This way of playing won't get you very far. You are swapping 2 of your actions and a reaction to disrupt one enemy action. The enemy should at some point be able to attack you (at round 2 in your case).
I've never seen anyone using such strategy outside desperate situations (and in general just because it was giving them more chances to evade the attacks).
As a side note, the system can't represent some very valid ways of avoiding attacks. For example, if the enemy and you are on opposite sides of an obstacle, you could move around the obstacle and as such avoid attacks. This is something that happens in real life and that is really hard to reproduce with a game system where you use all your 3 actions simultaneously. So using a Ready action to Step when you get attacked is a nice way of representing such defensive maneuvers.
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There's 3 ways to look at it.
Your reaction happens before, after or at the same time as the trigger.
Some triggered actions like attack of opportunity let you disrupt the triggering action and they aren't worded differently than other triggered actions. That rules out the triggered action happening after the trigger.
Trigger rules say:
When its trigger is satisfied—and only when it is satisfied—you can use the reaction or free action.
That rules out Your reaction happening before the trigger.
If the reaction happens at the same time as the trigger, you step but the attack goes through because your reaction doesn't disrupt the strike.You can get around this by specifying "when it is preparing for an attack" but then the enemy doesn't actually spend its attack action, so it's the same as declaring a "when it is adjacent to me" trigger assuming an enemy that just walks up to you to strike.
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Ah, yes. The Ready action gimmick. (Read that for the full debate.)
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You can see the other thread and answers here for plenty of discussion on it.
But consider: if you do argue successfully argue that it works and the opponent wastes their action, the first homebrew of any game is going to be "never mind, no it doesn't work that way" because it immediately turns the game from something fun into a ranged-only game of everybody shuffling around because against any basic melee character you would always be able to trade two or three of your actions for all three of theirs (they move towards you, waste their attack, and move to get back in range of somebody).
There is no need for a definitive answer on "does this thing that stops the game from working at all actually work?" because people are here to play a game that works at all. The attack needs to resolve before you can move or you're playing a board game version of tag instead of Pathfinder.
it immediately turns the game from something fun into a ranged-only game of everybody shuffling around because against any basic melee character you would always be able to trade two or three of your actions for all three of theirs (they move towards you, waste their attack, and move to get back in range of somebody).
to be fair if it worked you could only pull it off once at the start of the encounter, you start your first turn away from the enemy and your second turn adjacent
by that point if you stride then ready a stride and the enemy just strides, fails to strike and strides after you it's like if you strode 3 times and the enemy did the same, essentially attempting to flee from the encounter| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
it immediately turns the game from something fun into a ranged-only game of everybody shuffling around because against any basic melee character you would always be able to trade two or three of your actions for all three of theirs (they move towards you, waste their attack, and move to get back in range of somebody).to be fair if it worked you could only pull it off once at the start of the encounter, you start your first turn away from the enemy and your second turn adjacent
by that point if you stride then ready a stride and the enemy just strides, fails to strike and strides after you it's like if you strode 3 times and the enemy did the same, essentially attempting to flee from the encounter
That's why I said "two or three actions", yeah. There's a really big difference between this and fleeing, though. Strafing would be a pretty serious issue if people generally played on flat, featureless planes stretching at least a hundred feet in every direction.
Under the normal rules, you need more than two full moves of room to run away with, or else your opponent can catch up with a double-move and still strike. But with the readied action interrupting an attack, you can dodge somebody forever in just a 20x20 room. In a 25x25 room, an entire party could kite a melee boss, with at least half the party getting shots in each round while the boss could never get a hit in. And unlike running away, the boss's move speed doesn't even matter.
It shrinks all the problems of large, open spaces down to such a small size that they're unavoidable, while also removing tools to deal with them.
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I don’t really see the big deal. After attacking and seeing the player try this once, the enemy could just do something other than strike: grab, trip, switch to a ranged weapon, take cover, attack someone else, etc.
That enemy? Or the GM?
The typical life expectancy of any individual enemy is a number of rounds countable on one hand.
But having the GM do that for the rest of the time with that player would rightfully be called out as metagaming.
If this tactic were an in-world possibility, every culture would have trained to take advantage of it. And that'd be horrible, as well as ruin verisimilitude.
Plus, how does one know when an enemy coming alongside you is Striking or just interposing their weapon (as one would do) as they continue around you to flank? Weapons & opponents are bobbing and weaving much of the time.
And do all attackers plant their feet in a way that indicates they're done moving before an attack? No, they don't. That's a game conceit which one wouldn't see if the combat were played back.
The tactic only makes sense in meta terms, and form fitting the action to delineated units, which doesn't necessarily match the narrative the PC experiences. Too many factors are intangible and too many actions indistinguishable until actually executed, by which time it's too late (barring those special abilities which specifically call out being able to do this. which Ready does not).
Again I'm not for allowing it but
You can dodge somebody forever in just a 20x20 room.
