Metric, you have followed that absolutely no one who has posted in this thread thinks that the OPs GM can Stride in Place to actually avoid negative consequences right?
I mean, I could have missed someone saying it doesnt provoke but I don't think I did.
Its also subjective whether or not Striding 0 and staying in place is a benefit to the player or not. As a player, yes, please, take your AOO and waste your mandatory movement instead of gaining benefit for it - thats almost always in the casters favor. It's like I made you slow, but you also provoked.
No one here is in favor of being cheesy, anti player, or cheating.
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Also worth noting is that No Escape doesn't trigger on exactly the same events as Attack of Opportunity, and does not reference the move trait.
Striding (or otherwise moving) 0 would not trigger it, nor would moving to any point that is not further away from the No Escape User than they started.
That's... exactly my point. That No Escape isn't a variant of AoO with the same trigger. That difference is why, depending on positioning, actually striding to a different space and back might yield different results than "striding" to nowhere. Because, depending on the spaces available to move into, other effects or reactions could occur.
Therefore, the statement that's been made a few time in this thread that moving away and back into the same space is the same as a 0ft stride is wrong. And focusing on AoO as though it were the only possible consequence is too narrow of a view.
Can a character or creature choose to take the Stride action and not leave their square? The GM is telling me that the target of my agitate spell is spending the action, but opting not to move from his square. That way, it takes no damage, remains in melee with me, and can ignore most of the effects of my spell.
Stride doesn't mention a minimum, but I would counter that if you're not moving then you're not Striding.
I'm old school though, where RAI or What's Fun is more important that RAW.
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I started out with the same opinion as tuffnoogies - surely stride has to mean you need to stride (and move from the place you are in).
But keep in mind - this is a level 1 spell which is lasting 1 round on a success, 2 on a failure and 4 on a crit fail.
What happens if you cast it on a swimming creature (fish).
Does he get automatically 2d8 damage on success, 4d8 damage on failure and 8d8 damage on crit fail unless that creature can get onto land and has a land movement speed as well?
Same applies to flying monsters. Does the spell force them to land - as you can only do stride on land?
Does a 5-foot stride even exist or is that a step and the minumum is 10 foot on normal terrain and striding 5 foot only becomes available on difficult terrain?
We always focus on the maximum of a stride as this is the default. Striding in place seems an oxymoron as it wastes an action and provokes. But this assumes we WANT to stride.
If we are forced to stride suddenly the opposite is the case. But the rules are quite about a minimum.
I dislike the idea of someone striding and not moving anywhere, but even if you disallow that I don't see why you couldn't just move 1 square to the left and 1 to the right and end up where you started.
+1 @Hammerjack
Simple example: the target is surrounded by lava on all sides. There's now a difference between not leaving the square vs. leaving it and returning. Spell is more powerful if it makes you leave the square, even if you return to it.
Too good to be true rule?
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I mean, sure, but the larger point is that allowing a Stride Action where you don't change spaces is antithetical to the entire point, purpose, and description of Stride itself.
Other examples where the Stride Action interacts with situations where movement is at LEAST suggested as mandatory are also found in other books beyond the CRB and how a Stride 0 interacts with them:
-The Arboreal Warden Shield Bash attack which can push an opponent 10 ft away with no save at all meaning that the AW need not ever reposition in order to use its attack.
-The Velociraptor has a 1 action Leaping Charge that gains a +1 circumstance bonus to any Strike it can make granting any Velocoraptor to inflate its to-hit by +1 in ALL circumstances where opponents are within 10 ft melee range.
-The Gogiteth could use Skittering Assualt for two Actions, Striding three times and allowing them to attack up to three opponents who were already adjacent to it without suffering MAP on any of those attacks.
-The Tarn has a very similar but slightly different type of Attack, Double Bite, that works the same way as the previous example but instead it's one Action, it only strides once, and then it gets two Strikes against opponents it threatens without incurring MAP on the two attacks.
-The Giant Frilled Lizard would no longer have to move INTO an adjacent square to use Intimidating Display before triggering it.
-The Nitemare has the Flaming Gallop that HEAVILY implies that the creature is or MUST move in order to deal 3d6 fire damage to any opponent who is adjacent to them at any point during the Stride 0.
-Redcaps could Stomp any opponent that is prone which is adjacent to them for a devastating 2d6 persistent damage without having to jockey around and potentially endanger itself by moving through multiple squares in melee range.
-The Sea Serpent can Spine Rake everyone around it without moving from their square to trigger an AoE attack on every adjacent enemy.
-The Skeletal giant can get a +4 circumstance bonus for their Terrifying Charge by NOT moving from their existing square and also get a free Demoralize.
