We all know you can only have one effect per trigger, such as "You roll initiative." But what about Reflexive Stance and Battle Cry?
Reflexive Stance clearly has a trigger of "You roll initiative.
However, Battle Cry doesn't have a trigger line. It instead says "When you roll initiative, you can..."
Should I take that to mean that the latter does not need to abide by the one trigger general rule, and that they can both be used more or less simultaneously on my monk?
Yeah, you can use Battle Cry in addition to that.
Barbarians would hate it not being able to Battle Cry when they Rage.
I've seen this question come up a lot before. I think that Battle Cry is probably supposed to work as a triggered action, but formatted weirdly. But there's never been anything resembling a clarification that I know of, and people can (and do) argue that the formatting is deliberate to make it work different from anything else.
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Formatting shenanigans aside...
When you roll initiative, you can yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize an observed foe as a free action.
It is a free action. It says so right there even if the feat's title line doesn't have the free action icon. And since you are using it outside your turn, then it would have to have a trigger if you are going to use it at all.
A free action with a trigger would still fall under the same general rule about only triggering one qualifying action for any event.
I have no problem with people wanting to houserule that it shouldn't work that way and therefore works differently for specific interactions such as Barbarian Rage or Reflexive Stance. That makes a lot of sense due to balance considerations with those specific class features or class feats. I would keep the houserule specific to individual abilities that are also triggered on rolling initiative, rather than a general houserule that Battle Cry doesn't trigger on rolling initiative and gets blanket permission to be used alongside anything else that does.
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Formatting shenanigans aside...
When you roll initiative, you can yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize an observed foe as a free action.It is a free action. It says so right there even if the feat's title line doesn't have the free action icon. And since you are using it outside your turn, then it would have to have a trigger if you are going to use it at all.
A free action with a trigger would still fall under the same general rule about only triggering one qualifying action for any event.
I have no problem with people wanting to houserule that it shouldn't work that way and therefore works differently for specific interactions such as Barbarian Rage or Reflexive Stance. That makes a lot of sense due to balance considerations with those specific class features or class feats. I would keep the houserule specific to individual abilities that are also triggered on rolling initiative, rather than a general houserule that Battle Cry doesn't trigger on rolling initiative and gets blanket permission to be used alongside anything else that does.
It is a free action, but the trigger is not rolling initiative. It is choosing to "yell a mighty battlecry ...".
This is why Battle Cry is not an action, has no trigger and gives a choice with "you can". As opposed to Reflexive Stance and Quick Tempered for example.
Formatting shenanigans aside...
When you roll initiative, you can yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize an observed foe as a free action.It is a free action. It says so right there even if the feat's title line doesn't have the free action icon. And since you are using it outside your turn, then it would have to have a trigger if you are going to use it at all.
A free action with a trigger would still fall under the same general rule about only triggering one qualifying action for any event.
I have no problem with people wanting to houserule that it shouldn't work that way and therefore works differently for specific interactions such as Barbarian Rage or Reflexive Stance. That makes a lot of sense due to balance considerations with those specific class features or class feats. I would keep the houserule specific to individual abilities that are also triggered on rolling initiative, rather than a general houserule that Battle Cry doesn't trigger on rolling initiative and gets blanket permission to be used alongside anything else that does.
It is a free action, but the trigger is not rolling initiative. It is choosing to "yell a mighty battlecry ...".
This is why Battle Cry is not an action, has no trigger and gives a choice with "you can". As opposed to Reflexive Stance and Quick Tempered for example.
All actions with Triggers implicitly include a "you can" in them since nothing forces you to respond to the trigger, doing so is an active choice.
Battle Cry is specifically called out as a free action, so I have no idea why you claim it isn't one. And as Finoan points out, Free Actions can only be used during your turn unless they have triggers. Battle Cry very obviously has a trigger ("when you roll initiative") even if the feat has not been formatted as such.
You can still run it an exception (I do myself) but mechanically it does clash with other abilities that work when rolling initiative.
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And as Finoan points out, Free Actions can only be used during your turn unless they have triggers. Battle Cry very obviously has a trigger...
Can characters not talk out of turn in your games? Is that not a free action taken outside of a turn without a trigger?
Edit: Seems it's no action at all. Oh well.
As long as you can act, you can also speak. You don't need to spend any type of action to speak, but because a round represents 6 seconds of time, you can usually speak at most a single sentence or so per round. Special uses of speech, such as attempting a Deception skill check to Lie, require spending actions and follow their own rules. All speech has the auditory trait. If you communicate in some way other than speech, other rules might apply. For instance, using sign language is visual instead of auditory.
Can someone please point me in the direction of the specific rules text that states "you cannot take free actions outside your turn unless it has a trigger?"
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This is why Battle Cry is not an action,
It is an action. It is specifically a free action. It says so right here:
you can yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize an observed foe as a free action.
It is a free action, but the trigger is not rolling initiative. It is choosing to "yell a mighty battlecry ...".
The trigger is not any time you decide to yell a mighty battlecry.
