| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
I really do not see any issues with this as ...
For this specific case, I agree with your assessment of the ability.
I am a bit more hesitant to give a blanket approval for the ruling though. There may be some other scenario where using Ready on an ability that is supposed to end at the end of your current turn could cause problems if it is instead allowed to work for the entirety of the next turn.
Ready is a fairly expensive ability to use, so I don't think it would be easy to come up with something that would be seen as an exploit. But that it a matter of the game balance having a lot of redundant safeguards rather than something inherent to Ready itself.
So I might allow Readied Analyze Weakness, but still reserve the right to not allow other Readied 'until the end of this turn' abilities.
I think there is an equally valid reading of "end of your turn" to be the end of the current turn. This is intentionally designed so that you can't carry over the effect into the next round. This is an attempt to cheese around that restriction.
I think that if you look at the full wording for ready, this is certainly not RAI. Ready has a sentence that states your MAP carries over to your readied Attack action. So it is clear that the designers did not want you to use Ready to avoid penalties from the current turn.
I think the more we dissect this decision by the player, the more it feels like an attempt to manipulate the rules for a benefit you couldn't normally carry over to the next round.
My question is: what is the trigger of the readied action? The PC already IDed the creature or Analyze Weakness wouldn't work. So what trigger do you set that doesn't immediately trigger? Why did he need to use two actions this turn to ready instead of using those two actions to analyze weakness and then strike? Or stride up and strike, and use analyze weakness next round? Per the wording of Ready, once you ready and set the trigger, your turn immediately ends, then the ready triggers and you can now get the benefit of Analyze Weakness on the next turn and still have all three of your actions.
Ready to me is more for something where you can't control the trigger. I ready to strike a flyer that comes into range or when the guard steps around the corner. Ready to catch my friend attempting to jump across the chasm.
I agree with most of you here.
I don't immediately see a big problem in allowing Analyze Weakness to be used with Ready so that it can be used at the end of the next turn, mainly because the action cost of this is very high.
But I would reserve the right to veto it if I see that the player is somehow using it to gain an unfair advantage. As they said, it depends a lot on the trigger chosen, especially since Analyze Weakness needs an RK to work.
Even if you use a trigger like "an enemy I recognize (I have successful RKed against it) enters my range" or "an enemy I recognize (I have successful RKed against it) attacks me" it's still hard to see this being better than most attack reactions. It's basically your player sacrificing 2-actions and 1 reaction to do a Power Attack Vicious Swing with another action that only works against targets that he/she has successfully RKed.
Even with Kelseus' concerns, it's such an expensive maneuver that at level 8 it will be outdated due to competing Opportune Backstab due reaction cost, so it's hard to say that it will be worth it or be explored. At worst, it's a player thinking he/she's doing some kind of incredible maneuver with the rules, but in reality he/she's having a huge scheme to have a lousy result in practice.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I think the more we dissect this decision by the player, the more it feels like an attempt to manipulate the rules for a benefit you couldn't normally carry over to the next round.
Yeah, it is pretty clearly an attempt to get more benefit than normal. In most cases, it won't work because of the action cost of Ready.
In a scenario where an enemy isn't currently a valid target for this turn (hiding around a corner or something), but it is expected that they will be available before your next turn, then spending the actions from this turn to get the benefit to be used for the entirety of next turn would be nice.
For Analyze Weakness it also has the limit of only one attack during that time. I think that is the more limiting factor that is encouraging me to allow it to work.
If someone instead figured out some way of getting Bespell Strikes to trigger between turns so that it will be active for all three actions of their next turn, that is a bit more questionable.
| 5 people marked this as a favorite. |
"until the end of your turn" is pretty self descriptive. I can appreciate why someone might want to change it, but it's clearly not an 'equally valid reading' to just pretend it says something completely different.
As for the effect itself... Yeah, if you use it in this scenario it lasts longer than normal, but that's not really materially different to the way, say, frightened can last much longer or much shorter based on the relative position to the player I'm not sure how much of a problem it is. Abilities with turn based timing having inconsistent durations is an intentional part of the game's design.
|
I'm not very familiar with this action, but unless it is doing something for other players outside of your turn, you traded two actions and your reaction for a single action on your turn. Case by case basis, but yeah, I'd allow that to function as "Until the end of your next turn" in that situation (again, assuming it is not doing something for other players before your turn comes up).