And the list goes on, this is JUST the Bestiary and not even an exhaustive search. Stride 0 can easily be abused to remove the requirement that some creatures have to move around in their environment (I could care less about triggering AoO) in order to get some thematically or logically connected bonus.
I'll admit though, there is an ambiguity here in regard to what they mean when they say "up to" but based on just the CRB and the Bestiary alone I've found nearly a dozen circumstances where Stride 0 feet would result in at BEST a disconnect between the description of an ability which requires a Stride, and at worse a feature that gains a bonus in exchange for zero input if you are willing to accept "I stand still/shuffle my feet/vibrate in place" as a valid Stride. The fix is easy though since all they need to do is add "(Min 5 feet) to the Stride Action description.
I don't buy the "what could it hurt" argument at all because there is already plenty of evidence that Striding 0 feet is NOT intended and in fact goes against the design philosophy and disrupts the balance of a multitude of things that are already in print.
Too good to be true rule?+1 @Hammerjack
Simple example: the target is surrounded by lava on all sides. There's now a difference between not leaving the square vs. leaving it and returning. Spell is more powerful if it makes you leave the square, even if you return to it.
Yes. You cant even force someone to do that on a critical failure with Dominate.
2d8 per level on a successful save with no real option is clearly too good to be true.
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Can a character or creature choose to take the Stride action and not leave their square? The GM is telling me that the target of my agitate spell is spending the action, but opting not to move from his square. That way, it takes no damage, remains in melee with me, and can ignore most of the effects of my spell.
As others have pointed out, it is not hard for the target of the spell to say in melee range and still not be impacted by the spell.
The point of the spell is to make the target lose actions, not to do damage.
Too good to be true rule?+1 @Hammerjack
Simple example: the target is surrounded by lava on all sides. There's now a difference between not leaving the square vs. leaving it and returning. Spell is more powerful if it makes you leave the square, even if you return to it.
Yes. You cant even force someone to do that on a critical failure with Dominate.
2d8 per level on a successful save with no real option is clearly too good to be true.
You can do it with Shove. A thing literally everyone can do.
Or Fear.
Or Hydraulic Push.
Agitate gives them a choice.
The entire scenario also requires a fair amount of setup.
How is that "too good to be true"?
Too good to be true rule?+1 @Hammerjack
Simple example: the target is surrounded by lava on all sides. There's now a difference between not leaving the square vs. leaving it and returning. Spell is more powerful if it makes you leave the square, even if you return to it.
Yes. You cant even force someone to do that on a critical failure with Dominate.
2d8 per level on a successful save with no real option is clearly too good to be true.
You can do it with Shove. A thing literally everyone can do.
Or Fear.
Or Hydraulic Push.
Agitate gives them a choice.
The entire scenario also requires a fair amount of setup.
How is that "too good to be true"?
Because it works when they Succeed on their save.
Yeah, interesting catch about the AoO still happening even if you don't leave the square, after all:
(Also has interesting implications for other Stride-then-do-something abilities.)ATTACK OF OPPORTUNITY [reaction]
Trigger A creature within your reach uses a manipulate action or a move action, makes a ranged attack, or leaves a square during a move action it’s using.
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You lash out at a foe that leaves an opening. Make a melee Strike
Yep! This was a bit of a revelation as well, and had the benefit of making it easier to adjudicate and more potential usage.
While it may seem weird to think of the person standing still given what the spell wants. They are still spending 1/3 (or 1/4 if quickened) of their actions moving.
So it isn't quite as silly as it may seem, and as others said it still triggers AoO.
Thematically it might have been more interesting to have it say "if the target remains in its space" rather than having the stride line, but with how AoO aren't universal anymore I wouldn't be surprised if it functionally made no difference in game.
Maybe an "if the target ends its turn in the same space it started its turn" would have worked, but I am not sure it is worth the hassle.
As is it is a fairly simple boolean, spend an action or take damage.
The rules are abstractions, and that's why you need a human GM to adjudicate situations.
The grid is an abstraction too: why shouldn't you be able to Stride 4ft? 2ft? Half a feet? And your square is large enough, you can definitely move around it even more than 5ft, without ever going to a different one. Of course you would provoke reactions.
Whether that's enough to discharge the Agitate energy is up to the GM; to me, it is. In other cases, like charges, I'd probably rule differently.
Also worth noting - Bestiary entries that combine movement and attacks include restrictions where appropriate if a minimum distance moved is relevant.
See the entry for the boar, which specifies the minimum distance to move to receive the benefits.
Neither Stand nor Drop Prone leave their square, how do you reconcile that with your view?
[levity] Clearly, "Drop Prone" means plant your feet and tip forward. [/levity]