5' step, partial actions and haste

[Uller]

You are correct of course. There are inconsistencies in the rules and it is upon the DM to do his best(and the players not to argue about it). Thanks for the well reasoned response(although you'll never convince me that the designers intended anything other than one 5' step per round...unless you can get Monte to chime in and say "We meant you can take more." But that begs the question "Why did you restrict them on MEAs, then?").

As for readied actions...that's another thread. I just look at it as the guy with the initiative have the ability to "read" what the other guy is going to do before he does it. It is also the only reasonable way I can think of to allow characters "attack anything that comes through the door" or whatever without overly complicating things...

 

[SpikeyFreak]

Second objection first: Yes. Para-temporal AoOs are a fact of life in 3E, and not just because of a 5' step, and not just when Haste is involved. Take something as simple as withdrawing from combat. Make a double move and the first square doesn't count as threatened, simple, no? No. Say you move the first half of that normal move and see, from you new vantage point an enemy that you'd really like to take shot at or cast a spell on. You've only moved a regular move, you have a standard action left, but, if you go and take it, you get retroactively AoO'd.

What!?!?! Once you have done the "move without AoO" in this situation, your round is over (unless you are hasted).

When you take your move to get out of combat, you are moving slowly to avoid being attacked. Thus once you are out of combat, your round is over and you CAN'T just decide, hey, I'm here, I'm going to do something because I only did a MEA.

The reason for that is exactly what you are talking about. You can't go back and do an AoO because that can cause a paradox with which there is no solution.

If all a combatant does is take a normal move or a double move (not a run), the space that the combatant started out in is not considered threatened.

I move away from the 20th level ragin barbarian not provoking an AoO. I see that I am next to my dying friend (who will be dead next round), so I cast heal on him.

Oops, now we have to go back and do the AoO.

The AoO results in the barbarian getting a critical and doing 75 points damage, killing me. Hmm, now I haven't moved away AND done something else, so I haven't provoked an AoO and I shouldn't be dead.

There's a very simple solution.

If you say you are doing something that doesn't provoke an AoO, you can't do something later that would make the past action provoke an AoO.

There's a haste corollary: what you do in a haste action can't change something in a past action so that it provokes an AoO.

Seems to me like the best combination of simplicity and flexibility you can have.

--Thinking Spikey

 

[Tony Vargas]

as a side issue:
i still maintain that retroactive AoOs for the most part, are only retroactive from the player's POV and not from the character's. that withdrawing from combat, with the intention to do more than simply withdraw, provkes the AoO during the planning stage (on the part of the character) not in the execution stage.

While that's reasonable enough, if you were to 'enforce' it, it'd mean declaring actions which, otherwise, 3E doesn't generally do....

I can't really seen an 'elegant' solution to the problem. Either you have characters 'forced' to go through with 'declared' actions, or you have retro-active AoOs...

 

[SpikeyFreak]

I can't really seen an 'elegant' solution to the problem.

I think my solution is pretty 'elegant.'

--Graceful Spikey

 

[Hypersmurf]

You can't just have it trigger on nothing, and it has to be in response to an action of an opponent. (Remember, an individual attack is not an action.)

So it's your contention that "and the conditions under which you take it" can only ever refer to the action of an opponent?

I'll assume that you'll allow the actions of an ally to trigger as well.

But what about non-action triggers?

A ten-round spell of magical darkness was cast nine rounds earlier on initiative count 17, by the evil priest who through assorted actions is now going on initiative count 5.

His bugbear servant is going on initiative count 17.

The fighter readies an action to charge the bugbear when the darkness drops. The trigger is a set of conditions, but it's not a specific action - he doesn't care what the bugbear's action is, he just wants to charge it.

Using delay, he would either be charging in darkness, or going after the bugbear. Using ready, he couldn't choose a "bugbear-action-trigger" that is specific enough.

The text gives the initiative consequences of triggering off the actions of others - but the requirement is that one defines "the conditions under which you will take" the readied action.

Why can't environmental conditions trigger an action?

-Hyp.

 

[Tony Vargas]

When hasted, your “round” is really four second long, not six.

I rather doubt that. Any spells on you (including the Haste itself??) would be over in 2/3rds the normal time if haste really shortened your round, or in anyway gave you extra rounds. It allows you to do more in the course of a single round, on your initiative. That's it. You're moving faster, 50% faster, in fact. I guess that means your one 5' step for the round is really 7.5' - or one-and-one-half squares, which, of course, since you can't move half-squares, rounds down to one square. Likewise, if you avoid an AoO by only moving on your round, you can move 3x your normal move instead of 2x. Seems straightforward enough. Yes, it further emphasizes the problems with declaring actions vs retroactive AoOs that already exist, but that's no reason to treat a round under Haste as being different from a normal round or a round under Slow - it's still a round.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I think my solution is pretty 'elegant.'

--Graceful Spikey

Your rationale for 'what's really happening' is just fine. I just don't see how it's a solution - you still (from the player's PoV, either have retroactive AoOs or declared actions.

 

[SpikeyFreak]

Your rationale for 'what's really happening' is just fine. I just don't see how it's a solution - you still (from the player's PoV, either have retroactive AoOs or declared actions.

You don't understand.

You have to declare actions. That's part of the game. You say "I'm going to attack this guy standing next to me." and you have declared an action.

If you are not hasted, and you say, "I am going to do a normal move away from this rogue who is sneak attacking me so I can get in the corner and not be flanked, and I'm not going to provoke an AoO." You have just said what you are going to do in the round. You can't change it when you get there.

Would you let a character make 2 attacks and then say he isn't going to do a full attack action? That would be exactly the same thing as allowing him to step away not provoking an AoO and then allowing him to do something else.

--Misunderstood Spikey

 

[Tony Vargas]

1) You don't "distribute BAB", your BAB is never affected. You get a penalty on your attack that cannot be greater than your BAB (or greater than 5 in the case of Expertise).

OK, captain technicallity: you must decide how much of a penalty to take to your attack roll in order to get a reciprocal bonus on your damage roll or AC (respecitively), for the round...

2) Both Expertise and Power Attack state that the modifier lasts "until your next action", not "until your next round".

I honestly can't take that any other way than 'until your next /initiative/.' Until your next (litteral) action would be meaningless, as you could always tack on a free action to end a modifier you didn't want, even in the middle of full-attacking, to be really litteral about it.

 

[Hypersmurf]

If you are not hasted, and you say, "I am going to do a normal move away from this rogue who is sneak attacking me so I can get in the corner and not be flanked, and I'm not going to provoke an AoO." You have just said what you are going to do in the round. You can't change it when you get there.

What if, 15 feet into your normal move, you walk into the readied attack of the invisible enemy, who stabs you and drops you to one hit point with his sword of wounding?

You've declared a double-move action, so you can't attack him. But a double-move can consist of a move and an MEA, so you could drink your potion of CLW.

But that means that your move provoked an AoO from the rogue.

The precedent for changing your action based on consequences of the first part of that action exists in the rules - if you hit someone once, you can decide whether you're making a standard attack or a full attack based on whether or not they fall down.

-Hyp.