation letting those two phrases be equivalent is adding meaning to the players words based on information they do not have. If they did have the information then it would be shorthand, but since they dont have the information that the next enemy is invisible then they cannot act on it. Letting them do so is only possible through DM fiat, aka a house rule.

I disagree. The only difference between the two is that if a DM would require the first phrase, it excludes players who aren't pedantic rules lawyers from being as effective, even though their CHARACTERS should be able to react just as effectively.

The 'meaning' that is being added to the words is known as common sense. You're not giving the character the ability to attack an invisible person, you're just letting the character respond with a readied action to an obviously hostile action.

No extra information is necessary, and if you as a GM deem otherwise, then you are forcing your players to use phrase 1 every single time just to cover the possibility.

Then, if you throw another situation at them that you rule isn't covered by phrase one, they will have to come up with a more comprehensive pedantic trigger to include that situation as well.

In the end, you'll get a bound document of trigger 'legalese' just to let them cover every possible eventuality that should instead be allowed by a short hand: I attack the first hostile enemy.

That's not RAW.


its not so much legaleze as a code-base (in my mind anyway). I write code for a living, my DM writes code for a living. incidentally this is not the first time i've seen this sort of reaction to the levels of pedantry we sink to between the two of us. To my mind all of the phrases you used as examples do entirely different, if very similar, things. Somewhat like the way that to most people the words add/append/prepend/concatenate/unify all mean the same thing. For me they are all different and specific. Not everyone thinks the way i do, and im not convinced my way is the best way, but i can't stop thinking the way i think.

As i said, everyone is free to do it their own way, as long as you have fun the pedantry really doesn't matter in the end. For my DM and i its part of the fun (although the other people in the group sometimes yell at us to get on with it)

Community / Forums / Pathfinder / Pathfinder First Edition / Rules Questions / Readied actions vs invisible opponents All Messageboards

Want to post a reply? Sign in.