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Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 29245" data-attributes="member: 2011">Re: Re: Re: Another reference not citedYes, you can do this according to the PHB rules. However, the readied rules break the laws of physics all over the place. For example, you can partial charge 30 feet before someone else says a one word quickened spell, even though you could not know he was doing that until he starts. Or, you can counter a Haste spell by casting a Slow spell, even though you did not know which spell you would be countering. Hence, you cast the same level Slow spell faster than he casts his Haste, or vice versa. Hmmm.So, do not be surprised if yet again, there is a way to break the laws of physics with a readied action. There are a boatload of holes in them.Let’s look at the DMG rules though.DMG page 63 “The ready action is particularly open-ended and requires that you make the players using it be as specific as possible about what their characters are doing. ” and later on “and, you are justified in making the player identify a specific foe, either one that the character is currently aware of or one that might come from a certain direction”.The DMG quite explicitly states that the character cannot do just anything he wishes to do with a readied action. He must be very specific.I’ll give you an example. In our game a few weeks back, I had an invisible teleporting Demon bouncing back and forth between a series of tunnels leading to a large underground cavern that the PCs where fighting other NPCs. So, one of the characters had a Wand of Dispel Magic, thought the Demon was going to show up from one tunnel, and said that he would use it if he heard the Demon casting. The Demon showed up in a different tunnel, the character heard it, and the player grabbed is D20 and said “Ok, I do an area Dispel Magic”.I said, “Sorry, but you were concentrating on that tunnel, not this tunnel behind you”.The players all argued that this did not matter since there is no facing in DND (quite a long time since they were on their last legs and the Demon was going to finish some of them off). So, finally, I relented, grumbled how I hated readied actions in the first place since logically they do not make sense, and continued the game. Later on, I showed the players this section of the DMG and said “You got one freebie guys, you won’t get a second one”.The same applies here.Readied actions are open-ended and the DMG allows the DM a lot of latitude on what condition cannot be readied on and what actions cannot be done.So, the question comes down to whether specifying that your readied action will be to move 5 feet and state another readied action IS specific enough.I would say no. Why? Because you are not specifying what your next readied action will be. You are leaving it open-ended. You are saying in a GENERAL way that you will ready to ready to ready, ad nauseum, but you are not specifically indicating what you will be doing. Specific actions would be things that the character would do such as swinging a sword, or casting this specific spell. Declaring a readied action is not declaring a specific thing.Hence, my interpretation of the “must declare a specific action” portion of the DMG is that you cannot ready an action to ready an action. A readied action is not a specific action, rather it is an unknown open-ended action which may or may not occur.Feel free to think differently.Now, how does this apply to your question? You are using this example to illustrate that the multiple 5 foot per round interpretation must be broken if you can do this. Well, first off, the readied rules are already broken. Secondly, the DMG has an out clause for the DM, explicitly to be used when he feels that the readied rules are too open-ended. The designers realized that the ready rules can be abused, hence, they explicitly gave the DM a way to put a stop to it.Hence, just because you found a way to break the ready rules with more than a single 5 foot step really does not support your position that more than one 5 foot step is not allowed. All it did was illustrate a hole in the ready rules for which I could give a bunch of other examples (like the ones above).</blockquote>

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