The core rulebook says, "Your reactions let you respond immediately to what’s happening around you. The GM determines whether you can use reactions before your first turn begins, depending on the situation in which the encounter happens."
Let's say the GM allows you to use a Reaction before your first turn in combat. Do you then get another reaction provided to you at the start of your turn... or did you just get access to that Reaction sooner than normal when acting before your first turn in combat, and spent it... so you would have to wait until the start of your turn in the second round before you get another Reaction?
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You'd get another reaction at the start of your turn.
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Nothing in that rule states you would not gain reactions on your first turn in the encounter, so unless the GM houserules it, by RAW, your reaction(s) would refresh at the start of your first turn.
The only thing of note is that if I am not mistaken and disregarding feats that grant additional reactions you can only use one reaction per round.
That is if your GM permits your Fighter to use his AoO reaction before his first turn he would regain his reaction at the start of his first turn but could not use it until the 2nd round of combat.
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The only thing of note is that if I am not mistaken and disregarding feats that grant additional reactions you can only use one reaction per round.
That is if your GM permits your Fighter to use his AoO reaction before his first turn he would regain his reaction at the start of his first turn but could not use it until the 2nd round of combat.
Unless you would consider the time when the reaction was used to be prior to the first round of combat, or essential outside of the combat.
The transitions between combat and exploration are awkward like that, creating these kinds of philosophical questions, and I'm not sure there are correct answers.
If the GM allows you to have your reaction available before the start of your first turn, you wouldn't get a second one when your turn starts and end up with two reactions available to use.
Regain your 3 actions and 1 reaction. If you haven't spent your reaction from your last turn, you lose it—you can't “save” actions or reactions from one turn to use during the next turn.
I would count the non-turn from when initiative was rolled until the start of your first actual turn to also qualify as 'your last turn' in this.
But if you had used your reaction during that non-turn before your first actual turn, you would still gain your reaction as normal for starting your turn.
The only thing of note is that if I am not mistaken and disregarding feats that grant additional reactions you can only use one reaction per round.
That is if your GM permits your Fighter to use his AoO reaction before his first turn he would regain his reaction at the start of his first turn but could not use it until the 2nd round of combat.
Plenty of examples that would designate this as not true at all. Here's one right now:
Shield Fighter has the Raise Shield exploration activity going on. He has a Shield Block reaction.
Enemies initiate Encounter Mode and one of them hit Shield Fighter with an attack as the first turn of the Encounter, thereby letting Shield Fighter use their Shield Block reaction prior to their first turn of combat, since Shield Fighter was using the Raise Shield exploration activity, thereby having his shield raised before the Encounter begins, fulfilling Shield Block's requirements.
Shield Fighter's turn, he performs his actions and has shield raised once more. At the start of his turn, he regains his Shield Block reaction.
Other enemies go now, and continue to strike the Shield Fighter. Another hit, which means another Shield Block trigger takes place, and since Shield Fighter has already went and regained his reactions, he may Block this attack as well.
All of this happens within the first round of combat. He gets his initial reaction since he's aware of being in enemy territory and has his Shield Raised, and he gets his turn reaction because he goes before some of the enemies whom also proceed to strike him, thereby triggering yet another reaction that he possesses at the time. Two reactions in the first round of combat.
The only thing of note is that if I am not mistaken and disregarding feats that grant additional reactions you can only use one reaction per round.I don't think this is true. Do you have a quote for that?
Once your first turn begins, you gain your actions and reaction. You can use 1 reaction per round.
That's all I could find, but that's just talking about how reactions work in general. You gain your reaction at the start of your turn, and you can use one per round, because you don't regain it until the start of your next turn, a.k.a. a round, since unless something specifically references the turn order or happening at the "end of the round" or something like that a round is defined from one point in the initiative to that same point in the initiative.
This base rule is also clearly broken several times by feats that give you additional reactions.
The only thing of note is that if I am not mistaken and disregarding feats that grant additional reactions you can only use one reaction per round.
Rules say: "Once your first turn begins, you gain your actions and reaction. You can use 1 reaction per round. "
I think it is implied a round between your 2 turns.
If the enemy acting just before your Fighter generates an AoO, once the Fighter turns start it gains its reaction back and can use it immediately. You don't have to wait to use your reaction again.
Anyway, the term round is not accurate and generates always tons of discussions.
@Aw3som3-117: Yes, I checked the rule afterwards, and you ninja'd me.
Shield Fighter has the Raise Shield exploration activity going on. He has a Shield Block reaction.
Enemies initiate Encounter Mode and one of them hit Shield Fighter with an attack as the first turn of the Encounter, thereby letting Shield Fighter use their Shield Block reaction prior to their first turn of combat, since Shield Fighter was using the Raise Shield exploration activity, thereby having his shield raised before the Encounter begins, fulfilling Shield Block's requirements.
While I would not personally, this can very easily be contested on a RAW basis.
The Defend exploration activity lets you start combat with your shield raised, no more no less. This means that the AC bonus of the shield is active even before your first turn. As per the rules for using reactions before your turn this is very much GM fiat, so any GM having you benefit from the AC bonus but not letting you use your Shield Block reaction is not in violation of any rules.
Anyway, the term round is not accurate and generates always tons of discussions.
I agree that this is a common problem as there a multiple definitions for "round" that while often being clear on their own do not work well in conjunction with each other. For example I find the definition of "combat round", mostly referred to as round, as per CRB page 468 most clear, however the definition of "duration round", as per CRB page 455, also mostly referred to as round(s), clearly differs from the aforementioned.