(snip)
It shrinks all the problems of large, open spaces down to such a small size that they're unavoidable, while also removing tools to deal with them.
That only works if the enemy is alone, doesn't have reach, doesn't have a reaction feature and only has a melee attack.
Even then as long as it's not mindless, a single enemy can stride up then ready an action to strike as the player's turn begins. Now the enemy is the one getting one strike per turn and the player starts adjacent, the perfect kiting doesn't work.
Yeah, this tactic is the epitome of theorycrafting: It's supposed to be super strong still no one has ever seen it (at least, I've never heard of such a thing). I think we can live it be.
Also, playing during dozens of rounds to end a single encounter (as you need to use a Ready action on every character and move away from the monster for those who are next to it, so we are speaking of a couple of ranged attacks per round) is not attractive at all.
Yeah, this tactic is the epitome of theorycrafting: It's supposed to be super strong still no one has ever seen it (at least, I've never heard of such a thing). I think we can live it be.
Also, playing during dozens of rounds to end a single encounter (as you need to use a Ready action on every character and move away from the monster for those who are next to it, so we are speaking of a couple of ranged attacks per round) is not attractive at all.
Agreed. But that makes it a trap option that the GM should shut down and not allow the players to use.
In this case the 'trap option' is not unexpected mechanical weakness like we usually use the term for, but unexpected loss of fun in the game.
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That enemy? Or the GM?
The typical life expectancy of any individual enemy is a number of rounds countable on one hand.
But having the GM do that for the rest of the time with that player would rightfully be called out as metagaming.
Even at the individual enemy level, it would be 1 time per encounter. 2 actions to avoid 1 attack 1 time per encounter is not over powered. The GM does not have to metagame to quickly show the player that a tactic like this is nothing to rely upon, but maybe useful once in every great long while. It is a problem that takes care of itself/hence why it stays in theorycrafting discussions and doesn’t get abused by PCs.
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Again I'm not for allowing it but
You can dodge somebody forever in just a 20x20 room.
(snip)
It shrinks all the problems of large, open spaces down to such a small size that they're unavoidable, while also removing tools to deal with them.That only works if the enemy is alone, doesn't have reach, doesn't have a reaction feature and only has a melee attack.
Even then as long as it's not mindless, a single enemy can stride up then ready an action to strike as the player's turn begins. Now the enemy is the one getting one strike per turn and the player starts adjacent, the perfect kiting doesn't work.
Readying for a strictly mechanical trigger with no in-world occurrence like "their turn begins" is as invalid as this "tactic".
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Here's some valid triggers and a breakdown of them (Obviously there can be more, work with your GM):
"Moves adjacent to me", means the creature is adjacent to you. This does not mean their movement has ended though, so they could keep moving. This is good with Stride and Strike. Stride lets you move very far, meaning they would likely have to spend a second action to get to you. Strike is great if the enemy used hit and run tactics.
"Attacks me", means they attack. This does not mean the target you with an attack or start the attack, it means they perform the full attack. This can not be used to disrupt an attack or anything like that. It can also trigger off ranged attacks though. Useful for if you have a potion in hand or something that you want to drink for extra HP or a buff, Casting a 1 action Spell like Heal, or Striding/Stepping so the enemy can't follow up on you.
"Casts a Spell" like with Attack, can't be used to disrupt it, but can trigger off any spell cast, not just hostile ones. Not sure what to do with it other than what I listed above.
In the end, Readying an action isn't very useful unless the enemy is using hit and run tactics. You can get the enemy to waste an action, sure, but you could also just use those two actions running away to make them waste more.
Readying can be great for some things, like "Trip that guy as soon as he moves up to me" or "Grapple that deathbird when it swoops down to claw at me again, before it flies away". Just not for "cancel someone's action in the middle of it".
Readying for a strictly mechanical trigger with no in-world occurrence like "their turn begins" is as invalid as this "tactic".
but you could set a "takes any action" trigger which accomplishes the same thing unless they want to take their turn idling
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There are limits on what you can use as your trigger for Ready. They aren't spelled out completely, because there is no way to do that. It is left up to the GM to decide what is reasonable.
And I don't think it is reasonable to have 'that target does anything' as a trigger. You have to pick something specific.
I think y'all are overestimating this tactic. It only really shines in a scenario which almost never happens: 1v1 duels. And they gave us separate dueling rules for a reason.
Otherwise, your PC is readying two actions on something which might not actually trigger. Archers are the least likely targets-- not as conveniently placed as melee guys, harder to hit than cloth casters. The enemy could attack anyone else instead, cast a spell, or do a variety of other things.
If they are the only target, odds are it is an outnumbered NPC and trading two actions for a single enemy's turn is bad.
You might be able to do some annoying things with Running Reload, but most people seem to think reload weapons need the help. Skirmish Strike might get spicy, but this tactic is super appropriate for skirmishing and your allies probably remain viable targets.