| ChocRage |
Senario
A monk readies dirty trick to cause the Sickened condition on the goblin if it comes within 5ft of him.
The goblin charges in with a short sword.
Question, in what order do you execute the actions?
And if the monk's dirty trick goes first, does the goblin's attack suffer from the condition?
Now, also, riddle me this. Say the Monk's ranger ally has also readied an action against the goblin. To shoot him with her crossbow if he moves towards her monk friend.
What would they order of execution be then? Sorry, I'm still noobish if it's obvious.
| Pizza Lord |
A monk readies dirty trick to cause the Sickened condition on the goblin if it comes within 5ft of him.
The goblin charges in with a short sword.
... 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.
You ready an action by stating what condition (that you must be able to observe) will cause you to take the action. Then, when the condition occurs you take your readied action just before whatever you are interrupting.
Your ready will interrupt, which also means that if you instead tripped the goblin, he would then be considered prone and, while he would still get an attack, it would be at –4. Similarly, in the above case, if you instead had a reach weapon and tripped it, it wouldn't get to attack you, because it would be prone and out of reach and unable to stand up or move closer, because it had used all of its actions that round with the charge action. If you had dropped the goblin below 0 hit points, it would be unconscious and unable to attack.
In your example, "If an enemy comes within reach, I will use dirty trick to make him sickened." Enemy comes within reach, you attack (hitting, missing, possibly provoking an AoO from the goblin if you don't have Improved Dirty Trick). Whatever the outcome, assuming the goblin survives or is otherwise able to complete his action, he will then take his attack (at +2 for charging, and yes at –2 for being sickened if you have applied that condition). Your initiative would then be moved to a count just before the goblin action for the next round.
Say the Monk's ranger ally has also readied an action against the goblin. To shoot him with her crossbow if he moves towards her monk friend. ...
What would they order of execution be then?
Well, since the ranger's readied action stated moving towards her ally, that would likely occur before the condition of the goblin coming into the monk's reach.
In the case of two readied actions being triggered at the same time, like two characters being ready to shoot the goblin if it moves:
The character that had the higher initiative would get the option to take their readied action first or not. After they do so (or choose not to), the next character in line would have the option to do so or not, for whatever reason
Why wouldn't you? Maybe because the first character dropped the enemy with their readied attack; you'd still be eligible to take your readied action on the triggering target, possibly killing it if it was only dying, but you'd probably want to hold it in reserve in case another, more conscious target stepping into your reach and triggered your ready.
Some bonus content:
Note that depending on how you phrase your readied acton, and certain circumstances, your readied action might not interrupt an action in all cases, instead triggering when you first perceive it. In that case, you would take your action after the triggering action, but your initiative count would still be placed at a point just before the triggering action for future rounds (so you'd still go before the creature next round). Of course, you never have to take the readied action, even if the trigger occurs, you can wait and see if it occurs again later (such as readying to attack an opponent coming into reach, but then realizing it's a goblin and wanting to save your attack for if its orc friend comes over instead).
Some examples might be, "I attack the first enemy that comes into reach," but then an invisible or otherwise unseen enemy attacks you. You wouldn't be able to interrupt that (even if by attacking he becomes visible, as per invisibility because then that would mess up the whole sneak attack mechanics, just trust me here). You would be able to attack just afterwards. Another example would be if you readied to attack anyone opening a door. If a creature opened the door from the other side, your action clearly can't interrupt that, the door would be opened, but then you could attack.