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One conversation that spilled a lot of electronic ink is: What happens if I ready a Stride when an enemy attacks me? Does it disrupt the attack if I end up outside the enemy reach?
This conversation was pure theorycrafting as kiting was not possible in PF2. But with the release of the Commander, kiting becomes a thing because of Form Up!
Now, the Commander can Ready Form Up! when an enemy attacks an ally at melee range. And if the GM allows it to disrupt the attack, which is very strongly supported by RAW whatever people may object, then the Commander can easily shut down melee enemies by forcing them to waste 2 actions per round (their disrupted attack and the Stride to get back to melee range). It'd be the death of melee bosses.
I personally don't want to see kiting becoming a basic strategy in PF2, that's why I raise this problem (to Paizo, if they read this conversation).
PS: Form Up! is not the only tactic that can cause issue with Ready. Passage of Lines can generate a big mess (who's the target of the enemy if you swap 2 allies?), Coordinating Maneuvers moves the enemy during their turn and Pincer Attack is also a nice choice.
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Because almost every tactic involves interrupting the flow of initiative, I don’t think it would be disruptive if the tactics trait disallowed being used as a readied action. There is already enough initiative complexity with commanders that delay is enough for GMs to worry about.
Because almost every tactic involves interrupting the flow of initiative, I don’t think it would be disruptive if the tactics trait disallowed being used as a readied action. There is already enough initiative complexity with commanders that delay is enough for GMs to worry about.
This was exactly the thought I had as well.
The specific tactic I thought about that felt like it was too much was a commander who gets the party to delay until the enemy leads with the movement to close to melee, then pincer attacks to set the enemy up with off guard, then readies form up to use after the rest of the party goes. Even without disrupting an enemies turn the action economy shift feels excessive.
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In my interpretation (influenced by previous editions), if the trigger is the attack, the attack occurs w/ exceptions only for abilities that specifically disrupt their trigger. Not a fan of retro-causation (again, unless specifically stated in the ability, then it's spiffy), especially with a generic Ready action. I think this also falls in the "Players, be careful what you wish for" zone because it wouldn't only be the Commanders causing trouble. Kiting would become a normal tactic all around. Heck, minions have little to gain past the first Strike, so imagine them all readying actions to nullify the PCs' first Strikes. That'd be madness, and maddening.
Of course there remain ways to exploit similar tactics like waiting until the enemy becomes adjacent. That's often enough to require the enemy to Stride again to catch up, especially if one's faster or made the opponent Stride to approach then Step to avoid a Reactive Strike. I can imagine swift fey minions doing this, especially if they can fly away.
Making it so that Tactics can't be readied would solve many enemy-nullifying (which would also be PC-nullifying) shenanigans.
I wouldn't allow it as a GM.
Ready a Tactic for when the enemy moves next to an ally, sure.
But not to in the middle of an attack.
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In my interpretation (influenced by previous editions), if the trigger is the attack, the attack occurs w/ exceptions only for abilities that specifically disrupt their trigger.
Yeah, that's my thought too. "Very strongly supported by RAW" is not accurate. The 'ready an action to Stride when attacked' is only strongly supported by a strange blend of RAW combined with IRL physics and preconceived notions brought in as baggage.
The game mechanics have this concept of "Disrupt". A reaction only prevents a different action from concluding and having its effect if the interrupting action "Disrupts". If the reaction does not "Disrupt", then once the triggering action starts, then it also concludes and has its normal effect.
So yeah. You can ready an action to Stride when attacked. You can also ready an action to Form Up when an ally is attacked. In neither case is the triggered attack going to be disrupted. Because none of Ready, Stride, or Form Up include the game mechanics needed to Disrupt other actions.
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Guys, the question is not "Would you allow it?". This discussion already went without end. The problem is that it's now possible easily when in the past it was so farfetched no one ever experienced it.
And when I say strongly supported by RAW, I don't say "this is the rule" but that it will create endless debates at tables like it creates here.
And I'm not sure every table wants to have that discussion.
If you ready an action to move when an enemy ends a move action in a position to attack you, you don't waste the attack action, but you do force the enemy to move again before they can attack you.
