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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ferghis" data-source="post: 5149545" data-attributes="member: 40483">Well, I do see differences. This particular player's request strikes me as completely unreasonable. I would ask the player to reconsider, and if the player couldn't see that the request was unreasonable, I'd probably stop gaming with the particular player.Here the player is asking to act with hindsight. Also unreasonable.This is the case that I'm trying to examine in this thread. Again, I'm reluctant to allow the character a total defense bonus, but I'm not sure I have a good basis for it. That's why I started the thread.If the player did not say so before, then he wasn't. That's easy to resolve, isn't it?Well, I haven't found a rule that clearly says that you can't take total defense or ready an action before combat. And, just in case you're going to argue that combat actions can implicitly only be taken in combat, think of all the combat actions, such as moving, that can be clearly taken out of combat. I sincerely beleive every rpg can be abused, so I don't think you need to fully idiot-proof your rules, but I agree with the spirit of what you are saying. I think.If the door guy achieves surprise, he can use the surprise round, and any actions we have been discussing, whether readied or taken before, would have no further implication. If there is no surprise, it's the same as below.I'm not opposed to resolving it this way. I'm not sure how this advances the discussion. That answer doesn't address the issue. I don't see how that addresses why a character can't effectilvely engage, for example, in total defense shortly before combat begins so as to enjoy a defense bonus on the first round of combat if s/he has not already acted.I'm certainly not rules-savvy, but as far as I know you can ready an action for anything your character could see. Given the way combat is broken down into actions, you certainly could trigger a readied action to anything that happens at the beginning of a character's turn, which would be the same thing. Since you could trigger off such and such character taking or not taking ongoing damage, which sounds ridiculous, I'd let the character simply trigger off starting the character's turn.I don't understand.True. Not all players' requests for their character's actions have an in-game impact. The appropriate response to that player's request would be that there is no game mechanic to reproduce what she or he is asking that her or his character attempt to do with that level of detail. However, some players' descriptions of their characters' actions DO have a game-mechanic equivalent. Would you dismiss a character's search for secret doors in the same way? How about when a character attempts to recall everything he or she knows about a particular monster? More relevant to this thread, there are game-mechanic equivalents for readied actions and total defense.</blockquote>

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