Ok, so I feel like I know the answer to this, but I wanted to ask to make sure I wasn't missing something. I've seen a few posts from time to time saying that you cannot move in the same round as when you Ready an action. I'd shrug it off except the last public PFS game I played in, the GM said the same thing.
After moving into position, a character wanted to ready an attack for when the enemy approached. But the GM said that couldn't be done - you can move and act or ready, but not both. We didn't really get into why, just moved beyond it to keep things moving, but it seems wrong to me.
Of the posts I've seen, people mention it's because Readying is itself a Standard Action. It's listed that way on the Table in the Combat section. So, the argument seems to go, you cannot Move and Ready because ... frankly I'm not sure. I guess that Readying uses up the Standard Action, then the rest of your action for that round is used up by whatever action you take when your Readied action is triggered (though I wonder how you could ever actually Ready a Standard Action, then).
Ready is described as Special Initiative Action that lets you reserve the ability to take up to a Standard Action at a later point in the round.
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 under which you will take it. Then, anytime before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. 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. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.
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.
I've always interpreted Readying not as using your standard action but, essentially, as saving your standard action to be used later. And I think the last quoted line supports that. You can take a 5-foot step as a part of a readied action, but only if you haven't moved that round. To me that pretty clearly means you can move prior to Readying.
So, Question 1: Can you use a separate move action in the same round as when you Ready an action? Am I reading this correctly and the PFS GM was incorrect, or am I missing something and if so, please explain.
If I'm correct on the first question, as a follow up I was always under the assumption that what you Ready is a Standard Action (which you can then use to do an actual Standard Action, a Move Action instead, or whatever). However, the text says you can Ready a Standard Action, a Move Action, a Swift Action, or a Free Action.
So, Question 2: Can you for instance cast a spell (as a Standard Action), then Ready a Move Action (Run Away!) triggering whenever an enemy closes within 10' of you (or whatever)? In other words, Ready lets you "save" one of whatever portion of your actions you haven't used during your ordinary initiative order until a later point in the round, the consequence of which is either forfeiting that action if it's never triggered or resetting you in the initiative order from there on out.
Sorry if that's worded oddly. *shrug*
What do you all think?
The "Ready action" is a standard action. I quote:
CRB, 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. Readying is a standard action. "
So:
1. Yes, you can take a Move action and then use your Standard action to ready whatever kind of action you want, Standard, Move, Swift, or Free, as the rules state.
2. No, you cannot use a Standard action to do anything and then in the same round use another Standard action to ready any kind of action, because you only get one Standard action per round and the "Ready" action is a Standard action. Your example of casting a spell is only one possible Standard action, but all standard actions would have the same answer - you only get one per round and if you want to use the Ready action, then you cannot use any other Standard action that round.
RPG Superstar 2012 Top 32
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The rules are pretty clear:
Readying is a standard action, so you can't ready in the same turn that you take another standard action or a full-round action.
Readying is a standard action, so as long as you have a standard action still available on your turn, readying is an option.
My best guess of where your GM's error comes from is that perhaps he doesn't fully grasp that "ready" and "delay" are two very different things; I've gotten the impression that maybe a previous edition of D&D maybe used the term "hold your action" to mean something that's sort of like a hybrid between Pathfinder's Ready and Delay. Could be wrong, but the types of errors I keep seeing seem to suggest something along those lines.
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The act of readying is a standard action, so I'm not quite sure why you would be prevented from doing a move action prior to readying an action. Since moving is a move action, I don't see anything that would prevent you from moving (as a move action) and then readying (as a standard action).
Regarding your second question, the act of readying (even a move action) is a standard action, therefore you couldn't cast and ready anything in the same round.
EDIT: ninja'd by a lot!
Right on, thanks e'rybody! Can't believed I missed that introductory "Readying is a standard action" line. Failed my Perception check, apparently.