Action to receive an item?

[Markov Spiked Chain]

The Unseen Servant thread in advice got me thinking:
Are there any clear rules around being handed an item?

Let's say I give my trusty Unseen Servant a Breath of Life scroll. A while later, someone drops and I need to use the scroll. Can the servant hand me the scroll as its action, then I move and cast?

I assume this would be a move action for the servant, and a free action (off turn) for me to accept (assuming I have a free hand.)

Are there any more explicit rules for this case? Keeping scrolls on hand is annoying. :)

[Cuuniyevo]

Here it is. It'd be nice if you could accept a proffered item with a Swift action but it's a Move.

EDIT: Personally, I'd allow a player to take it as part of another move action, similar to how batons are passed in relays, but I still wouldn't allow them to take it when it wasn't their turn.

[Cuuniyevo]

Cuuniyevo wrote:

Here it is. It'd be nice if you could accept a proffered item with a Swift action but it's a Move.

EDIT: Personally, I'd allow a player to take it as part of another move action, similar to how batons are passed in relays, but I still wouldn't allow them to take it when it wasn't their turn.

Oh and one more important note on this particular case: I don't believe you need to be holding the scroll to read and activate it. Having the Unseen Servant hold it up for you would be enough. You'd essentially be using them as a mobile lectern.

[Ravingdork]

If someone else is spending an action to give it to you, I do not believe you need to spend another action to receive it.

To my knowledge, there are no firm rules covering it, however.

[Cuuniyevo]

If you allow them to receive an item when it isn't their turn, this scenario could happen:

Round 1 of encounter
• Enemy X does something.
• Enemy Y does something.
• PC B casts Unseen Servant and tells them to delay until they are ordered to do something specific.
• PC A does something.
Round 2 of Encounter
• Enemy X successfully disarms PC A.
• PC B instructs (free action to speak) their Unseen Servant to retrieve PC A's weapon and return it.
• PC A is now armed and able to perform attacks of opportunity against Enemy Y even though PC A hasn't done anything this round and virtually no time has passed since they were disarmed.
• Enemy Y cries as they are stabbed while trying to do something.
After The Session Ends
• The GM thinks of ways they can turn this trick against their players.

I agree that a rule could be written to clarify the situation but I believe using a move action to pick up an item is the appropriate course of action until such a rule is written.

[Trekkie90909]

Given that sunder attempts against items carried by the unseen servant would auto-succeed, and anything held by an unseen servant would take damage from AoEs.... This would be an entirely manageable/suboptimal exploit.

That said my ruling on this for home games would be: it's a move action to draw something (from an organized case, or in this case servant), and another move action to search through a non-organized bag or bag where the scrolls are stored below other things such as would be the case in your backpack.

Regarding casting a spell from a scroll held by a servant: This appears to be legal - all that is required to use a scroll is "ability to decypher the contents," and "line of sight." The downside of this is that if your servant is holding it, and BBEG is scrying your room, he could cast your spells from your scrolls and direct them at you. Which could conversely yield some interesting suicide-bomber unseen servant tactics for divination oriented casters.

I think I need to go design a dungeon. Cheers! Thanks for the suggestion.