This isn't disruptive for a player to do, because it cost them 2 actions of their own to do.
Form up as a ready action is 2 actions for one wasted enemy action plus an additional amount of extra actions for the party/wasted actions from the enemy as the party reforms to take away flanks and possibly move far enough to force extra move actions, not to mention take better advantage of reactive strikes.
How is that different than the commander just delaying? Well, if the commander delays to go right before their allies, then does the pincer attack to make it so no allies need to move to get their best attacks in, then delays to form up, the rest of the party can make their full attacks against off guard foes without having to be dispersed with flanking in ways that leaves themselves vulnerable, then gain the full benefit of spending actions moving away from enemies, and it is infinitely repeatable.
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How is that different than the commander just delaying? Well, if the commander delays to go right before their allies, then does the pincer attack to make it so no allies need to move to get their best attacks in, then delays to form up, the rest of the party can make their full attacks against off guard foes without having to be dispersed with flanking in ways that leaves themselves vulnerable, then gain the full benefit of spending actions moving away from enemies, and it is infinitely repeatable.
Careful, you can only benefit from a single Tactic per round, and it looks like you are using many of them on the same characters.
Guys, the question is not "Would you allow it?". This discussion already went without end. The problem is that it's now possible easily when in the past it was so farfetched no one ever experienced it.
And when I say strongly supported by RAW, I don't say "this is the rule" but that it will create endless debates at tables like it creates here.
And I'm not sure every table wants to have that discussion.
So what I am hearing you say is that the interpretation that you can disrupt an action with a readied action even though Ready doesn't say that it can disrupt - is now, finally, a ruling that you feel is too good to be true.
How is that different than the commander just delaying? Well, if the commander delays to go right before their allies, then does the pincer attack to make it so no allies need to move to get their best attacks in, then delays to form up, the rest of the party can make their full attacks against off guard foes without having to be dispersed with flanking in ways that leaves themselves vulnerable, then gain the full benefit of spending actions moving away from enemies, and it is infinitely repeatable.Careful, you can only benefit from a single Tactic per round, and it looks like you are using many of them on the same characters.
The complexity of "only one tactic a round" mixed with both delaying initiative and readied actions is a big part of why I don't think tactics should work with readied actions. Even if overpowered options are not technically possible (or require remembering who benefited from which tactic spread out over x number of other creatures' turns), I just don't think it is worth putting that burden on players when it can really easily be avoided by making tactics and delaying incompatible.
And if the GM allows it to disrupt the attack
This line kind of deflates a lot of the concern here. You're relying on your GM opting into giving you something overpowered.
It's sort of like saying dual class is a balance concern.
You're relying on your GM opting into giving you something overpowered.
Many people will use this rule because it makes a lot of sense and is fully supported by RAW. You disagree with it, fine, you won't have the problem. So, can you accept the premises of the debate?
It's sort of like saying dual class is a balance concern.
If people complain about the lack of balance of dual class, I'm not sure the answer they expect is "Don't do dual class".
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Guys, the question is not "Would you allow it?". This discussion already went without end. The problem is that it's now possible easily when in the past it was so farfetched no one ever experienced it.
Air kineticist have a similar ability.
And anyone could ready their own move.
You're relying on your GM opting into giving you something overpowered.Many people will use this rule because it makes a lot of sense and is fully supported by RAW. You disagree with it, fine, you won't have the problem. So, can you accept the premises of the debate?
It's sort of like saying dual class is a balance concern.If people complain about the lack of balance of dual class, I'm not sure the answer they expect is "Don't do dual class".
It is fairly hard to separate the premise, here.
You're completely right that readying movement tactics instead of Strides would make the nonsensical ruling on Readying more impactful. But the tactics aren't the part where the problem is.
No amount of rules writing is going to stop people from trying to blend RAW with preconceived notions based on IRL physics or 'justify by narration'.
If people want to rule that Ready can disrupt Strike actions, who am I to stop them. That falls under 'the first rule'.
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Air kineticist have a similar ability.
It's a 2-action activity, if my memory serves me well, so no Ready.
And anyone could ready their own move.
