Can free actions be used as interrupts?

[kaomera]

This is not true actually in the way you are thinking, you're specifically thinking of the way immediate reactions are worded. Immediate reactions are allowed to interrupt movement because it says they can. There is no specific rule for free actions anywhere, so the free action would have to wait until the creature finished its movement. At least this is the impression that I got from the podcast, which would be super handy if Wizards actually wrote down so everyone could see the rules somewhere.

Yeah, I had remembered that as being in the definition of movement - and it kind of is, as each square of movement counts as "movement", but not really since that could mean that the whole action counts, or just that one "step"...

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Rule is specific to Immediate Reactions. Free Actions are not Immediate Reactions.

I'd consider this to be more a matter of the new rules simply not discussing non-triggered free action rules at all. Given that your interpretation would be a major change to the way a rather hefty chunk of the rules work I'd be highly skeptical of running it the way you suggest. Obviously the rules could be clarified, but personally I'll continue to rule these things as they were finally clarified to work up to now. It is telling that the podcast didn't touch on movement at all. As always the action mechanics are somewhat of a mess...

 

[Kinneus]

So I take it this means you can no longer 'pop' Resistive Formula to gain the THP just before you get smacked by an attack?

That stinks. That was a major selling point of it.

 

[eamon]

An informal podcost is not yet an errata. They've explicitly stated that a warden's free action mark could come at any time - even half-way through another action, and there's no rule or errata stating that you cannot take a free action during another action - and even in this podcast they say that's what they do (way to be consistent there). I also get the feeling they're not being precise with their notion of "action".

So basically this podcast sounds to me like they're saying "hey, there's no rules explicitly allowing a free action in between actions, even for the warden, but yeah, we allow that, and yeah, we allow speaking halfway too... so it's not explicitly stated, but well..."

In otherwords, the podcast doesn't really resolve anything at all; we already knew the fact that using free actions between other actions is common, and we already knew the fact that it's not well defined.

 

[Marius Delphus]

If it didn't have a trigger, which specifically allowed it to be used during an enemies action it couldn't interrupt anything.

Absent anything "official," I find myself in complete agreement with this ruling.

Suppose we differentiate between "interrupts," which can invalidate triggering actions, and free actions which can take place during other actions (call them, say, "interjections"), but which can't actually invalidate them as such. Would something like that have potential to clean things up (i.e., would we be able to just sort all or nearly all existing free combat actions into the "interjection" bin), or would it just make them worse (i.e., would we have to wade through and house-rule some free combat actions into interrupts, others into "interjections," and others into "free actions that aren't interjections")?

 

[keterys]

It's probably reasonable to say that whoever's action it is can decide whether to allow the free action or not.

And, y'know, people should just avoid using free actions in the middle of other actions, sounds like.

 

[eamon]

It's probably reasonable to say that whoever's action it is can decide whether to allow the free action or not.

And, y'know, people should just avoid using free actions in the middle of other actions, sounds like.

Came up in the jumping thread; this would make feather-fall dubiously functional. Per the rules you'd fall when you stop moving - but you can't use feather fall during another action if free actions can't interject. Doesn't matter whose action it is either; the same thing goes for being pushed over a ledge, after all.

Retconning limitations on free actions sounds nice but does dramatically impact the usefulness of many free actions. It's too late in 4e's life to do that, IMNSHO.

I think Marius's solution is better: free actions cannot invalidate other actions even when they occur simultaneously, unless they've been triggered by that other action.

 

[Ryujin]

Came up in the jumping thread; this would make feather-fall dubiously functional. Per the rules you'd fall when you stop moving - but you can't use feather fall during another action if free actions can't interject. Doesn't matter whose action it is either; the same thing goes for being pushed over a ledge, after all.

Retconning limitations on free actions sounds nice but does dramatically impact the usefulness of many free actions. It's too late in 4e's life to do that, IMNSHO.

I think Marius's solution is better: free actions cannot invalidate other actions even when they occur simultaneously, unless they've been triggered by that other action.

Feather Fall has a trigger though; a creature in range falls.

 

[Marius Delphus]

But feather fall isn't asking us to invalidate the fall; it's telling us that at the point when the fall ends, the target takes no falling damage and doesn't fall prone. So the "is it really an interrupt" question doesn't actually come up in this case, even though feather fall is interjecting itself into the fall "action."

 

[webrunner]

Wow, the podcast today just totally blew a load of worms all over this argument. Basically they discuss free actions, particularly in how they could interrupt something else - in this case Dwarven armor. Dwarven armor lets you use a free action to regain HP as if you had spent a surge. The question was about if they could do that between an attack and taking damage. The question is asked at around 14:40 in the podcast. The interesting part of the answer was that if a free action doesn't have a trigger, such as the example from the OP, could it be used during the enemies action? The answer was basically that it couldn't be. If it didn't have a trigger, which specifically allowed it to be used during an enemies action it couldn't interrupt anything. So the OPs original question the psion couldn't use telekinetic push until the creature had completed its action.

So a monster could move 5 squares and stop - then you could push them. Similarly, if it is making an attack you cannot push them until it finishes. But you couldn't push them at any point until the creature finishes moving. I can't see where this is covered in the actual rules, so it feels like something that a written errata or clarification would be useful.

You know, that whole conversation on the podcast.. I don't know what to think about it. They brought up how they said it was good for wardens, but dropped the bombshell that the warden thing was always agaisnt the rules but everyone lets them do it anyway as a house rule.

Up until this point it's been assumed the warden example was the rules as intended, but apparently it's the house rule as intended!