Reactive Strike only disrupts manipulate actions, and even then only on a crit. How did you reach the conclusion that a hit wouldn't disrupt a ranged attack but a crit would?
Because I wasn't thinking clearly, it doesn't disrupt it unless the ranged attack has the manipulate trait.
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There's also the question of: when do you check the validity of an action? Is it all the way through doing the action, or just when you want to see if you can start the action?
For example, the cultist pulling the lever: he checks that he's in reach of the lever, then starts to Interact. The fighter does a Reactive Strike but doesn't crit, but does enough damage to kill the cultist.
Now, is the Interact aborted because the cultist isn't alive anymore to finish it? Or is it enough that he was able to commit to the action, and since you didn't crit and disrupt it, he just sags down and with his dying breath manages to pull it down?
I'm not sure the rules really answer this.
IMO for this specific question, the rules have plenty for me to lock-in a 100% answer that the action is interrupted and unable to complete.
If you rule the other direction, that actions can complete, you contradict the text inside Activities that instruct them to be aborted.
And you instantly get nonsense like creature A doing Reactive Strike on a Stride, only for a literal corpse to keep running because "can't act, Prone, Unconscious" is not allowed to interrupt the action.
The detail the Heal and lever question are there to suss out is that of atomic timing. Conceptually, as in, the nature of time being a linear series of events.
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In the lever scenario, it's not possible for the Fighter to hit the Cultist if they pull the lever.
You say the Fighter gets to hit them, but you also say the Fighter has been atomized by the lever pull.
That just makes no sense. The scenario is constructed to demonstrate a narrative-harmonious reason why atomic time needs to be respected.Edit: Hold on. I think you actually lock-in that the lever pull goes first, and Fighter only swings if he's still alive?
That's even more blatantly contradictory. You seem to say that the AoO hits before the triggering action completes in the Heal scenario.So why does the cultist only get hit after the lever pull?
I'm genuinely confused as to what your internal logic is behind these choices.__________________
You even found the clever wrinkle in the Heal example, where the final HP after the spell changes based on when the -HP and +HP happen. Yet you bulldoze right through it, rofl.
Do you understand that your own table rulings are not RaW? You make a statement that seems to half-acknowledge that, idk.
If instead of prompting for your ruling on those scenarios, would first asking:"What do you think the RaW outcome is for _________ :"
How would you respond?
The lever pull does happen first, and if the "universe ceases to exist" but somehow the fighter and cultist still do, then the fighter gets to make their attack.
And I'm not seeing a contradiction.
Heal goes first despite trigger AoO.
Lever goes first despite trigger AoO.
If the heal doesn't go before the AoO, that's how you end up with the 40Hp scenario.
If by "bulldoze through it" you mean I rule that the scenario that could create that situation doesn't happen, then yes. I "bulldoze right through it".
I absolutely understand that my table rulings aren't RAW.
RAW doesn't have good answers and basically shoulder shrugs.
And in response to "what do you think the raw outcome is", rather than try to suss out the most RAW answer, I said "RAW is f%*#ed, I would run it like this".
Edit: I think maybe you misunderstood my statements in the heal example, or perhaps I worded them poorly. But the only way to arrive at the person casting heal having 20HP is for the heal to resolve first.
Are we aligned in understanding my previous post now?
And I'm not seeing a contradiction.
Sorry, that was due to me thinking you claimed the AoO hit before the Heal was cast, but after the lever was pulled.
Thank you for explaining.
Is this is due a narrow change that alters when "[creature] uses [action]" triggers execute; delaying specifically those types until after the trigger action completes?
Or is this more a general change to when Reactions are allowed trigger?
(This change opens a can of worms, due to being inconsistent. Many trigger actions being allowed to complete would break the AoO. I doubt you allow movement to complete first. Even an example like a [teleport] spell would render the R.Strike unable to hit with that change.)
And I'm not seeing a contradiction.Sorry, that was due to me thinking you claimed the AoO hit before the Heal was cast, but after the lever was pulled.
Thank you for explaining.
Is this is due to your own ruling for when "[creature] uses [action]" triggers hit "pause" to execute only after the trigger is complete? Or is this more a general change to when Reactions are allowed trigger?(This change opens a can of worms, due to being inconsistent. Many trigger actions being allowed to complete would break the AoO. I doubt you allow movement to complete first. Even an example like a [teleport] spell would render the R.Strike unable to hit with that change.)
I guess I would say it's a general change to how reactions in general function, not specifically due to creatures doing an action.
As I said earlier, the idea came from Starfinder which says explicitly non-defensive reactions happen after their triggers, and carves out an exception for AoO.
I remove the general exception for "generic AoO" but do allow specific exceptions on an ability by ability basis when the ability says that it specifically disrupt or interrupts.
