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 just realized this is an impossible situation regarding a Wizard.
You will never start your turn next to a Wizard without having moved at least 5 ft.
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Won't you have egg on your face if you ready your action to prevent him from casting a spell but he reaches into his pocket (not spellcasting so doesn't trigger your readied action) and then Poof! He disappears.
Better to be safe than sorry. Better to be thorough than sloppy. Ready for EVERYTHING.
Except that readying for everything is not the RAW or the RAI, but who are we to worry about such trivial things as rules?
You can be specific or generic in what you pick as a condition. "If he does something magical" is just as valid a choice as "if he casts a spell", but it'll also catch a cleric channeling negative energy. Not that you can interrupt that, but at least you didn't waste a round waiting for a spell that never came.
Nobody's proposing fifteen separate triggers here. Nobody's proposing ignoring the rules like you keep saying.
See in your example of the intent he's readying two actions. He wanted to do A or B. Just because both involve hitting doesn't make it all one trigger.You are wrong in the first sentence and dead right in the last one. It's two triggers for the SAME action.
You just contradicted yourself. you said he wanted to ready an action to attack if he cast a spell and to ready an action to attack if he moved away. Those are two separate readied actions. Just because for both readied actions he wants to attack doesn't make it the same readied actions. What he's asking is equivalent to saying "I want to hit him if he casts a spell or grapple him if he tries to move" Two readied actions. Thus he wanted to ready A and B to be able to do A or B. A is a readied action and B is a readied action. The fact that you keep saying that he's wanting both readied actions and then saying that it's one actions isn't helping you.
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You are looking too much into it.
OP, second pharagraph:
The fighter declared that he readies his action: "If the evil wizard tries to flee from my threatened area or cast an spell, I'll attack him"
What the player actually said, and everyone understood so far, is "I'll attack him with my longspear"
But don't go that far, just read the title of this thread: "Ready action with many triggers". Peace.
@Dm_Blake
"I order him to surrender and ready an action to attack if he does anything else"
Same result as your thorough post, thus highlighting the issue with your logic. No matter how strict you make the rules people determined to exploit will find ways to do it.
But heres the thing, does that one sentence line actually sound like an exploit? No, it only sounds like an exploit when you draw it out with the list of things that could trigger it.
The simple way to stop players from trying to exploit rules is to make your rules seem fun and empowering. If the player can already accomplish all the things he would want to do in that situation he doesnt need to waste time poring over rules trying to find loopholes to make it work.
Yes, and chess would be more fun and empowering if the king had a laser gun and could shoot at enemy pieces on his turn. Poker would be more fun and empowering if we all drew 18 cards to make a 5-card hand. Soccer would be more fun and empowering if everybody could catch and throw the ball anywhere on the field. Boxing would be more fun and enabling if there were no referees or judges - just hit the other guy with a chair until he stops moving and you'll be declared the winner.
And Pathfinder would be more fun and empowering if my character could just say "I kill the monster" and it would die - I could just spend all my time totaling my XP and looting dead monsters.
Too over the top?
Of course!
But it illustrates the point that every rule ever created in any game or sport is in place to define a set of boundaries that LIMIT the things we can do within our game (or sport). EVERY rule. EVER. They all LIMIT us.
Even the rules that don't seem to limit us are actually very limiting too. For example, the rule that Barbarians can use rage. That sounds like it is fun and empowering. But at the same time, it draws obvious limits: Nobody else can do it (well, a few exceptions but those have their own Rage rules built in to them), and even barbarians can only do it a few rounds a day, and it only adds a few points to a couple ability scores, etc. Limits.
By LIMITING the infinite options, we create rules that actually make it a game. Without these rules that define what we cannot do, we're just telling stories. That can be fun. But we can do that without Pathfinder.
The ready action is already fun and empowering. It lets us do things we couldn't do without it. Yay for fun and empowerment! It also has limits built in. If it didn't, then we could do all that nonsense I wrote in my really long post. We can't. Because there are limits.
Me, I prefer limits. I don't want barbarians in my game to rage all day long, gaining +1,000 to all six ability scores. And I don't want wizards doing that either. Limits.
As such, I don't mind that Ready has some hard-coded limits built right into the RAW.
Despite that, as I said before, I am very easy going about the condition my players might choose. But I do recognize that I'm house ruling that, against the RAW limitations.
The purpose of the Readied action, as I see it, is to be able to do things during someone else's turn rather than just delaying until after they've done it.
Suppose I'm an archer and I just want to time my shot so it takes place during the wizard's turn because that way I might get to disrupt his concentration. Now I could say, "I ready an action to shoot him if he starts casting a spell," but for some reason that causes me to stand there like an idiot and waste my entire turn if he does something else like drinking a potion of invisibility.
Is there a game balance or realism problem with saying, "I shoot him if he takes any action?"
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I am in the camp of allowing the player to make intelligent sweeping choices. One might include, "I attack the wizard if he does something I don't like".
