Start of Combat and Reactions

[Thewms]

Are Reactions available to a creature before their first turn in combat?

Page 305, the last point under Step 1: Start Your turn says...

"Regain your 3 actions and 1 reaction. If you have not spent your actions or your reaction from your last turn, you lose them. You can’t hold over actions or reactions from one turn to another turn. Some abilities or conditions (such as the quick and slowed conditions) can change how many actions you regain and whether you regain your reaction. If a condition prevents you from being able to act, you
don’t regain any actions or your reaction."

Perhaps the word "regain" is throwing me off. I can't quite tell if you begin combat with reactions available.

[Edge93]

This is a fair question, and it is open to interpretation. On one hand you could say that you don't have reactions because you haven't had a turn to "regain" them yet, a la PF1's flat-footed until first turn.

But it could just as easily be argued (Perhaps more so) that the time immediately preceding combat was your last "turn", and that you have your reaction from then unless it was somehow spent imminently before combat. Or more broadly that after combat you obviously get your actions and reactions back as you go about doing other things, and as such you have a reaction available at the start of combat unless, again, it was used already (Such as a trap's using a reaction to initiate initiative or maybe a Contingency spell that goes off at the sight of hostiles, etc.)

[Fuzzypaws]

I would say that if you're aware of the opponent you have reactions, and if you're surprised you don't until your first turn comes up, but PF2 doesn't have rules for surprise...

[Megistone]

While I may well be wrong, I guess that it's intended: you can't react until you have acted at least once.

[Chief Cook and Bottlewasher]

You can react to other people's actions

[Captain Morgan]

The rulebook actually says the GM can decide if you can use a reaction before initiative is rolled, as I recall. So I think context matters.

Say you are cautiously going down a hallway with your shield raised, using the defending tactic. Someone pops out and hits you-- I'd absolutely let you use the shield block reaction.

But if someone caught you with your metaphorical and literal pants down while you were taking a pee, probably not.

Also, I've been using the text regarding reactions before initiative is rolled to run surprise rounds. A player or NPC can ready an action to trigger before combat begins if they catch the foe completely unawares.