Can you ready an action to cast a spell?

[ThirdWizard]

I think ThirdWizard was suggesting NOT taking the readied action. That's my primary reason to reject his original suggestion. If you ready to take a specific action, I'm saying you can't change it to something else. There are no clear rules on aborting, I don't think (maybe a suggestion in the DMG, but no matter), but if there are, they mean you do not take your readied action and thus you simply do not act at all.

That said, if ThirdWizard meant that you take your readied action and then, in addition, "on the fly" if you will, take a free/swift action, I'm not sure I agree with it.

I did mean in addition to. If you aren't taking the Standard Action you readied, then you aren't qualified to take the Free Action.

Here's a really good example of how what I'm saying works. I like it because it contrasts Ready to getting an Attack of Opportunity.

Say you're fighting an owlbear and you provoke an attack of opportunity from it. It gets a free attack (Attack of Opportunity) but it is not taking an action, therefore because of the wordnig in Improved Grab, it cannot make an immediate Grapple against you.

If a creature with this special attack hits with a melee weapon (usually a claw or bite attack), it deals normal damage and attempts to start a grapple as a free action without provoking an attack of opportunity.

Now, say it Readies to attack anyone who gets within its threat range (highly irregular for an owlbear but bear with me!). Now, by my interprietation of the rules, it takes a Standard Action and attacks someone who enters its threat range, and it can now use Improved Grab because it does have a Free Action available to it.


My ruling also has the implication that if you Ready an Action to do something, when you do it, you can do some Free/Swift Action as well. This part may be harder for some to agree with, but if you accept the above, I think you pretty much have to accept this. A wizard Readies an Action to magic missile an enemy archer if he comes in range. When the Ready Goes off, he can take the opportunity to cast a Quickened spell in addition to his magic missile.

I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. But, it is how I interpriet it.

 

[Infiniti2000]

I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. But, it is how I interpriet it.

I agree that you can ready free/swift actions in addition to the standard action. But, they must be specified. I'm not sure I agree (I could be persuaded) that you can opt to use one or more free actions if they are not originally declared as part of the ready.

For example, I ready to attack the wizard when he moves away. I say that the attack must be defined, so let's say I choose longsword (that I have in hand). When the trigger occurs, I cannot decide to drop the longsword (free action), quickdraw a greataxe (free action), and then attack. I could, however, ready to do that to begin with.

Another example, I ready a targeted dispel magic on the cleric when he comes into view. He does and I do so, only to be thwarted by a counterspell ring. Unless I specified it to begin with, I cannot now choose to do a quickened dispel magic.

The reason why I could be persuaded is that I don't think such an approach (allowing free actions) is unbalancing or illogical. There aren't a whole lot of cases where it could be abused (if at all) and what it really does is allow the use of certain feats in more interesting circumstances. You just gotta be careful to watch the wonky cases I brought up. How do you handle those?

 

[zypherillius]

more actions

Sure you could.

"You can perform one or more free actions while taking another action normally." PHB, page 139.

"You can take a swift action any time you would normally be allowed to take a free action." Spell Compendium, page 4.

also, dont forget, if you used an immediate action, which is the same as a swift action, just not on your turn, you dont get to use a swift action on your readied action.

 

[ThirdWizard]

I agree that you can ready free/swift actions in addition to the standard action.

Probably a good thing considering readying material components and drawing ammunition are Free Actions.

You just gotta be careful to watch the wonky cases I brought up. How do you handle those?

I'm a lot more lenient with Readied Actions. For example, someone could Ready to attack someone and I would let them attack with either weapon they're holding or an unarmed strike without making them declare which they were going to use. I would even let them do the drop/quickdraw/attack maneuver without specifying it.

I also allow them to not perform a Readied Action and wait for the condition to occur again. So, someone could Ready to Attack if an opponent came within his threatened space. A few goblins come up and whack him, but he doesn't perceve them as a threat, then the big bad approaches and he whacks him over the head with his club. (I get this from the "may" in the Action description.)

Like I said, though, my interprietation comes from the wording that you can take a Free Action any time you are taking another Action. If you're taking a Standard Action to Attack that has been Readied, then you have an open ended number of Free Actions available to you.

