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Free actions with triggers and reactions work differently. You can use these whenever the trigger occurs, even if the trigger occurs in the middle of another action.
I don't see how you can read "whenever the trigger occurs" as "actually a while later".
Or how you can turn "even if the trigger occurs in the middle of another action" into "no actually you have to wait until after that action".
Looking into the Disrupting Actions section of the book, I also don't find anything saying that disrupting is the only way an action could be aborted.
I'm not sure there exactly is a rule for saying whether an action should be broken off when someone is knocked out in the middle of it.
If I had to rule on the spot, I'd probably look at whether it was an atomic action, or somewhere in the middle of a multi-step activity. If an AoO knocks you to 0HP during the Stride part of a Sudden Charge, I don't think you get to make the Strike. But if you got hit with an AoO while firing a crossbow then I'd let that Strike go through.
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Free actions with triggers and reactions work differently. You can use these whenever the trigger occurs, even if the trigger occurs in the middle of another action.I don't see how you can read "whenever the trigger occurs" as "actually a while later".
Or how you can turn "even if the trigger occurs in the middle of another action" into "no actually you have to wait until after that action".
You use the reaction whenever the trigger occurs. That doesn't mean that the reaction happens or resolves first.
It more indicates that it would happen at the same time - but the game mechanics doesn't really support doing that. Actions happening at the same time only works in the narrative description.
Free actions with triggers and reactions work differently. You can use these whenever the trigger occurs, even if the trigger occurs in the middle of another action.
I read 'use' as declaring that you are spending the reaction and putting its effect on queue in the game engine.
Looking into the Disrupting Actions section of the book, I also don't find anything saying that disrupting is the only way an action could be aborted.
I also don't see anywhere that it says that there is any other option for aborting or negating an action either.
If I had to rule on the spot, I'd probably look at whether it was an atomic action, or somewhere in the middle of a multi-step activity. If an AoO knocks you to 0HP during the Stride part of a Sudden Charge, I don't think you get to make the Strike. But if you got hit with an AoO while firing a crossbow then I'd let that Strike go through.
I would certainly agree with that. A reaction that triggers on a Strike could happen between the two Strike actions of Flurry of Blows. If that means that the second Strike is not usable (the user is KOed or the target is out of reach for example) then only the first Strike is resolved.
Perhaps not, but you do need to wait until the damage is known.Noticed this in Shield Block
Trigger While you have your shield raised, you would take damage from a physical attack.The use of the word "would" tells me that this is to let the player know that they need not wait until after the damage is taken to... well... reduce the damage taken. So with the Giant Bat example, where the trigger is "An adjacent enemy damages the giant bat," I believe a Giant Bat reduced to 0 hit points would be unable to Wing Thrash.
Now that you mention it, the dealing of damage and reduction of Hit Points are in two different steps for Damage rolls.
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Yes, that is exactly how I would treat this situation. It makes far more sense than having the damage wait around for the charger to complete his activity, and then fall over unconscious.
How about instead if you use Sudden Charge to cross the room and make an attack and the enemy has a reaction ability that causes damage but doesn't ever disrupt. If that damage from the reaction is enough to drop your character, does the attack that triggered the damage not happen?PC: ◆◆Sudden Charge (Stride, Stride, Strike) for 22 damage.
Enemy: ↺ Wing Thrash for 13 damage.PC: Oh, that is enough damage to drop me.
GM: Hmm... Well the trigger is that you deal damage. But if that drops you and you don't make the attack, then you don't deal any damage.
So... Exactly how do you describe that then?
I missed some nuances in your examples that were different to prior examples. Namely, I was thinking we were still triggering on movement, say similar to a hovering Gargoyle.
I suspect some of the disagreement here is from the idea that a reaction has to go before the thing it's reacting to. I'm not sure that's the case - it happens exactly when the trigger says it happens. For the Wing Thrash, it triggers on being dealt damage, so that's when it happens - when the damage is dealt, but before working out the effect of the damage. So, yes, this could end up as a kharmic strike, where they both knock each other down.
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You use the reaction whenever the trigger occurs. That doesn't mean that the reaction happens or resolves first.It more indicates that it would happen at the same time - but the game mechanics doesn't really support doing that. Actions happening at the same time only works in the narrative description.
I read 'use' as declaring that you are spending the reaction and putting its effect on queue in the game engine.
Then what about reactions such as Reactive Shield, Nimble Dodge or the Wing Deflection of a Desert Drake? These ONLY make sense if they happen immediately, in the middle of the resolution of other actions or activities. According to your logic, Reactive Shield would take place after a Sudden Charge is completely resolved??
