The Aid action states:
To use this reaction, you must first prepare to help, usually by using an action during your turn. You must explain to the GM exactly how you’re trying to help, and they determine whether you can Aid your ally.
I don't understand what the action should be:
◾A specific action, described in some part of the rulebook?
◾Just an action lost, without any effect whatsoever?
◾The use of an actual action functionally geared to help - i.e. to aid a Strike, I also use a Strike against the same enemy?
◾If the previous case is the correct one, can I also prepare to Aid by using an activity - i.e. to aid a Strike, I cast a 2-action attack spell against the same enemy?
Thanks for any insight you might provide!
IMHO, what they mean is that it costs one action and you have to describe it in plausible terms.
For example, your friend Boris is trying to open a locked door by bursting it down. You say, "I charge at his side, throwing my shoulder against the door at the same time."
Or the party rogue Rex is trying to sneak, and you say, "I scrape my shield against the dungeon wall, making a terrible racket, distracting the enemies from Rex."
Or your pal Smedley is fighting a bandit, and you say "I wave my sword in the bandit's direction, to unbalance him enough to give Smedley a bonus to AC."
I took the aid action action description to simply mean players have to be creative to get a bonus.
Could be, but this would make it quite costly, since it would cost 1 action, 1 reaction, and a DC 20 check to try Aiding someone.
But does the action you have to take to prepare the reaction have any associated traits with it?
I would assume that if you are aiding another in some kind of crafting or mechanical skill it should probably have the manipulate trait, but if you are trying to help an ally connect with a strike are you making an attack action yourself? or some kind of distracting action?
Like if you were trying to aid by getting the enemy's attention, do you get to roll a performance or deception check instead of an attack roll?
Fundamentally this all falls on the GM to decide at the table, but as a GM, should I assume that any "prepare" that gives a bonus to an attack roll counts as an attack for Multiple attack bonus and if so when? I would think not, because attack rolls made as a part of a reaction usually do not get any kind of Map bonus and it seems like it would be annoying to try to remember whether character A made one or two attacks during their round before aiding another, especially if there are a lot of enemy combatants around.
I think personally, I would rather encourage teamwork and thus allow a character to make their aid reaction without a MAPenalty especially because they will be making the check against a DC of 20 and pretty much never be able to qualify for a critical success if they are doing it as a third action, or at least until they are level 10 or higher.
Also, to add to the OP, I think the rules are pretty clear that aiding another is an action on your turn, your reaction and Generally a DC 20 check. So something that is not a good idea to do untrained, but once you have a +10 or more, the risk is minimal in comparison to the reward and eventually it can result in quite the bonus on skills, especially. Using in regularly in combat is a little bit more confusing and open to interpretation/ requires a lot of GM buy in.
Another potential issue I have with the prepare action for the Aid reaction, is what happens if something happens in the initiative order between the prepare action and the Aid reaction. Does this simply cancel out the effort to aid?
I guess, if the answer is yes, then there is even more of a reason for parties to deliberately delay their turns in the initiative so that they can wait and deliver vicious combination attacks and not lose things like flanking. This was pretty much already the case in PF2, since most characters are better off not being the first one to move into easy retaliation range, but it should probably be something GMs bring up with new players, or allow for easier 1st encounters for those players so they can see the consequences of moving three times to close the distance, or moving 2 times and attacking once into a group of 3 or 4 monsters which will unload 12 attacks on them.