When you roll initiative, you can yell a mighty battle cry
You could also yell a mighty battle cry at any other time during your turn, but it wouldn't cause the demoralize effect because it wouldn't be using Battle Cry*.
If a free action doesn't have a trigger, then you can only use it during your turn.
If Battle Cry has a trigger, then the trigger is very clearly 'when you roll initiative'. At least, until you gain Legendary in Intimidation. Then it can also be triggered by critting an attack roll.
Can someone please point me in the direction of the specific rules text that states "you cannot take free actions outside your turn unless it has a trigger?"
Yup.
Free actions don't cost you any of your actions per turn, nor do they cost your reaction. A free action with no trigger follows the same rules as a single action (except the action cost). It must be used on your turn and can't be used during another action. A free action with a trigger follows the same rules as a reaction (except the reaction cost). It can be used any time its trigger is met.
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This is why Battle Cry is not an action,It is an action. It is specifically a free action. It says so right here:
you can yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize an observed foe as a free action.It is a free action, but the trigger is not rolling initiative. It is choosing to "yell a mighty battlecry ...".The trigger is not any time you decide to yell a mighty battlecry.
When you roll initiative, you can yell a mighty battle cryYou could also yell a mighty battle cry at any other time during your turn, but it wouldn't cause the demoralize effect because it wouldn't be using Battle Cry*.
If a free action doesn't have a trigger, then you can only use it during your turn.
If Battle Cry has a trigger, then the trigger is very clearly 'when you roll initiative'. At least, until you gain Legendary in Intimidation. Then it can also be triggered by critting an attack roll.
...
The Demoralize is a free action. Not Battle Cry. Battle Cry is an ability, not an Action.
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Formatting shenanigans aside...
When you roll initiative, you can yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize an observed foe as a free action.It is a free action. It says so right there even if the feat's title line doesn't have the free action icon. And since you are using it outside your turn, then it would have to have a trigger if you are going to use it at all.
A free action with a trigger would still fall under the same general rule about only triggering one qualifying action for any event.
I have no problem with people wanting to houserule that it shouldn't work that way and therefore works differently for specific interactions such as Barbarian Rage or Reflexive Stance. That makes a lot of sense due to balance considerations with those specific class features or class feats. I would keep the houserule specific to individual abilities that are also triggered on rolling initiative, rather than a general houserule that Battle Cry doesn't trigger on rolling initiative and gets blanket permission to be used alongside anything else that does.
It is a free action, but the trigger is not rolling initiative. It is choosing to "yell a mighty battlecry ...".
This is why Battle Cry is not an action, has no trigger and gives a choice with "you can". As opposed to Reflexive Stance and Quick Tempered for example.
All actions with Triggers implicitly include a "you can" in them since nothing forces you to respond to the trigger, doing so is an active choice.
Battle Cry is specifically called out as a free action, so I have no idea why you claim it isn't one. And as Finoan points out, Free Actions can only be used during your turn unless they have triggers. Battle Cry very obviously has a trigger ("when you roll initiative") even if the feat has not been formatted as such.
You can still run it an exception (I do myself) but mechanically it does clash with other abilities that work when rolling initiative.
The "You can" does not exist for Actions, even implicitly, because you choose to use them and pay the Action cost while respecting the Trigger when there is one.
All of which is provided in the Action's description.But Battle Cry is not an Action.
But Battle Cry is not an Action.
You are arguing some very strange semantics. And it really doesn't work.
OK. So let's assume that Battle Cry is not the name of an action. It is missing any action icon, after all.
But at that point it is an named ability that you cannot use directly. Instead it creates an unnamed free action with a trigger of 'when you roll initiative'.
And then we are back in the same place we were at before. You still cannot, by RAW, use this now unnamed free action alongside other free actions with triggers of 'you roll initiative'. You have to choose one of them to use when initiative is rolled.
You can insist that Battle Cry is the name of the ability instead of the action. But all that does is makes it harder to talk about.
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But Battle Cry is not an Action.You are arguing some very strange semantics. And it really doesn't work.
OK. So let's assume that Battle Cry is not the name of an action. It is missing any action icon, after all.
But at that point it is an named ability that you cannot use directly. Instead it creates an unnamed free action with a trigger of 'when you roll initiative'.
And then we are back in the same place we were at before. You still cannot, by RAW, use this now unnamed free action alongside other free actions with triggers of 'you roll initiative'. You have to choose one of them to use when initiative is rolled.
You can insist that Battle Cry is the name of the ability instead of the action. But all that does is makes it harder to talk about.
The Free Action is Demoralize.
It is not triggered by "You roll initiative", as Quick Tempered would be, but by You "yell a mighty battle cry".
If it was triggered by "You roll initiative", it would be explicitly spelled out as such.
This wording was used specifically to avoid interfering with Free Actions that do have the Trigger : "You roll initiative" while complying with the one Free Action per Trigger limit.
No need to houserule anything here IMO.
Ofc we can agree to disagree.
If it was triggered by "You roll initiative", it would be explicitly spelled out as such.
What part of "When you roll initiative" means something other than "triggered by rolling initiative"? That's some very fancy wordsmithing.
