run away then charge? one actioN?

[Lord Ben]

If the DM allows you to ready an action to attack someone who looks at you that would be silly, but if you're limited to "attack if they round corner" or if they cast spells, etc it's not nearly as bad.

 

[Caliban]

No, this would NOT make the charge limitation meaningless. You must still:

Have the conditions met for your Ready Action (a risk of gettin NO action). "Legal" conditions are obviously controlled by the DM, and should always have a risk of not happening (or else you are right, Caliban, the straight-line restriction would cease to have any meaning).

How about "as soon as [insert next person in initiative order] makes any movement, I charge"? It's trivial to come up with a trigger condition that will almost immediately triggered, without fail.

AND

The Partial Charge can only be in a straight line.

The rules themsleves NEVER state all your movement IN A ROUND must be in a straight line, only that your CHARGE must be in a straight line.

It's seems obvious (to me) that it' in the spirit of the rules, in this instance. (However, I don't think the restriction is for the entire round. I would allow you to use a haste action to change direction, or to move again after you have charged. Your haste action is in most ways a seperate action from your normal action.)

Nonetheless, I realize that I seem to be in the minority and most folks think that if you charge any time during a round than ALL your movement in that round must be in a single direction. That is decidedly NOT what the rules say, but that's what many believe is the right way to do it.

I only limit it to your normal action, but I won't allow a Ready action to get around the straight line limitation by breaking your standard action into a Move and Partial actions.

 

[Artoomis]

How about "as soon as [insert next person in initiative order] makes any movement, I charge"? It's trivial to come up with a trigger condition that will almost immediately triggered, without fail.

I would not allow that. It is an obvious attempt to simply abuse the rules, and should not be allowed. It's NOT hard to prevent abuses.

As for the rest of your post, your position is not unreasonable in the least. It's just not the way the rules are written.

It might follow the intent, but, of course, it's a little hard to say what the intent really is is this case due to the way the rules surrounding Charge and Ready Action are written.

So, once again, it's up to the DM. (Of course it always is, but that;s not what I mean.)

 

[Caliban]

I would not allow that. It is an obvious attempt to simply abuse the rules, and should not be allowed. It's NOT hard to prevent abuses.

But, it's a legal ready action. If you know your buddy goes immediately after you (or they have Delayed until they do), then you can make a perfectly legal Ready action that triggers when they take their action. It's a good tactic to coordinate actions like this in many cases, why disallow it now? Or would you disallow this in any other circumstance as well?

Or you could make a much simpler ruling. Don't allow them to change directions before the charge, and you don't have to worry about ruling on every silly (or not so silly) ready action they come up with.

As for the rest of your post, your position is not unreasonable in the least. It's just not the way the rules are written.

*shrug* I disagree. I don't believe that a Readied action is intended to break a standard action up into an unrelated Move and Partial actions like that. It's not intended to allow 90 degree turns in the middle of a charge.

I think they are still part of the same Standard action, even though they now take place at different times in the round. Anything else lends itself to abuse.

It might follow the intent, but, of course, it's a little hard to say what the intent really is is this case due to the way the rules surrounding Charge and Ready Action are written.

I don't think it is in this case. The intent is very clearly that you have to move in a straight line when you charge, not zig zag around and then do a Partial Charge.

 

[Artoomis]

*smiles*

You are arguing about the intent of the rules. I do not dispute you - you MAY be right. I am not taking a position on the intent of the rules, here (well, maybe I did, a bit, but I'd like to forgoe that for now).

By the LETTER OF THE RULES, you can take a move and Ready an Action, then Partial Charge in another direction. Perhaps you should not allow that as an abuse of intent, but I am taking no poisition on that issue at the moment. I am only trying to make it very clear what the letter of the rules states in this case.

AFTER getting agreement on that, I'd be more than happy to discuss intent.

By the way, this all applies to running as well.

 

[Caliban]

*smiles*

You are arguing about the intent of the rules. I do not dispute you - you MAY be right. I am not taking a position on the intent of the rules, here (well, maybe I did, a bit, but I'd like to forgoe that for now).

By the LETTER OF THE RULES, you can take a move and Ready an Action, then Partial Charge in another direction. Perhaps you should not allow that as an abuse of intent, but I am taking no poisition on that issue at the moment. I am only trying to make it very clear what the letter of the rules states in this case.

AFTER getting agreement on that, I'd be more than happy to discuss intent.

By the way, this all applies to running as well.

I don't care to debate technicalities on this issue. I'd rather run my game the way it's supposed to be played. Debating technicalities doesn't help me do that. Determining the intent of the rules, in spite of any poorly worded text or vague language, does.

 

[Artoomis]

I don't care to debate technicalities on this issue. I'd rather run my game the way it's supposed to be played. Debating technicalities doesn't help me do that. Determining the intent of the rules, in spite of any poorly worded text or vague language, does.

As you wish. I prefer to first understand what was written, the apply interpretations according to what I might think they meant.

Doing it that way keeps me from making silly errors with the rules.

 

[Caliban]

As you wish. I prefer to first understand what was written, the apply interpretations according to what I might think they meant.

Doing it that way keeps me from making silly errors with the rules.

I understand what was written, and I have applied my interpretations according to what I think they meant.

You seem to be stuck on the first part to the exclusion of the 2nd part.

 

[Artoomis]

I understand what was written, and I have applied my interpretations according to what I think they meant.

You seem to be stuck on the first part to the exclusion of the 2nd part.

No, what I am "stuck" on is that most folks think the rules actually state that all movement in the round of a charge must be in a straight line, when that's not what it says at all. I am trying to get folks to understand what is actually written in the rules.

Folks keep jumping ahead on this issue, and skipping over what is actually in the rules.

I am not disputing that you have a reasonable application of the rules, applying what could be the intent of the rules.

Personally, the way the rules are written, I think it is perfectly valid to think that they really meant you should be able to take any Partial Action, without restriction, after readying an action. That would include being able to Partial Run or Partial Charge even though it might be in a different direction from your original move (as in move + ready an action).

If you focus on running instead of charging, it really seems like you should be able to Partial Run in any direction, doesn't it? As in, I move to the right and spot the BIG BAD GUY. I ready an action to RUN if he comes my way. He comes my way - so I get to run away (not the same direction) - as in Partial Run.

Seems reasonable, doesn't it? Of course, Run and Charge work the same way as far a straight line movement goes, so what works for one works for the other, and vice versa.

 

[Stalker0]

No, charge is a SPECIAL STANDARD ACTION. It's mechanics make it the same as a Full-Round Action, and, in fact, that's what they call it in the SRD.

All move during a charge must be in a straight line. So saying you can move and them charge is pretty meaningless - you move during the charge anyway, and all your move is in straight line.

I

Can you tell me where the page number is that says charging is the same as a full round action? Every check I've made says its a standard one.

and on page 124, notice that all of the movement discussions of charge is under the heading. Movement DURING a charge. Says nothing about before the charge action and says nothing about after it.