If it was providing some benefit off your turn the ability was explicitly not supposed to do, then I either wouldn't allow it to function like that, or I would, but I would explicitly state that the player doing this is the only one who can benefit from it, and they just used their only reaction.
"until the end of your turn" is pretty self descriptive.
It becomes a lot less defined when the ability is used when it isn't your turn. When is 'the end of your turn' in that case? Define by self descriptive RAW, of course.
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Ready uses actions as part of your turn. Using the action you readied is a reaction, and is almost always happening during someone else's turn.
This seems clear cut to me. You used your actions, your turn is over, so the "end of your turn" happens. The fact that two of your actions gave you the ability to use a reaction later is irrelevant to how turns work.
Player Core makes this pretty explicit:
When it’s your turn to act, you can use single actions ( [one-action] ), short activities ( [two-actions] and [three-actions] ), reactions ( [reaction] ), and free actions ( [free-action] ). When you’re finished, your turn ends and the character next in the initiative order begins their turn.
I can understand it wanting to carry over to the next turn and if someone wants to house rule that, then cool. But it's very clearly a house rule.
"until the end of your turn" is pretty self descriptive.It becomes a lot less defined when the ability is used when it isn't your turn. When is 'the end of your turn' in that case? Define by self descriptive RAW, of course.
It's when your turn ends.
In a scenario where an enemy isn't currently a valid target for this turn (hiding around a corner or something), but it is expected that they will be available before your next turn, then spending the actions from this turn to get the benefit to be used for the entirety of next turn would be nice.
That's the thing, I can't really think of a scenario where you know the target exists (so you can use AW) but it is otherwise not a valid target. The feat does not require that you can see the target to use AW, just that you succeeded on RK previously. RAW I can use AW against a hidden or invisible target.
I just don't know what circumstances require the readying of this action, which really gets by spidey (GM) sense tingling.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
It's when your turn ends."until the end of your turn" is pretty self descriptive.It becomes a lot less defined when the ability is used when it isn't your turn. When is 'the end of your turn' in that case? Define by self descriptive RAW, of course.
What turn? It isn't your turn. The ability is being used during a reaction.
Maybe a diagram will help.
Your turn 1:
◆Something
◆◆ Ready action with duration of 'end of current turn'
-- end of your turn 1
Enemy turn 1:
◆ Something
◆ Something
◆ something that triggers Readied action
You (out of turn):
↺ Action that lasts until 'end of your turn'
-- end of enemy turn 1
-- Start of your turn 2
◆ Something
◆ Something
◆ something
-- end of your turn 2
-----
Do you mean the end of the enemy's turn? That doesn't make any sense at all.
If you instead mean the end of your last turn when you used the Ready action, then the ability is now ending before it starts.
And if you instead mean the next time 'the end of your turn' happens, that is the very extension of ability duration that we are talking about.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
What turn? It isn't your turn.
I'm not sure why that's important for answering the core question here. There are lots of "end of your turn" effects that can get applied during someone else's turn, and depending on the specific timing that can radically change how long that ability lasts. When has that ever been a problem?
There are lots of "end of your turn" effects that can get applied during someone else's turn, and depending on the specific timing that can radically change how long that ability lasts. When has that ever been a problem?
The other effects mentioned, such as Frightened, have varying amounts of other characters turns that it applies during.
This is a case where we instead have a varying amount of your own character's actions that it applies to. That is a different scenario.
I'll use Bespell Strikes to illustrate. Taken on a Fighter (Flurry Ranger would also be a good choice) with Oracle archetype.
Normal scenario: Using it in basic manner.
◆ Focusing Hum
◇ Bespell Strikes
◆ Strike
◆ Strike
I get two actions with the effect from Bespell Strikes. And if using a 2-action spell like Command, then I would only get one.
-----
Reaction scenario:
↺ Blood Vendetta
◇ Bespell Strikes
◆ Strike
◆ Strike
◆ Strike
Now I get three actions on my turn with the effect of Bespell Strikes.
The other effects mentioned, such as Frightened, have varying amounts of other characters turns that it applies during.This is a case where we instead have a varying amount of your own character's actions that it applies to. That is a different scenario.
