The difference between Delay and Ready?

Eothe_Master · Feb 7, 2002

Is there a practicable difference between delaying your action and readying your action, OTHER than you lose your action after 10 inititative "ticks" have passed?

Let's say Guy Goblin has full cover, but is preparing to attempt to escape by breaking cover, running across a room and into a corridor out of the line of sight of Joe Warrior, who has alreday shot at him once with a crossbow.

Joe Warrior has a loaded crossbow and goes first on Initiative. Let's say 15.

If he says, "I ready my crossbow and will fire if Guy Goblin leaves his cover."

Joe Warrior will fire if Guy Goblin runs for it between 15 and Joe's turn in the next round on 15.

However, if Joe said, "I delay my action," on 15 and Guy Goblin made a break for it on 9--before Joe lost his action for the round--can he fire his crossbow just as he would have using the ready action, or does Guy Goblin get to complete his action (possibly getting out of Joe's line of sight) before Joe can act?

--EM

Hypersmurf · Feb 7, 2002

Three major differences.

1/ Only a readied action (or an AoO) can interrupt another's action. So yeah, if Joe delays, the goblin gets away clean.

2/ A Ready requires a specified trigger for a specified action. If Joe readies that action, and the goblin doesn't leave his cover, Joe does nothing for the round. If he delays, at any time (that another character isn't acting) he can choose to stop delaying and do something.

3/ A character who delays can then take his normal action, be it full attack, move and cast, double move, or whatever. Only a Partial Action can be Readied - so no Readied Full Attacks. Unless you're hasted, of course.

-Hyp.

Hypersmurf · Feb 7, 2002

And Delay isn't limited to 10 "ticks"...

If Joe's initiative is 15, he can delay past 5. He can delay until -10, if his Initiative modifier is 0.

Check the example between Lidda and the elf on PHB p134. Lidda delays until tick negative 17, with a +7 initative bonus...

-Hyp.

dvvega · Feb 7, 2002

As Hypersmurf stated

Delay is just waiting until a different time to act whereas Ready is waiting for a situation to act.

If Joe delays, and the corridor is within one full action of movement distance, then the Goblin is down the corridor before Joe can go after him.

If Joe readies then he can shoot the goblin as he stands to run.

EOL · Feb 7, 2002

Hypersmurf said:
Three major differences.

3/ A character who delays can then take his normal action, be it full attack, move and cast, double move, or whatever. Only a Partial Action can be Readied - so no Readied Full Attacks. Unless you're hasted, of course.

-Hyp.

Maybe this is just another example of how haste has a tendency to complicate things, but how does haste allow you to ready a full attack. As I play it you can take a hasted action and ready, and I could conceive of readying twice, but I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around then combining these two readied actions into a full action. Course in my opinion Haste already has serious issues and I'm not very likely to make any ruling which would increase it's power.

Hypersmurf · Feb 7, 2002

Maybe this is just another example of how haste has a tendency to complicate things, but how does haste allow you to ready a full attack.

It doesn't. It allows you to ready a partial attack, which you can take before or after your normal action. If you take it before, then you still have your normal action available to full attack.

-Hyp.

Trellian · Feb 7, 2002

You can only ready a partial action, and a haste only allows partial actions as well... as i see it, two partial actions cannot be combined to make a full round attack. It allows you to make two attacks, or one attack and one partial move... but not three or more attacks..

Hypersmurf · Feb 7, 2002

You can only ready a partial action, and a haste only allows partial actions as well... as i see it, two partial actions cannot be combined to make a full round attack. It allows you to make two attacks, or one attack and one partial move... but not three or more attacks..

I'm not trying to combine two partial actions. Ick! That's just wrong.

But a partial action can be used to perform a Ready action. The partial action Haste grants can be taken before your normal action.

So use your Haste partial action to ready an attack. When it triggers, you make your single attack for a partial action. You have used your extra partial action due to Haste, but have not yet used your "normal" allotted action for the round. Use that to make a full attack.

-Hyp.

Trellian · Feb 7, 2002

Ahh... yes.. of course... stupid me..

I once had a fighter with four attacks in the round with boots of speed... when encountering enemies 10 foot or more away, he used his move-equivalent action to walk to him, his standard action to make an attack, and the partial action to make another attack... after some sessions, the rules lawyer of the group asked him why he didn't use the partial action to do the walking, thereby gaining full attack mode (4 attacks)...

EOL · Feb 7, 2002

Okay Hypersmurf, Trellian may have gotten it, but I'm still confused, example:

Hasted PC has an initiative of 18, 18 comes up, DM asks the player what he wants to do, Hasted PC says I want to ready, what happens then?

In my campaign he could move, attack, ready or attack, move, ready, or full round action, ready, but he could not ready a full attack (something you mentioned in your first post) and if he readies an action I would say he has to use or lose the rest of his action on his initiative of 18.

I suppose you could argue that he readies a partial and delays the rest, but that would quickly get complicated. If he readies to interrupt someone (say to attack the mage if he casts a spell)then the new initiative would be Hasted PC's partial, Interrupted NPC, Hasted PC's normal action (which could be a full attack), because there is no way I would allow the PC's entire action (haste and all) to be used as an interrupt.