Zamba Bone's page

I found this thread when researching how to handle ready actions designed to interrupt spellcasting in melee and will address that below, but let me first respond to this thread:

When I ready an action with the condition "as soon as he reaches me", i.e. enters a square next to me, and then do my action and take a 5-foot-step, then in fact he hasn't entered a square adjacent to me, because my ready action takes place *before* the opponent's action. Thus, if I step back before he reaches me, he doesn't reach me, nullifying my condition. That is a logical contradiction, so I would rule here that my condition precludes movement on my part, barring me from taking a 5-foot-step.

Does that make sense to anyone? I also find it extremely difficult to picture how you hit a charging opponent AND move a square before he can hit you.

Now my original topic: A spellcaster can avoid provoking an AoO in melee by taking a 5-foot-step away from his opponent. It feels very unrealistic that you can cast freely (without AoO and ignoring damage caused from his turn's attack) when facing a raging barbarian right in front of you. However, you can still disrupt him by readying an attack. This is true, but since you cannot ready a full attack action you would get only one attack, which seems fair to me at the moment.

(I imagine that when you make a full attack you can't prevent him from backing away a little and cast before you can hit him, whereas if you make a single attack you can "pay attention" to what he does, follow up and hit him in a timely fashion to interrupt him.)

Furthermore, since you can move and then ready an action, you could move adjacent to him and "wait" till he acts. If he then takes a 5-foot-step I would allow you to follow up if you have movement left.

On a side note, I would advocate to allow several conditions, i.e. you don't have to say "if he casts a spell", or "if he attacks me in any way" or whatever. For me "when he does anything", or "as soon as he acts" is totally okay.