It's not really different though. In both cases we just have "end of your turn" being a variable amount of time because it's not fixed relative to when you gain it.
"Varying amounts of your own actions" can even happen if you gain Frightened during your own turn, rendering the debuff not working properly because it decreases before it does anything.
Treating them differently also means you could have multiple effects that all change at the end of your turn but end at different times because you're defining end of turn arbitrarily from ability to ability. That's clearly not right.
There's nothing new or strange about the issue of timing here, except that people are getting anxious about it because it might provide some minor benefit to the player character maybe.
So you need some other example.
I'm aware that the example has problems. The point isn't that it is perfect, the point is that it illustrates the problem with the ruling.
If you could trigger an action that is intended to be used during your turn and only lasts until the end of your turn, should you be allowed to somehow manage to get it active before your turn starts and have it last for the entire duration of your next turn?
There might not currently be a working example that would be a problem. That's not the point. A hypothetical problem only needs a new ability written in order for it to become a real problem. It becomes a land-mine for future content.
So you need some other example.I'm aware that the example has problems. The point isn't that it is perfect, the point is that it illustrates the problem with the ruling.
If you could trigger an action that is intended to be used during your turn and only lasts until the end of your turn, should you be allowed to somehow manage to get it active before your turn starts and have it last for the entire duration of your next turn?
There might not currently be a working example that would be a problem. That's not the point. A hypothetical problem only needs a new ability written in order for it to become a real problem. It becomes a land-mine for future content.
An impossible situation does not illustrate a problem with the ruling. For all we know Paizo explicitly wrote the rules so there's no instance of this exploit working anywhere in PF2. For example, one cannot Ready a Press attack, maybe because some apply this "until end of turn" effects. Or maybe Paizo has considered such a use of Ready and finds it fine, mechanically balanced for the action cost.
As for hypothetical future content, ALL rules could throw a wrench in the system if Paizo's negligent. There's no reason, yet, to single this one out. I'm shenanigan wary (notoriously so among some players), and I see zero issues running this as is, at least until some imbalancing exploit surfaces. One is not locked into a ruling after new evidence presents itself.| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
I'd rule them case by case.
Ready actions are super rare, from my experience. So a Ready action that bumps into such ruling has great chances to be an attempt at exploiting an edge case.
So I'll rule them on a case by case basis as I don't think there's a need for a general rule.
Technically, Bespell Strikes is a free action with no trigger, so it can be Readied. But doing so is useless.
If the trigger you designated occurs before the start of your next turn, you can use the chosen action as a reaction (provided you still meet the requirements to use it). You can't Ready a free action that already has a trigger.
So you need to meet the requirements of the action to Ready it AND to unleash the reaction. Bespell Strikes requires your most recent action to be casting a non-cantrip spell, but you can't do it if your last action was the Ready activity.
But if we are going to consider actions taken outside the current turn when determining "your most recent action," that does open up other shenanigans, like casting a spell on your turn (or a reaction spell on someone else's rurn) then using Bespell Strikes at the start of your next turn.
I think for this reason, it is generally accepted that actions on other turns don't work as "your most recent action", as described in the spellshape sidebar.
But if we are going to consider actions taken outside the current turn when determining "your most recent action," that does open up other shenanigans, like casting a spell on your turn (or a reaction spell on someone else's rurn) then using Bespell Strikes at the start of your next turn.
I think for this reason, it is generally accepted that actions on other turns don't work as "your most recent action", as described in the spellshape sidebar.
This one used to come up with Magus: if you end your turn with a spell, can your first action on the next turn be Arcane Cascade? Back then, the requirement was "You used your most recent action to Cast a Spell or make a Spellstrike."
If you haven't done anything since (no reactions or free actions), you meet the literal requirement there at the start of your next turn.
This one is no longer a question because in the errata they added "this turn", so now it's explicitly not allowed.
Now have fun with the question of "does this one being changed to explicitly disallow it mean that it's normally allowed?" ;)
Dire Wolf attacks PC.
PC walks away and comes back.
Dire Wolf neatly puts its teeth back in the same wound to Grab PC.
Yeah, that would be pretty dumb. They should really update the written rule so it isn't limited to Spellshape.