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Something else that occurs, 4e D&D explicitly disallowed reactions during a reaction for pretty much this reason. In PFS2e, you could legitimately Sudden Charge a hovering Gargoyle, which triggers the Gargoyle to use Clawed Feet in reaction to you moving next to it. The Gargoyle could then hit, causing you to trigger reactive shield. We're now resolving a reaction inside a reaction. Similarly, if the Clawed Feet hit, and you are about to take damage, your friendly Champion could then trigger Liberating Step on you to reduce the damage. That's now reaction 3 triggering. As part of that Liberating Step, you could Step away from the Gargoyle. If you had run out of movement and didn't have reach, the Strike part of the Sudden Charge would now fail due to changing circumstance. It wasn't Disrupted, but it now fails thanks to not having a valid target.
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I'm noticing some people here (myself included) falling into the trap of pointing to specific rules and claiming that they would not exist unless they were there to override some implied general rule. This trigger says "about to do thing", so it must be an exception that causes the reaction to go first instead of last. This specific type of move-triggered reaction always goes last, so all other reactions must go first. So here's an excerpt from the Specific Beats General section.
If a rule doesn’t specify otherwise, default to the general rules presented in this chapter. While some special rules may also state the normal rules to provide context, you should always default to the normal rules even if effects don’t specifically say to.
So why would a rule specify a thing if it wasn't already assumed to be true by default? Because such deliberate redundancy makes the game easier to learn and run. The mention of a specific thing happening in some cases does not necessarily prove that the opposite happens in all other cases.
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Free actions with triggers and reactions work differently. You can use these whenever the trigger occurs, even if the trigger occurs in the middle of another action.I don't see how you can read "whenever the trigger occurs" as "actually a while later".
Or how you can turn "even if the trigger occurs in the middle of another action" into "no actually you have to wait until after that action".
You use the reaction whenever the trigger occurs. That doesn't mean that the reaction happens or resolves first.
It more indicates that it would happen at the same time - but the game mechanics doesn't really support doing that. Actions happening at the same time only works in the narrative description.
The game mechanics support it just fine. In fact, if you waited, some reactions wouldn't work well.
Nimble Dodge for example, has a trigger of being targeted by an attack. If you waited for the whole attack to be resolved, what would be the point of increasing AC against it? You'd have to go back in time, raise AC against it retroactively and re-resolve the action? How is that different then from just doing the reaction as soon as it is triggered?
I don't see anything in the rules saying that reactions/triggered free actions are postponed. Or how long you should wait.
Free actions with triggers and reactions work differently. You can use these whenever the trigger occurs, even if the trigger occurs in the middle of another action.I read 'use' as declaring that you are spending the reaction and putting its effect on queue in the game engine.
The word "queue" doesn't occur anywhere in the CRB (4th printing). You're going really far here to stick to your position. Even the word "stack" only appears only twice, once referring to stacking tokens under a pawn to show 3D height and once talking about stacking bonuses.
I think you need to read this much more plaintext and with less baggage from other game systems. A triggered action happens when triggered, immediately. That's the point of writing "whenever the trigger occurs" and "even if the trigger occurs in the middle of another action", and yeah the word "disrupt". You can only disrupt things that are happening, not things that have already happened.
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There are no precise detailed timing rules in PF2.
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Enemy mage with low HP casts time stop to make his escape.
GM: The injured mage casts a spell you don't recognize.
Fighter PC: Using gestures?
GM: Uh, yes.
Fighter PC: That provokes an Attack of Opportunity from me.
GM: Make an attack roll?
Fighter PC: Ok, 15+21=36 to hit?
GM: That hits, but it's not a crit, so no disruption. Roll for damage.
Fighter PC: 10.
Enemy finishes time stop, then collapses due to having 0 HP.
GM attempts recovery check for enemy and crit fails.
Champion PC: Oh no, he's rolling. There's a second phase!
GM attempts second recovery check and crit fails again.
Enemy dies during his own time stop.
Rogue PC: I'm still undetected, right? Right?
Time resumes. Fighter sees enemy go straight from casting spell to lying dead on the floor with no transition.
Cleric PC: There's another enemy here! I Seek in a 15-foot burst over by that pillar!
Champion PC: Don't forget to disbelieve the corpse! I have a feeling I know what kind of spell this is!
Enemy mage with low HP casts time stop to make his escape.
GM: The injured mage casts a spell you don't recognize.
