Defeating my powergamer Glave master

[Trebor62]

Instead of monsters to deal with the Glave master how about alchemical item to neutralize or inpair him. Jolt flask (AV pg 28) dazes which prevents immediate or opportunity actions. Blinding bomb (AV pg 26) has the target treating all nonadjacent creatures as having concealment.

For Experience points I think counting each item as a minion might be a good start. If an item is captured by the PC it could be bonus loot or just deduct the items value from the treasure.

 

[Old Gumphrey]

Time to unsubscribe when people start claiming there's "no such thing" as rounds to support their arguments...

 

[Obryn]

There are no such entities in 4e as 'rounds'. Each creature gets a turn in the initiative order. You can take ONE OA per turn. That is you can only OA one time during that creatures turn, and if 10 creatures are acting in that turn, you can still only OA one of them.

....what?

PHB, page 266 defines what a Round is. It's in the index. And that page talks about how combat is composed of rounds and turns - not just turns.

I mean, I see the points you want to make - that the start and end of rounds aren't special times anymore. But that's not the same thing as saying "there are no rounds." You're being needlessly technical, IMHO.

-O

 

[Mort_Q]

But alas, when you're prone in a dogpile, and getting up triggers opportunity attacks from 8 sources, you certainly learn your lesson about 'teamwork'

Standing from prone doesn't provoke in 4e.

 

[Obryn]

Back on topic, as for readied actions, a reading that allows them to bypass Opportunity Attacks seems bizarre to me. I mean, I understand the logic, I think.

(1) You can take Opportunity Actions once per opponent's turn.
(2) You cannot take Opportunity Actions on your own turn.
(3) A readied action is an immediate reaction that takes place on your opponent's turn.
(4) You cannot take immediate actions on your own turn, so the readied action must not, therefore, occur on your turn.

Conclusion: If you want to avoid all opportunity attacks from Bob forever, all you need to do is ready an action to move based on a trigger such as "Bob moves" or "Bob attacks." Your immediate reaction will take place after his attack, and boom! Everyone gets to run away from Bob, and Bob doesn't get opportunity attacks on anyone - since it is still his turn, and it's not your turn.

The thing is, while I can see the argument from RAW, I can't begin to imagine that this is RAI. This action flow basically neuters opportunity attacks, and I will consider it house-ruled.

-O

 

[Mort_Q]

At the cost of a standard action? What's the big deal. You could burn the standard action to shift, to better effect. Or am I missing something?

 

[Obryn]

At the cost of a standard action? What's the big deal. You could burn the standard action to shift, to better effect. Or am I missing something?

If you're thinking of something without Threatening Reach, you absolutely could. But you'd only move 1, not your full move.

This Ready trick also allows ranged/area attacks while adjacent to enemies (since you just ready to their turn), and also neuters a Fighter's Combat Challenge (because you can just ready any action which would violate the combat challenge to something the Fighter will do on his turn).

-O

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Back on topic, as for readied actions, a reading that allows them to bypass Opportunity Attacks seems bizarre to me. I mean, I understand the logic, I think.

(1) You can take Opportunity Actions once per opponent's turn.
(2) You cannot take Opportunity Actions on your own turn.
(3) A readied action is an immediate reaction that takes place on your opponent's turn.
(4) You cannot take immediate actions on your own turn, so the readied action must not, therefore, occur on your turn.

Conclusion: If you want to avoid all opportunity attacks from Bob forever, all you need to do is ready an action to move based on a trigger such as "Bob moves" or "Bob attacks." Your immediate reaction will take place after his attack, and boom! Everyone gets to run away from Bob, and Bob doesn't get opportunity attacks on anyone - since it is still his turn, and it's not your turn.

The thing is, while I can see the argument from RAW, I can't begin to imagine that this is RAI. This action flow basically neuters opportunity attacks, and I will consider it house-ruled.

-O

I would agree with you, except readying an action is not a zero-cost strategy. Bob could decide now is a good time to use Second Wind instead of making any attacks. Now the monsters have just lost ALL of their standard action. They got no attack at all. Remember too, readying an action requires a STANDARD action, you cannot attack in a turn you ready, so if you ready a MOVE action, you lost your chance to attack at all. You MIGHT get it back by readying a charge, but you cannot always do that.

There are more costs associated as well. You fall in the turn order, which means overall anyone using ready is getting less overall actions during the whole encounter.

There is even another cost, which few people notice. The readied action, when taken, is an immediate interrupt. You only get one of those until your next turn. For many monsters that is a zero cost, they have no way to use an immediate, but for others, and for PCs, it can create a situation where you can't use some other power unless you want to give up the readied action.

Finally, readied actions are VERY specific. That might not be a huge deal when talking about avoiding a specific character's OA or CS, but it can very often lead to failed triggers.

Finally, if a monster REALLY does want to just avoid, all they have to do, as Mort_O said, is shift. It is much safer. Readying can be superior, but only in a fairly limited set of cases. The MAIN one being a whole bunch of monsters already marked by the fighter want to all get past him. It really won't degrade fighter stickiness a lot in general. It just happens that it does work reasonably well against super pole arm wizbang fighters.

 

[Obryn]

Oh, it absolutely isn't zero-cost. But there are some consequences I consider unintended... Also, I would feel excessively cheap about using a Ready trick to break a Fighter's combat challenge, for example. It just feels like dirty pool to me.

(Although I will confess that I was half-thinking of SWSE, where Readying costs a Minor action, plus whatever action you plan to use. )

-O

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Oh, it absolutely isn't zero-cost. But there are some consequences I consider unintended... Also, I would feel excessively cheap about using a Ready trick to break a Fighter's combat challenge, for example. It just feels like dirty pool to me.

(Although I will confess that I was half-thinking of SWSE, where Readying costs a Minor action, plus whatever action you plan to use. )

-O

I look at it this way. If the monsters are having a reasonable time breaking free of the defender using normal actions and tactics, then that is the preferable way to go, both from the perspective of letting the character have maximum use of his class feature and from the monster's perspective of using a less risky tactic. When the fighter locks down rafts of attackers so thoroughly that the monsters are left with no other effective tactics, then they WILL do things like delay. It isn't going to make a huge difference actually, and clever players can try to take advantage of it and fool the enemy.

I don't really honestly understand the thought that using the rules in one way is "cheap" but using them in another way is "good tactics". The same logic goes for characters (or monsters) readying range attacks in order to try to avoid OAs. They are AT BEST still sacrificing a certain amount of their place in the turn order, and still risk failing a trigger. Remember, the monsters know what is up. They can see that the bow ranger is all strung up and waiting for them to act.

Suppose the best case that the monster is next in the turn order after a ranger, so he says "well, instead of making my ranged attack now, I'll ready it on the monster's attack and skunk him out of an OA". The monster can delay or ready as well, and let 3 other monsters come up first and beat the tar out of the ranger. Or the monster could simply move away to a spot with better cover or out of LOE of the ranger. If the ready tactic was FREE, then I would consider it broken, but it isn't. It is a trade off that can be made. Also remember that there could be plenty of other reasons why the ranger needs to fire NOW, like he will lose a buff or debuff if he doesn't.

My suggestion for ease of play is that DMs refrain from trying hard to work the ready ploy just because it tends to slow things down. Leave it as a last ditch thing. Players will usually not start trying to overuse it either if monsters don't. In the long run it really isn't advantageous anyhow, just a limited trick. I just don't see any reason to monkey around with rules that really aren't broken.