Lunge + Readied Action

[_Ozy_]

Does it work?

Readied Action:

The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun.

Lunge:

You can increase the reach of your melee attacks by 5 feet until the end of your turn by taking a –2 penalty to your AC until your next turn.

[Cevah]

You must declare that you will be using Lunge on your turn. This is not an action. They you ready an action. It will take the penalties and bonuses of the feat. Same as if you readied a power attack.

/cevah

[_Ozy_]

Cevah wrote:

You must declare that you will be using Lunge on your turn. This is not an action. They you ready an action. It will take the penalties and bonuses of the feat. Same as if you readied a power attack.

/cevah

Power attack specifically lasts until your next turn.

The extra reach from lunge specifically ends at the end of your turn.

Readied actions take place after your turn.

RAW, I don't see how it works, though I certainly believe RAI allows it.

[Hugo Rune]

If a player positioned themselves 10 feet away from the door drew their sword and said "I am readying an action to lunge at the first Orc to come through the doorway" then I would allow it.

[_Ozy_]

I'm not disputing that it makes sense to allow it. I'm wondering what the rules actually say. Because if I'm reading it correctly, RAW wouldn't allow it. If true, this should be FAQ'd/errated.

[DungeonmasterCal]

I swear I read the title of this thread as "Lunge + Redhead Action". Man, I'm tired.

[zza ni]

it's simple, a readied action is actuly a pause on your turn which continue (your turn) when the triger happen. this is also why your initiative turn for the reminder of the combet (unless changed again) moves to be just before the action that trigered your readied action.(i noticed a lot of people don't know this rule)

take the example from above if on initiative turn 12 the fighter ready an action(standard action to triger a standared action, it is one of the few ways you actuly have 2 standard action in a turn) to luange (not an action) and strike 10 feet away when the door opens. on initiative turn 9 the guy from the other side opens the door, readied action triger and the fighter continue his turn and triger his action. then the guy who opened the door (if alive) can continue his turn and on the following turns the fighter keep acting on initiative turn 9 just before the guy who opened the door.

depending on if ready stops your turn to start it when triger or streatch it untill then you might have the ability to use launge, ready an action then while waiting have reach for attacks of opertunities. it is not clear(but since you actuly use a standard action to gain a standrad action i for one, would say you end your turn and start again later and must mantion you use launge then to re-gain it)

[_Ozy_]

It's a reasonable way of dealing with it. Is there anything in the rules that supports such a 'pause'? Because the rules say that your turn ends, not pauses. If it enabled lunges on AoOs, that is probably not RAI, since they went out of their way to remove that capability by having reach only for your turn.

The change in initiative is spelled out clearly in the rules, that wasn't in question here.

[Numarak]

I would say that RAW it is not allowed. As you stated clearly: your turn finishes when you declare a Ready Action, and Lunge only works til the end of your turn, whatever happens after the end of your turn, it is not affected by Lunge.

RAI I have no idea.

[wraithstrike]

When Lunge was written the writer just likely assumed it would be used on your turn, and wanted to state how long it lasted.

I agree that by a very literal reading it is not allowed, but I don't think it was the intent to make it that restrictive. It's just difficult to think of every situation that may come up, even as part of the core rules so things will not be written to cover all those situations.

edit: As an example uncanny dodge calls out invisible opponents, but it doesn't call out people who are just hiding, but not invisible. Now if you can dodge a hiding invisible opponent it makes sense that you can dodge someone who is hiding, but not invisible. <---An example of why reading rules in the strictest possible way is not always a good idea.

[_Ozy_]

I agree with you regarding RAI, I just wanted to make sure my RAW reading was correct. This should probably be officially fixed, somehow, but I guess it's probably not as high priority as other rule confusions.

[Numarak]

I'm not so sure about this RAI you mention because of the Strike Back Feat.

Another point of contention about that interpretation is that both Feats belong to CRB.

And one last point would be that Lunge specifies that the penalty for using the Feat lasts til your next turn, although the bonus only applies til the end of the turn; it would have been strange that the intention would have been otherwise, considering that both sentences follow one another in the same paragraph.

All in all, I would play strictly by RAW, or consider that RAI as plausible and add it to the House Rule territory at the begining of the game.

[Brother Fen]

Not everything needs a FAQ.

[_Ozy_]

How do you think this would work in PFS?

There are a few complications depending on how you tweak the system to work. For example, if you say the turn doesn't end until after the readied attack, then AoOs in the meantime have the extra reach.

[Untentril]

My own take would be that..

Lunge (bonus to) attacks clearly do not apply to AoO's, being as they are out-of-turn.

But a Readied & triggered action makes the triggered action 'your turn' so Lunge can be used w/ readied.

The malus only takes effect once Lunge is triggered, as with any triggered ready action it's effects do not occur..until they occur.

Otherwise a turn might have to be reran n times to incorporate effects of readied actions that have multi-party effects on characters whose place in the turn order was between ready: & trigger: (see: readied mass debuff spells (lol))

Which would be frustrating, not to mention illogical as readying explicitly is NOT doing that action.

FGL~S
......|O

There's no reason why the (G)oblin would get any bonus to hit the (L)unger, being as he doesn't lunge until after (F)ighter kills the goblin anyway. (S)trike Backer readies, (O)pener opens the door infront of (S.) L triggers, S triggers.

European Order: L,G,F,S,O
New World Order: F,S,L,O

S gets 'use of' the -2 Malus during Strikeback..
Nxt round cycle...
Then O does also.
The S does again.
Then Lunge consequences end at L's new turn.

No?