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This question comes up at least every month.
Today is June 3rd. HERE is May 3rd's thread.
TLDR: it's GM Discretion.
The transitions between combat and exploration are awkward like that, creating these kinds of philosophical questions, and I'm not sure there are correct answers.There are correct answers, they just don't extend past the "at this table" level.
I don't consider those kind of answer to be "correct universal" answers.
If something is table or GM dependent then I would qualify that as "no correct answer".
But now we're arguing semantics here, which isn't worthwhile IMO as long as we sufficiently understand each other, and I believe we do.
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It's clearly written as GM's discretion, the real question is, "how would you use that discretion".
My personal take is that you have to unset your mind from previous editions (where you almost never got reactions before your turn) and just look at this one to infer intent.
There are quite a few reaction abilities that can be used only during exploration, that mostly make sense during exploration, or even that have to be used while rolling initiative. So a blanket assumption that you don't get reactions before your first turn doesn't seem right to me.
I prefer it the other way around: you get reactions, unless you were taken by surprise somehow, like through ambushing or disguises. This has the nice side effect of actually giving you the "surprise round" feeling that people want but that's missing almost completely in the rules (only rogues).
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It's clearly written as GM's discretion, the real question is, "how would you use that discretion".
I guess that's a personal problem for me then, as a player I don't really like the answers to be "at GM's discretion" for something so common as this kind of question.
If you're looking at some very specific rules interaction then I don't mind a ruling for something that just isn't sufficiently explored in the rules.
But things that are common like "Do I have reactions before combat?" and "How does the transition between exploration and combat time work?" those are questions that in my personal opinion should be fully fleshed out and shouldn't rely on GM's to make a ruling.
I agree with empowering GMs to make calls, but don't want it to be for things that are this common. It should have been more fully explored, detailed, and have rules written down for it.
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It's clearly written as GM's discretion, the real question is, "how would you use that discretion".I guess that's a personal problem for me then, as a player I don't really like the answers to be "at GM's discretion" for something so common as this kind of question.
If you're looking at some very specific rules interaction then I don't mind a ruling for something that just isn't sufficiently explored in the rules.
But things that are common like "Do I have reactions before combat?" and "How does the transition between exploration and combat time work?" those are questions that in my personal opinion should be fully fleshed out and shouldn't rely on GM's to make a ruling.
I agree with empowering GMs to make calls, but don't want it to be for things that are this common. It should have been more fully explored, detailed, and have rules written down for it.
I understand this preference, but for the record, the rules are fully fleshed out. Paizo went out of their way to say it was GM discretion. They were clearly thinking about reactions before your first turn, as they specifically mentioned it in the main rules about reaction. They could've just as easily said it always happens, never happens, or happens in scenarios x, y, and z. Instead, they decided that the game would be better if they didn't make a GM feel like they're supposed to run it a certain way. Yes, GMs already have the ability to break rules at their discretion, but having rules still makes it a base-line, and unless a GM has a really good reason to break it they're going to work within the rules as much as possible. It sounds to me like Paizo actively wanted a more fluid transition from exploration to encounter mode with room for GM interpretation.
Wanting fluidity is one thing.
Wanting to empower GMs is another thing.
But "fleshing out" the rules by saying the GM's can make the call with no or minimal guidance is (to me) the basic definition of having not fleshed out the rules.
It comes across as lazy, or indicates that they didn't know what to do, or didn't have time to think through and write guidelines (personally this is what I believe to be the case, they had deadlines to meet and couldn't do a good job of covering everything thoroughly) so they provided a catch-all of "Let the GM figure it out".
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I don't think this one is the same as a lot of other GM discretion things. Usually it's something like "my player wants to play a hobgoblin, which is uncommon - do I let him?".
This is a far-reaching thing that has consequences for which feats you might want to learn, builds you might want to play. But there's very little indication even what the GM might base their decision on.
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I posted this on a different thread, but it got swallowed up by the surrounding argument.
I’d pay money for a PF2E Big Book of Examples. It would be really helpful for stuff like this, even if it just had examples of situations when a GM might want to allow reactions or might not, and nothing was binding.
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I think there are plenty of blogs, youtube rules explainers and such like that. One unified book, no.
Also, much of it is "unofficial": someone who players/reads the game, but not a designer. I don't know if that's a show-stopper though. It sometimes seems like the designers have their hands tied too much to answer questions that just involve explaining or confirming the rules, rather than fixing bugs.
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I meant something published by Paizo. Examples from the designers. Essentially have it take the place of one of the scheduled books. There never seems to be room for examples in the existing books, but they would clear up many, many questions. If the designers could devote the same amount of time to putting together examples that they do to developing a new sourcebook, we might get answers to a lot of issues that create table variation. And I’d buy that book to help justify them doing it. It wouldn’t be pulling them away from designing the next book in the schedule like errata/FAQs do, because it would be the next book in the schedule. And there’s plenty of room in the creation of the examples to have fun with the setting, so they wouldn’t have to only be mechanical examples.
As much as I would like it, even if just to gauge general rules intentions, the point of this edition was to provide GM empowerment in both adjusting rules and creating rules that the developers simply haven't considered to be realistic or fair. Plus, it's not extremely difficult or complicated to gauge general rules intentions, it just takes research and a careful read.
Just as well, those intentions will evolve as the game does, and there are plenty of examples between Core Rulebook content and future publications where those intentions have changed, with dedication feats now granting better proficiency scaling, skill feats providing unique yet niche benefits straight out of the gate, and so on.