I think the alternative of not allowing this type of play is very clear:
"I attack the wizard, limiting the ability for role-playing because the rules make it impossible to conduct simple target engagement protocols that even wild animals exhibit."
Don't make the rules so rigid that there is only one logical way for the PCs to act. Otherwise, all actions become attacks and you are playing a table-top war game rather than a RPG.
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In addition, even the wording in the RAW is ambiguous:
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.Note the first bolded "conditions" (plural) and the second bolded "condition" (singular).
I guess it could go either way, but the infinite "or" scenario makes me inclined to prefer the singular interpretation.
The latter 'conditions' is singular as it presumes that multiple conditions can't happen simultaneously. You specify a list of things that will trigger your action, and it happens in response to the thing from that list that occurred.
It's a good example how exceptions from basic mechanics (here: turn based combat) can mess up things. If my players would start to exploit readied actions, I'd tell them the NPCs can do the same. Alternatively my NPCs could make WIS / Sense Motive checks to figure out what the PC waits for - and then do something different, of course.
If you want to keep the caster from casting, there are Grapple, the Spellbreaker feat line, neutralizing spells (Sleep etc.) etc.. Nothing of that is fail-proof, but that's good - NPC casters should be at least a minor threat. Since Readied Action is free to get (no feat etc.), it shouldn't be too powerful.
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@Brock:
I figured the very same a couple of days ago, but did not want to further mess up the issue until the previous discussions were cleared up.
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 .
This paragraph could mean that you indeed get to specify various conditions or triggers (plural) and the readied action gets done in response to each of them as oppossed to when all of them are fulfilled (thus the singular).
If you want to keep the caster from casting, there are Grapple, the Spellbreaker feat line, neutralizing spells (Sleep etc.) etc.. Nothing of that is fail-proof, but that's good - NPC casters should be at least a minor threat. Since Readied Action is free to get (no feat etc.), it shouldn't be too powerful.
I'm pretty sure NPC casters remain a threat. A level 12 Fighter with a bow and a readied action is not guaranteed - or even likely - to beat a level 12 Wizard who's had the time to, say, cast Mirror Image.
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@Dm_Blake
"I order him to surrender and ready an action to attack if he does anything else"
Same result as your thorough post, thus highlighting the issue with your logic. No matter how strict you make the rules people determined to exploit will find ways to do it.
But heres the thing, does that one sentence line actually sound like an exploit? No, it only sounds like an exploit when you draw it out with the list of things that could trigger it.
The simple way to stop players from trying to exploit rules is to make your rules seem fun and empowering. If the player can already accomplish all the things he would want to do in that situation he doesnt need to waste time poring over rules trying to find loopholes to make it work.
He just says "i ready an action if the wizard begins casting or moves away", you understand his intent, and he gets to save the day.
It doesn't even sound like an exploit when you draw out the list.
Essentially this is what's happening:
I sacrifice my position in initiative which is one of the most powerful resources in the game.
I voluntarily limit the scope of my choices from [All actions available to me] to [one kind of standard or move action].
I risk the possibility of not being able to take an action at all.
In exchange for this I gain the ability to potentially disrupt an action or allow an opponent to surrender instead of die.
That's a pretty poor trade in game economy terms. So allowing nearly infinite trigger possibilities doesn't seem exploitative at all, because the trade is still severely limited by being forced to declare the action type ahead of time AND being forced to do so from an attenuated list.
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RPG Superstar 2011 Top 32
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I think, to me, the bigger problem here is that the GM allowed the player to declare the readied action, and only after the fact revealed that he considered the action illegal. This caused the player to waste his turn. Regardless of how you feel on the debate of triggers, it's only courteous to let the player know their proposed action won't work, rather than let it go then suddenly change things mid battle.
Heck, I'd advise the player that their proposed action wouldn't work, but try to get at what exactly they were trying to accomplish and help them do that. The game isn't a competition. For example, "I ready an attack to attack the wizard at the first sign of motion," seems to allow an attack for both spellcasting and moving, as well as drawing a potion or wand, or many other actions. I guess if he cast a Still spell he might get around it but I don't metagame my NPCs.
I think, to me, the bigger problem here is that the GM allowed the player to declare the readied action, and only after the fact revealed that he considered the action illegal. This caused the player to waste his turn. Regardless of how you feel on the debate of triggers, it's only courteous to let the player know their proposed action won't work, rather than let it go then suddenly change things mid battle.
Heck, I'd advise the player that their proposed action wouldn't work, but try to get at what exactly they were trying to accomplish and help them do that. The game isn't a competition. For example, "I ready an attack to attack the wizard at the first sign of motion," seems to allow an attack for both spellcasting and moving, as well as drawing a potion or wand, or many other actions. I guess if he cast a Still spell he might get around it but I don't metagame my NPCs.
I can't "favorite" this 100 times, so I wanted to repost it. This is one of the most important aspects of being a good DM.
I don't even ask my players what their readied actions are. They just tell me that they are planning one. If they do cheat, why would I care? I can make a million NPCs to replace the one they beat.