In theory, yes. But practically, paying 2 actions and a reaction for a Stride is very expensive, so it is nearly never done. The strength of Form Up! is to move the entire party as a reaction and as such it brings the issue forward.
It is fairly hard to separate the premise, here.
I think everyone will agree that the discussion never settled and that there are (at least) 2 sides. So the conversation is not moot. From that moment on, either you accept the premise when answering this discussion or you move on. But bringing the other discussion in here won't serve anyone.
Also, even if you disagree with the premise, I'm pretty sure there are other situations where this issue would be raised. Be they Whirlwind Attack, AoE spells, Breath Weapon or whatever. Ultimately, moving the entire party as a Reaction is very strong and it's important to look at the potential side effects.
Fundamentally, I don't think the "ready to move after an attack is declared" is even necessary grounds for wanting to address the issues of splitting a comander's ability to issue tactics that can affect the whole party into multiple phases of a combat round. Even in a "you cannot ready an action to trigger after an attack is declared but before the strike is made" (which I think is a decent default position for a GM to make, but with a willingness to be flexible for the times where a reaction wouldn't make sense at any other time), there is just too much needlessly disruptive bookkeeping to let the commander issue a tactic and then ready a second one for later. Players and GMs alike are going to forget who has and hasn't benefited after multiple people have taken their own turns and regained their reactions/gained lost conditions...it just isn't worth it all around.
Also, even if you disagree with the premise, I'm pretty sure there are other situations where this issue would be raised. Be they Whirlwind Attack, AoE spells, Breath Weapon or whatever. Ultimately, moving the entire party as a Reaction is very strong and it's important to look at the potential side effects.
Even if I accept the ruling that Ready disrupts Strike (or AoE damage), the result that I come to is that because of all of these various problems that you are pointing out, that accepting the ruling in the first place was a bad idea and should be rejected via the Ambiguous Rules rule.
Adding more interactions that cause problems just solidifies that position even more.
Moving the entire party as a Reaction that doesn't disrupt the triggering action is much less of a problem. At that point it isn't really all that more powerful (and has a justifiably higher action cost) than moving the entire party as an action - which is what the standard use case of Form Up does.
there is just too much needlessly disruptive bookkeeping to let the commander issue a tactic and then ready a second one for later. Players and GMs alike are going to forget who has and hasn't benefited after multiple people have taken their own turns and regained their reactions/gained lost conditions...it just isn't worth it all around.
The idea is worth discussing. Personally I don't like the idea of a blanket ban on using a Readied Tactic. But it may have value.
It may also be more useful to discuss it on its own thread rather than this one. Just so that the ideas don't get buried in the mix.
If you ready an action to move when an enemy moves up to you, what's stopping the enemy from finishing their movement?
For example, an enemy closes 15 feet to engage with you. This triggers your readied action and you Step away. Your enemy's turn resumes and he continues moving, closing the remaining 5 feet. He now has two actions remaining, as before.
Sure you could have used Stride instead of Step, but unless you have significantly higher Speed, or special abilities like Tactics, I fail to see how the resource expenditure versus gain is all that significant.
If the trigger is instead “When an enemy ends their stride action threatening me”, how does that change the conversation?
It's slightly less punishing, but it is very similar in that you could deny a significant part of the enemy actions without having the drawback of long range combat (the need for space and range).
If the trigger is instead “When an enemy ends their stride action threatening me”, how does that change the conversation?It's slightly less punishing, but it is very similar in that you could deny a significant part of the enemy actions without having the drawback of long range combat (the need for space and range).
you're still taking 2 actions to ready, same as they would without a Commander. Plus your 1/round tactic for those allies.
There's more flexibility in who gets to move, but I'm still not seeing much difference.
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After playtesting, I don’t know that the commander really changes this conversation that much. The impact of movement based tactics is very powerful on the battlefield…but only really if you control the timing. Readying an action leaves the timing up to the triggering effect which can undercut how effective the tactic can be significantly. I have ended up using pincer attack almost every time I thought I would need to use form up, because it turns out stepping out of range of enemies you won’t be attacking and focus firing down the ones you will be is incredibly strong, and that works best after all the enemies move. Allies can’t benefit from tactics twice so having an action or two to do with your commander on top of the tactic is pretty important.