This wording was used specifically to avoid interfering with Free Actions that do have the Trigger : "You roll initiative" while complying with the one Free Action per Trigger limit.
Citation Needed.
The other explanation for why they didn't include the action/trigger line in the stat block is because Battle Cry has a second usage case that is a reaction instead.
You seem to have taken a formatting decision and assumed intent from it.
But Battle Cry is not an Action.You are arguing some very strange semantics. And it really doesn't work.
OK. So let's assume that Battle Cry is not the name of an action. It is missing any action icon, after all.
But at that point it is an named ability that you cannot use directly. Instead it creates an unnamed free action with a trigger of 'when you roll initiative'.
And then we are back in the same place we were at before. You still cannot, by RAW, use this now unnamed free action alongside other free actions with triggers of 'you roll initiative'. You have to choose one of them to use when initiative is rolled.
You can insist that Battle Cry is the name of the ability instead of the action. But all that does is makes it harder to talk about.
The Free Action is Demoralize.
It is not triggered by "You roll initiative", as Quick Tempered would be, but by You "yell a mighty battle cry".
If it was triggered by "You roll initiative", it would be explicitly spelled out as such.
This wording was used specifically to avoid interfering with Free Actions that do have the Trigger : "You roll initiative" while complying with the one Free Action per Trigger limit.
No need to houserule anything here IMO.
Ofc we can agree to disagree.
I'm not sure I buy into that specific explanation, but I do agree that I think it was intentionally written the way it was as a means of getting around the free action trigger restrictions.
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I don't think the formatting is to allow combos, mostly because of the second useage, as Tridus points out.
Since the skill feat effectively gives you:
Battle Cry [Free Action]
Prerequisites Master in Intimidation
Trigger You roll Initiative.
You yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize an observed foe.
and then later:
Battle Cry [Reaction]
Prerequisites Legendary in Intimidation
Trigger You critically succeed an attack roll against a foe
You yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize the foe you critically succeeded against.
These two are similar, but different in key, specific ways that means you can't really put one in the statblock of the other. So while we can think the format was chosen for compatibility, it might also simple be a space saving measure.
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IF there was a goal was to make it not interfere with ither actions triggered by rolling initiative, they would have needed to rely on not describing it as a triggered action at all, since the trigger being written identically is not how this sort of thing is resolved. The rules on triggered actions do state that whether multiple actions with triggers are working on effectively the same trigger is based on whether it is the same narrative event, not whether the trigger wording matches.
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I don't think the formatting is to allow combos, mostly because of the second useage, as Tridus points out.
Since the skill feat effectively gives you:
Battle Cry [Free Action]
Prerequisites Master in Intimidation
Trigger You roll Initiative.You yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize an observed foe.
and then later:
Battle Cry [Reaction]
Prerequisites Legendary in Intimidation
Trigger You critically succeed an attack roll against a foeYou yell a mighty battle cry and Demoralize the foe you critically succeeded against.
These two are similar, but different in key, specific ways that means you can't really put one in the statblock of the other. So while we can think the format was chosen for compatibility, it might also simple be a space saving measure.
If they wanted Battle Cry to be like this, they only needed to put both statblocks one after the other. Except of course that, in both cases, the free action / reaction is the Demoralize.
There is even a format for this that they could have used if that was their intent, like Body of Air that bears the symbols of Reaction OR 2 Actions.
If they wanted Battle Cry to be like this, they only needed to put both statblocks one after the other. Except of course that, in both cases, the free action / reaction is the Demoralize.
There is even a format for this that they could have used if that was their intent, like Body of Air that bears the symbols of Reaction OR 2 Actions.
First, I have no idea why you keep saying "the free Action is the Demoralize". It is pretty standard for named Free Actions to just have the effect be "do X", such as Quick Shape, Rapid Assessment, Intuitive Illusions, Recognize Ambush and of course: Quick Tempered and Reflexive Stance, the two things OP was asking about. Battle Cry is no different, it is giving you a basic effect (Demoralize*) as a Free Action when rolling Initiative. It just lacks the formatting usually associated with free actions.
Secondly, you can't really use the same format as Body of Air as easily because both halves of Battle Cry have different Prerequisites, Triggers and Effects. So yes, you would need to print two statblocks, which take up more space, or you could just write it as two sentences and convey the same information in a different way, but then people get confused (as evidenced by this thread).
*And not even normal Demoralize. It needs to be against an observed foe, whereas normal Demoralize just requires you to be aware of a target. Meaning you can't use Battle Cry against Hidden opponents.
It took me a while to get around to it, but I answered my own question.
Reactions have triggers, which must be met for you to use the reaction.
A free action with a trigger follows the same rules as a reaction (except the reaction cost). It can be used any time its trigger is met.
You are not allowed to electively use triggered actions. The trigger condition must be met.
The wording of the Free Action itself is a bit different and by itself appears to indicate that it is possible to use them electively since you only 'can' use them when triggered. But with the sentence saying that they work the same way as Reactions, Free Actions are not going to get more opportunities to use than Reactions do. So while they 'can' be used when their trigger is met, they also 'can only' be used when their trigger is met.