With movement specifically, I follow what someone else mentioned earlier that each square of movement is essentially broken up, and so the trigger happens as they move out of the square they're in. The 1 square of movement happens, and then you hit. I do ignore the "reach" check that would probably be a question you have. So the person successful moves to the square, then you hit them. So, if the drop unconscious from the attack they drop after moving 1 square. But even if they moved away from the attacker out of their reach, I rule you still get to make the attack.
To your point, a teleport spell vs reactive strike, reactive strike would need to critical hit and disrupt the spell to stop it from happening.
It's true there are a lot of consequences to running it this way, as there are to not running it this way as well. It all depends on which you find more distasteful to deal with.
I really hate even the brush of retrocausality of where the reaction happens before the trigger and can generally stop the action it's reacting to by rendering someone unconscious.
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RAW doesn't have good answers and basically shoulder shrugs.
I'll at least disagree with that.
The RaW does have a clear answer, where you run the Reaction the moment the trigger is first valid. For Reactive Strike et al, that "when" is often before the triggering action executes any text. And this Activity text:
You have to spend all the actions of an activity at once to gain its effects. In an encounter, this means you must complete it during your turn. If an activity gets interrupted or disrupted in an encounter, you lose all the actions you committed to it.
Is enough for me to say that a creature sent to 0HP before they can finish that ranged attack, stops acting when their action text resumes, and the ranged attack is never even rolled.
In theory, getting AoOed to 0 HP does not actually "abort" the action text outright.
You continue to read the paused action's text, because if some part of the action does not require the now-Unconscious creature's active input, then it would still happen.
This is also why a Reaction that imposes Immobilized would prevent the movement of a Sudden Charge from completing, but would not prevent a Strike at the end. The rules setup needed for that sensible outcome is the same as would prevent the ranged attack from firing.
As far as I can tell, the RaW does not have any "holes" in need of house rule patching.
(But houserules can easily create holes that then need more houserules to adjudicate)
I really hate even the brush of retrocausality of where the reaction happens before the trigger and can generally stop the action it's reacting to by rendering someone unconscious.
Well, I think we might have found the real seed of disagreement.
I do understand the feeling that it cracks immersion, but the idea is that a "uses an action" trigger is reacting to the initialization, to the wind up.
While it certainly can seem too fast to be reasonable, it's not at all supposed to indicate retro-causality.
The idea is that a R.Strike begins when the gunner starts to raise the firearm, smacking the shooter before the rifle is ready to fire. And it is NOT trying to sell a situation where the R.Strike begins in response to the bang of the gunshot.
Think of "uses" as talking about spending action points, and that entire issue goes away.
Clearly, what's happening when an enemy moves, provokes a reactive strike, is rendered unconscious and still completes the stride is that you smacked them so hard you sent them flying however many feet it was they moved!
There's also the question of: when do you check the validity of an action? Is it all the way through doing the action, or just when you want to see if you can start the action?
For example, the cultist pulling the lever: he checks that he's in reach of the lever, then starts to Interact. The fighter does a Reactive Strike but doesn't crit, but does enough damage to kill the cultist.
Now, is the Interact aborted because the cultist isn't alive anymore to finish it? Or is it enough that he was able to commit to the action, and since you didn't crit and disrupt it, he just sags down and with his dying breath manages to pull it down?
I'm not sure the rules really answer this.
This is kinda why I brought up the immobilized condition earlier. Suppose someone Readies a Grapple in response to a Stride. The Grapple is performed before the target leaves their square (as normal for such reactions), and then the Grapple succeeds, rendering the target immobilized. Immobilized is a restriction on the target's actions: the target "can't use any actions with the move trait." As for the Stride, you would think the Stride should immediately end, no? Otherwise, the creature would end up 20 feet outside the Grappler's reach yet somehow still Grappled.
"Can't act" is just another action restriction, the most severe of them all. So it stands to reason that if you gain "can't act" before an action completes, the action should end.
In a more exaggerated example, suppose someone starts a 2 round casting of inner radiance torrent. If they spent 3 actions then fell unconscious, should they be able to spend 3 actions on their next turn to complete the spell? After all, they weren't unconscious when they started.
As an aside, I was looking for the Chapter 8 rules for combat interrupting an exploration activity, but it seems to not go into that much detail about it.
However, Chapter 7 has this to say:
Some spells take minutes or hours to cast. You can’t use other actions or reactions while casting such a spell, though at the GM’s discretion, you might be able to speak a few sentences. As with other activities that take a long time, these spells have the exploration trait, and you can’t cast them in an encounter. If combat breaks out while you’re casting one, your spell is disrupted (see Disrupted and Lost Spells below).
So it seems even combat starting during an exploration activity amounts to a disruption of that activity, so the action costs paid up to that point and other costs are wasted.