Fighter PC: Using gestures?
GM: Uh, yes.
Fighter PC: That provokes an Attack of Opportunity from me.
GM: Make an attack roll?
Fighter PC: Ok, 15+21=36 to hit?
GM: That hits, but it's not a crit, so no disruption. Roll for damage.
Fighter PC: 10.
Enemy finishes time stop, then collapses due to having 0 HP.
GM attempts recovery check for enemy and crit fails.
Champion PC: Oh no, he's rolling. There's a second phase!
GM attempts second recovery check and crit fails again.
Enemy dies during his own time stop.
Rogue PC: I'm still undetected, right? Right?
Time resumes. Fighter sees enemy go straight from casting spell to lying dead on the floor with no transition.
Cleric PC: There's another enemy here! I Seek in a 15-foot burst over by that pillar!
Champion PC: Don't forget to disbelieve the corpse! I have a feeling I know what kind of spell this is!
I'm not sure what your post is intended to argue for, but I actually quite enjoy the idea of this exchange.
The alternate version would be that the fighter hits, and by reducing HP to 0 (because it resolves before the spell does) and then the spell never goes off (presumably others can see the magical energy dissipate?)
There are no precise detailed timing rules in PF2.
So, how would you handle things?
Do you generally lean towards reactions resolving before triggers?
Or triggers resolving before reactions unless specified otherwise or a reaction would be rendered non-functional?
To be completely honest, I don't think the debate over when a reaction happens is all that important.
If an action is already being resolved, then it finishes unless it is disrupted.
A reaction that does not disrupt the action can happen before, or after that triggering action and neither case will prevent the action from finishing and its effects from being applied.
And I don't see where dropping to 0 HP disrupts an action either. It will prevent using more actions. But it doesn't disrupt ones that are already happening.
To be completely honest, I don't think the debate over when a reaction happens is all that important.
If an action is already being resolved, then it finishes unless it is disrupted.
A reaction that does not disrupt the action can happen before, or after that triggering action and neither case will prevent the action from finishing and its effects from being applied.
And I don't see where dropping to 0 HP disrupts an action either. It will prevent using more actions. But it doesn't disrupt ones that are already happening.
So you think that being dropped to 0 hp while an action is being taken doesn't impact the ability to finish the action. That's an interesting take. For simple strides or strikes that's certainly true. If you break an action into it's subordinate parts for your idea (so Sudden Charge you could provoke for moving, and when you provoke for movement it's from leaving the square, so they would could have 0 hp and be unconscious in the square they were moving into, and you obviously wouldn't finish your movement or be able to make the attack) then it does work and removes the question of when actions resolve from mattering.
Perhaps this is the best path forward.
But subordinate actions are kind of a grey area in how they behave.
But anyways, if we agree to break actions that have subordinate actions into separate pieces and say any piece that you're in the middle of will complete but you might stop the top level action from completing...well I can see it making sense. AT the very least the outcome is very similar to what I initially suggested, wherein I also break multi-part activities into subordinate pieces but I say they resolve before reactions unless explicitly directed otherwise or a reaction would fail to make sense. The out come is mostly the same. I'm not even sure if I can think of an example where the result would be different.
Enemy mage with low HP casts time stop to make his escape.
GM: The injured mage casts a spell you don't recognize.
Fighter PC: Using gestures?
GM: Uh, yes.
Fighter PC: That provokes an Attack of Opportunity from me.
GM: Make an attack roll?
Fighter PC: Ok, 15+21=36 to hit?
GM: That hits, but it's not a crit, so no disruption. Roll for damage.
Fighter PC: 10.
Enemy finishes time stop, then collapses due to having 0 HP.
GM attempts recovery check for enemy and crit fails.
Champion PC: Oh no, he's rolling. There's a second phase!
GM attempts second recovery check and crit fails again.
Enemy dies during his own time stop.
Rogue PC: I'm still undetected, right? Right?
Time resumes. Fighter sees enemy go straight from casting spell to lying dead on the floor with no transition.
Cleric PC: There's another enemy here! I Seek in a 15-foot burst over by that pillar!
Champion PC: Don't forget to disbelieve the corpse! I have a feeling I know what kind of spell this is!I'm not sure what your post is intended to argue for, but I actually quite enjoy the idea of this exchange.
The alternate version would be that the fighter hits, and by reducing HP to 0 (because it resolves before the spell does) and then the spell never goes off (presumably others can see the magical energy dissipate?)
Oh, no. I wasn't arguing anything. This was just a funny scenario that popped into my head.