Lyxen
Great Old One
Well that's awfully presumptive of you.
Then don't present things as facts if it's not what you mean.
Well that's awfully presumptive of you.
The "Ready" rules are indeed an example of bringing a bit more cinematic (or even just simultaneity), even if not THAT MUCH cinematic... at least not spectacular. Even if they are minimally cinematic, they always give me a feeling that they are not that smooth in any edition, always somewhat clunky and more complicated that they should be. The reason is IMHO pretty much that even the designers are afraid of players exploiting them too much, so they overcomplicate the rule to make it safer. But then this is counterintuitive... something tells me that players who favor cinematics do not like complicated rules that slow down gameplay.
I always felt readying resulted in high chances of doing nothing at all... you are guessing what will happen? and it isn't clear you get much benefit when you are right? That could be just how my brain works though.I agree that they felt complicated and artificial before 5e (at least to us), but in 5e, they seem fairly natural and are used reasonably often without bad consequences. It might be because they are really simple, or because the trigger description is simple as well, but they are indeed fairly cinematic in our games. Also, they don't bring a major advantage, but neither do they bring such a disadvantage in using them that they would be restricted to very specific cases.
Technically the thread tag does say D&D general. But yeah, if we’re going to be talking system specifics, we should pick one system so we’re all working with the same frame of reference.To be fair, those are Moldvay Basic rules and this thread is about 5e D&D. Nobody uses torches in 5e.
I generally only saw readied actions for things like attacking an enemy when they became targetable, usually in cases with monsters that can pop in and out like an incorporeal undead striking from in a wall then ducking back, blinking things, and things that can go ethereal quickly like phase spiders. The chance for wasted readied actions was there but usually the creatures showed up.I always felt readying resulted in high chances of doing nothing at all... you are guessing what will happen? and it isn't clear you get much benefit when you are right? That could be just how my brain works though.
If there is something standard you can do... it seems likely to have that result. If you are frustrated for some reason as you say then why not?I generally only saw readied actions for things like attacking an enemy when they became targetable, usually in cases with monsters that can pop in and out like an incorporeal undead striking from in a wall then ducking back, blinking things, and things that can go ethereal quickly like phase spiders. The chance for wasted readied actions was there but usually the creatures showed up.
In 3e I expected to see people ready to interrupt spellcasting a lot more with either counterspells or arrows, but I never saw it happen in actual play. Full on normal attacks were usually more effective.
Then don't present things as facts if it's not what you mean.
I'm making a more nuanced claim than that.Let's be very clear here. I did assert an indisputable fact: that D&D combat is a skirmish "mini-game", in the sense that it's entirely possible to play out a D&D combat in isolation, without any dependency on fiction beyond the bare mechanics. It's just self-evidently true that you can do this — I would have supposed it entirely uncontroversial — and I was asking whether this was part of what @FrogReaver meant in claiming that D&D combat is "fictionless."
Just to be clear that we're all on the same page here, I want to give an example that I believe illustrates your points 1 to 3:1. There inevitably arise situations with D&D combat such that the fiction established the previous round changes mid round and players base decisions off these changes. I think this is uncontroversial.
2. The existence of such decision points establishes either a) that D&D combat fiction is actually turn based (and there's a more in depth discussion we could have about how this ends up being fictionless as well) or b) the character and these decision points aren't based on any established fiction.
3. It's not actually possible to play a combat without such decision points arising, even if our brain processes a solid answer faster in most situations than we realize (best option here is to attack, dash, disengage, cast healing word, etc) which almost makes it seem as if there was no decision point at all.