Ready an action on another player's movement...

[davypi]

So, one of my PC got a little clever last night with the ready action. I think what he has done is legal, but I'm curious to verify this with you rules experts out there.

Character is ranger. He has used his animal companion's tricks (a wolf) so that it will follow basic commands in comment, including taking the "flank" trick. I've also allowed him to let his animal companion act on his initiative rather than making them roll separately. However, I'm not sure this is entirely relevant as any two PCs with the same initiative could co-ordinate to pull off the maneuver I'm about to describe.

What the player wants to do is create a situation where both he and his companion can get their flanking bonus when they are not near an opponent. Thus, he takes a move action on one side of the target. His standard action is to ready an attack against the target with the trigger being his wolf attacks. His wolf then moves into a flanking position and attacks. The wolf attack triggers the PC attack, which now gets the +2 bonus because the target is flanked. After the PC attack is done, turn order reverts back to the wolf who can finish his attack (again with flanking).

I can't find any rules violations here, nor does it appear that this would affect/change their initiative order. The only reason this seems strange is that I am accustomed to PCs acting one at a time. So if two PCs want to flank, the first one has to move into position and attack without the flanking bonus. The second person then moves in a then gets the flanking bonus. As noted above, any PC who willing to lower their initiative could do the same trick, its just not a combat tactic I've ever seen before. (Of course anything the PCs can do, so can the NPCs....)

Any thoughts?

[Zhayne]

He doesn't even need to use Ready. Wolf moves, wolf delays, Ranger moves into position, Ranger delays, wolf attacks, ranger attacks.

At any rate, looks perfectly legal to me.

[David C Smith]

Perfectly legal tactic, you just have to make sure your readied action is stated for the wolves attack and not when the wolf moves.

[David C Smith]

Zhayne wrote:

He doesn't even need to use Ready. Wolf moves, wolf delays, Ranger moves into position, Ranger delays, wolf attacks, ranger attacks.

At any rate, looks perfectly legal to me.

Unless I am mistaken, you cannot delay after a move, since delaying says you take no action, and moving would be an action. You have to use the ready action as a standard action with a move to pull this off, but that works just fine.

If I am incorrect on this, someone please chime in and correct me on it.

Delay Action: By choosing to delay, you take no action and then act normally on whatever initiative count you decide to act. When you delay, you voluntarily reduce your own initiative result for the rest of the combat. When your new, lower initiative count comes up later in the same round, you can act normally. You can specify this new initiative result or just wait until some time later in the round and act then, thus fixing your new initiative count at that point.

[Mojorat]

Zhayne wrote:

He doesn't even need to use Ready. Wolf moves, wolf delays, Ranger moves into position, Ranger delays, wolf attacks, ranger attacks.

At any rate, looks perfectly legal to me.

What you just described is a ready action sequence not delay.

To the op its legit as long as the wolf isn't the one doing the ready action. That really isn't something an animal will do without a push.

[Rodinia]

Congrats to the OP for having a clever player! Totally legitimate. Probably no AC 'trick' is even required, as this is a pretty natural thing for a wolf to do. That approach is called "wolf pack tactics" for a reason ...

Zhayne wrote:

To the op its legit as long as the wolf isn't the one doing the ready action. That really isn't something an animal will do without a push.

I'd say having an animal companion ready an action would require either a successful 'push' or a particular trained 'trick'.

Rodinia plans to teach her impending INT 3 Axe Beak Animal Companion this Animal Companion trick:

"Ready an action to attack the first foe to come within reach".