Ready : the universal Attack of Opportunity?

[NemoNoName]

Given all the talk about Attacks of Opportunity (or lack thereof), I would like to mention the Ready action, which basically allows you to make attacks of opportunity with any class. It's a lot more investment (2 actions) and takes your multiple attack penalty, but it is a potential way of stopping an opponent. Also gives you opportunity to grab, shove, or trip someone instead of just whacking them on the head.

[Rek Rollington]

But if you can hit them on your turn why would you ready an action to hit them if they move? Battlefield control? Seems like a waste of actions.

[Malk_Content]

Trip in particular is pretty amazing as a readied for stopping someone as it eats two of their actions (the movement it stopped and the action to stand)

[Malk_Content]

Rek Rollington wrote:

But if you can hit them on your turn why would you ready an action to hit them if they move? Battlefield control? Seems like a waste of actions.

I wouldn't do it if I was already engaged, but if I would have to engage and then strike I might rather ready to trip against a melee enemy. Afterall I might do one less strike of damage but I effectively stop the enemies turn. That means DPR wise I set an enemy to 0 in exchange for whatever mine would have been.

[Unicore]

readying an action to attack when someone gets next to you and then tripping them could prevent them from getting an attack in or at least prevent them from doing a two action attack. It is a better plan than moving up to the enemy on your turn and exposing yourself to potentially three attacks.

[Yossarian]

It's worth noting that 'Attack of opportunity' has the ability to disrupt:

"If your attack is a critical hit and the trigger was a manipulate action, you disrupt that action."

As far as I can tell, a readied strike does not disrupt.

[breithauptclan]

The other major difference between ready and AO is that you have to specify a trigger for ready. You aren't allowed to use your readied action on just any provoking action that any enemy uses.

Depending on the GM, the valid triggers could be fairly generic, or could have to be very specific.

Now, both actions are very useful in their own respects. But they really aren't equivalent.