In the end, I am not sure form up works any better than a character just readying their own movement action. The commander actually has much better things to do and the open-endedness of which ally /allies you can help is much better when you are in control of it than when a trigger is.
The only exception may be trying to kite a solo monster with a lot of reach and no AoE effects or reactive strike type effects.
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you're still taking 2 actions to ready, same as they would without a Commander. Plus your 1/round tactic for those allies.
There's more flexibility in who gets to move, but I'm still not seeing much difference.
You compare 2 actions and one reaction from the Commander and 2 actions and 1 reaction from all party members. A pretty big difference in my opinion.
If you only have one party member Readying a Stride, they must be the one attacked otherwise you just lost 2 actions, there must not be an ally close or the enemy can get next to both negating the action entirely and they will be the only one to Stride compared to moving the whole party.
I do think superbidi brings up a good point. I also think many people here are missing it. The question isn't 'whats the ruling on readying form up with the trigger being my allies are getting attacked', the question is 'will this option create arguments and rules debates'.
For what I assume is the majority of the player base who don't spend a ton of time on rules forums, readying an action to move away when a character is going to be attacked is perfectly legal. Compare it to something like reactive strike, which triggers before the triggering event happens and can disrupt it (with the exception of getting up from prone iirc but even that rule gets messed up a lot). Most would assume readying an action works the same way, setting the trigger to be 'my ally is going to be attacked', an enemy moves up, declares the attack, and the readied action activates. Whether this is raw or not, it does seem logical and I could see it being a source of confusion.
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If you ready an action to move when an enemy moves up to you, what's stopping the enemy from finishing their movement?
For example, an enemy closes 15 feet to engage with you. This triggers your readied action and you Step away. Your enemy's turn resumes and he continues moving, closing the remaining 5 feet. He now has two actions remaining, as before.
Sure you could have used Stride instead of Step, but unless you have significantly higher Speed, or special abilities like Tactics, I fail to see how the resource expenditure versus gain is all that significant.
This is what keeps the game from falling apart. Reactions to movement can trigger from each square of such movement, so they clearly don't prevent the enemy from going on as they please after the reaction happened (unless the movement was disrupted). Readying a Stride is useful to goad an enemy somewhere and maybe waste up one of their actions, but if your goal is moving away, two Strides would get you farther.
What about Readying against a Strike, then?
In this regard:
Compare it to something like reactive strike, which triggers before the triggering event happens and can disrupt it
The only rule we have about the timing of reactions (or free actions) versus their triggers is the one about movement. It makes sense that something that can disrupt an action happens before the action completes, but it could easily be ruled that if you don't disrupt it, then the actions gets completed anyway; narratively, it happens together with the reaction. By this logic, even if you Stride or Step away in response to a received Strike, you get the Strike anyway.
This is the best solution I can think about.
you're still taking 2 actions to ready, same as they would without a Commander. Plus your 1/round tactic for those allies.
There's more flexibility in who gets to move, but I'm still not seeing much difference.
You compare 2 actions and one reaction from the Commander and 2 actions and 1 reaction from all party members. A pretty big difference in my opinion.
If you only have one party member Readying a Stride, they must be the one attacked otherwise you just lost 2 actions, there must not be an ally close or the enemy can get next to both negating the action entirely and they will be the only one to Stride compared to moving the whole party.
What I am saying though (and why I think it will be better for tactics not to be readiable) is that the trigger on something like this is complicated to pull off and not be a mess.
In actual play, the readied form up means either you issued no other tactic on your turn, your trigger is an enemy either ending a move action threatening a specific ally/making an attack against them, or you have a trigger like “any enemy ends a movement action threatening one of my allies/attacking them” and it is possible that it happens to an ally that can’t actually move, but now everyone else has to move and it is pretty much the same as having just spent one action doing it on your turn.