Of course, if you make them Ready to, say, "Attack the enemy with my longsword" then the whole drop the weapon, pull out another, and Attack thing won't work anyway because they are no longer holding a longsword. However, with the Quickened dispel magic example, I don't see how the rules prevent the caster from taking a swift action to cast their Quickened spell.

 

[Question]

I just did some more thinking on ready actions.

Could you say "If the mage casts fireball at us i will dimension door us behind him"

Also what happens if you use ready actions to interrupt stuff like charging? Let us say a orc charges me, i hit him with color spray, he gets stunned, etc. Now, just where is he exactly? 15 ft away(max range of color spray)?

Can you ready an action to dodge incoming ranged weapons? Could you say "If anyone shoots an arrow at me i duck below the parapet"?

 

[irdeggman]

Reading the text I don't think the intent is to allow doing more than 1 action with a readied action. My logic is that if it was intended that you could perform a free action in addition to the "readied" action then it would state that you can ready a free action - since they are part of another action in the first place (the logic that people seem tto be using for allowing performance of a free action with a readied standard action). Now readying a swift action makes since since they can be done anytime you can normally perform a free action.

Note that swift action that is performed even when it is not your turn is an immediate action by definition.


From SRD:

Readying an Action: You can ready a standard action, a move action, or a free action. To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it. Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to that condition. The action occurs just before the action that triggers it. If the triggered action is part of another character’s activities, you interrupt the other character. Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action. Your initiative result changes. For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.

You can take a 5-foot step as part of your readied action, but only if you don’t otherwise move any distance during the round.

 

[irdeggman]

Pg 25-26 of the DMG gives "guidelines" on how to ejudicate the Ready Action.

The text there will probably provide some useful guidance for questions people have on how it is done.

 

[shilsen]

I just did some more thinking on ready actions.

Could you say "If the mage casts fireball at us i will dimension door us behind him"

Sure.

Also what happens if you use ready actions to interrupt stuff like charging? Let us say a orc charges me, i hit him with color spray, he gets stunned, etc. Now, just where is he exactly? 15 ft away(max range of color spray)?

He's be as far away as he was when you cast the spell. Which would have to be between 15 ft and 5 ft away.

Can you ready an action to dodge incoming ranged weapons? Could you say "If anyone shoots an arrow at me i duck below the parapet"?

Yes, and yes.

 

[MarkB]

I just did some more thinking on ready actions.

Could you say "If the mage casts fireball at us i will dimension door us behind him"

Also what happens if you use ready actions to interrupt stuff like charging? Let us say a orc charges me, i hit him with color spray, he gets stunned, etc. Now, just where is he exactly? 15 ft away(max range of color spray)?

Can you ready an action to dodge incoming ranged weapons? Could you say "If anyone shoots an arrow at me i duck below the parapet"?

Those are all perfectly legitimate uses of Ready. However, your DM may well require you to meet certain conditions for determining your awareness of the Readied-for events.

For instance, it would be reasonable to require a Spellcraft check to determine that the mage is casting Fireball, just as with counterspelling. And if you state "I Ready an action to duck into cover if Opponent B shoots at me", that's fine. But if you Ready an action to duck if anyone shoots at you, and there are a large number of combatants, then you may have to make a Spot check in order to see the attack, with failure meaning that either you fail to duck (and still have your Readied action available against the next attack), or that you duck in response to a shot that wasn't actually aimed at you.

 

[Pickaxe]

I think he's referring to a ruling in the FAQ that stated that when the Readied action goes off, it's technically not your turn, so you can't do any free actions in addition to the readied action (you can do a free action if that is the action you readied, but not in addition to the action).

I'm not sure if I agree with the reasoning (I think it is your turn again, since you are taking your action and your initiative resets), but that is what the FAQ says.

I have a not quite vivid recollection of an advice piece from some WotC source regarding fighting creatures with 10' reach. It specifically suggested readying an attack with a 5 foot step triggered when the creature moved within 10', so that you would avoid attacks of opportunity. Anyone recall this? It would seem to directly conflict with the FAQ. Of course, as others have pointed out, you need to declare the free action as part of your readying.

--Axe