Avoiding AOO via Readied Actions?

[MarkB]

Wouldn't the readied move still trigger the AoO though?

I think I see Hyp's logic. You move while holding the Readied action, triggering the AoO. The AoO triggers your readied action, which then resolves before the AoO, and carries you out of melee range. Your opponent can't get an AoO on you for your Readied move because movement only provokes one AoO per opponent per round, and by the time he gets to resolve his AoO, you're out of range.

Personally, I'd rule that it's impossible to Ready an action and then move while holding the Ready, but nothing in the Ready an Action rules specifically forbid doing so.

 

[pawsplay]

The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun.

Your intuition serves you well.

 

[MarkB]

The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun.

Yes, that does rather settle the matter. In that case, whether or not you consider it conceivable to Ready an action and then move while holding the Ready, the Readied action still can't be triggered during that move action because your turn is not yet over. So it doesn't work for a completely different reason than the reason I though it shouldn't work. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Hypersmurf]

The ready action lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over but before your next one has begun.

Right - that was one of the ways I mentioned to read it so it wouldn't work

The question is whether that first sentence is a brief, non-technical overview of Ready, rather than rules text, with the remainder of the description serving to clarify exactly what Ready does.

Later in the text, for example, it states "Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition."

If we read "your next action" in the "your next turn in the initiative order" fashion in which it is used in several places in the rules, this contradicts the first sentence - it states that any time between taking the Ready action and your next turn, your readied action can be triggered. As opposed to any time between the end of this turn and your next turn.

-Hyp.

 

[MarkB]

Right - that was one of the ways I mentioned to read it so it wouldn't work

The question is whether that first sentence is a brief, non-technical overview of Ready, rather than rules text, with the remainder of the description serving to clarify exactly what Ready does.

Later in the text, for example, it states "Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition."

If we read "your next action" in the "your next turn in the initiative order" fashion in which it is used in several places in the rules, this contradicts the first sentence - it states that any time between taking the Ready action and your next turn, your readied action can be triggered. As opposed to any time between the end of this turn and your next turn.

-Hyp.

Or that first sentence could simply be evidence of an implicit assumption that Readying an action ends your current turn immediately, whether you still have a move action left or not. That's certainly the way I've always ruled it, and seen it played.