Whereas you could have just done the thing at the end or beginning of your squad delaying their initiative to all go together and essentially get way more actions worth of utility out of it. Like even just your commander delaying until one enemy has already moved and attacked can result in preventing a flank from setting up, or the party moving far enough away to burn multiple actions from the enemy, and giving you another action and your reaction to boot. So minimally everyone could move away and you could raise a shield you could block with, with very good AC, drawing an attack away from a 2 hander martial or a caster.
I still don’t think form up is better than pincer attack, but the commander’s actions are incredibly valuable. Missing out on either their own or their mount’s 0 map attack (especially vs an off guard target) is costly.
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Can the Ready action's trigger be a mechanic of the game rather than a narrative situation observed from the "inside"?
Ex.
“When an enemy ends their stride action threatening me”
vs
“When an enemy moves close to me threatening me”
?
It is all on the GM to decide what constitutes mechanic vs narrative, so there will always be variation.
One GM’s “that’s too mechanical” will be another GM’s “That is specific enough to be a clear and easy trigger to respond to.”
“Just as the creature begins to make an attack against my ally, I will use the tactic Form Up! To reposition the squad out of harms way” sounds like a viable narrative trigger, the complication is the mechanical order of steps and remembering who can and can’t respond, as well as the order of responses when that matters, and how it might trigger additional reactions.
If the trigger is instead “When an enemy ends their stride action threatening me”, how does that change the conversation?
Can the Ready action's trigger be a mechanic of the game rather than a narrative situation observed from the "inside"?
So you can't set up a readied action triggered by 'an enemy ends their movement adjacent to me.' Ending a Stride or other movement action is pure game mechanics.
You could trigger ready with 'an enemy moves so that I am within their reach.' But as was mentioned earlier, that doesn't mean that they have ended their movement.
I do think superbidi brings up a good point. I also think many people here are missing it. The question isn't 'whats the ruling on readying form up with the trigger being my allies are getting attacked', the question is 'will this option create arguments and rules debates'.
Not any more than already existed. HammerJack is right: the Tactics aren't where the problem is.
I will also note that Player Core did add some clarifying rules text to Limitations on Triggers.
If multiple actions would be occurring at the same time, and it's unclear in what order they happen, the GM determines the order based on the narrative.
Which may be a slightly odd place to put it, but it shows the intent. The GM is within RAW by saying that a Readied Stride or Form Up action doesn't prevent a Strike or Breath Weapon AoE from landing before the target gets to move.
Yes, they are also within RAW to say that the target moves before the Strike happens.
I'd be totally fine with people telling me what the trigger was using mechanical game terminology; after all, it's something we're all familiar with and allows us to more clearly understand the intended outcome.
It would still need to be something that can be observed in-game, however. I'm not letting anyone slide on that point.
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you're still taking 2 actions to ready, same as they would without a Commander. Plus your 1/round tactic for those allies.
There's more flexibility in who gets to move, but I'm still not seeing much difference.
You compare 2 actions and one reaction from the Commander and 2 actions and 1 reaction from all party members. A pretty big difference in my opinion.
If you only have one party member Readying a Stride, they must be the one attacked otherwise you just lost 2 actions, there must not be an ally close or the enemy can get next to both negating the action entirely and they will be the only one to Stride compared to moving the whole party.
unless the enemy walks up to the commander.
But really. If the team couldn't move better with a commander than without, then the class failed.
It's like saying groups with wizards can deal AoE damage better.
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What about "My trigger will be if any enemy starts doing something other than move when they are within striking distance of me," that sounds like a narrative explanation for transitioning between a move action and another action. Obviously if they keep moving, than it wouldn't go off, but neither would the trigger for "getting ready to attack me."
My point here is that saying game mechanics don't have narrative cues to them is a pretty limited, and subjective perspective, and doesn't really work as the cut off for something like what Superbidi is describing. I think that they work just fine for standard readied actions, but I think the combination of specific, narrative trigger and tactic with a very nebulous, unknowable consequence is what makes this specific case an issue more than the idea of characters spending 2 actions to try to deny an attack from an enemy.
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Many, many GMs I have played with would disagree with you. Which doesn't mean you are wrong! Just that this is not something with clear, universal rules that everyone will follow the same way.
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Sounds overly complicated and inconsistent. Going to stick with my own method.