[DM Issue] - How would you have handled this?

[Darkness]

To say you'd hit one of them first in this round implies that there's the possibility of subsequent hits in this round.

No.

Since we know it is not a Delay, your interpretation doesn't fit the situation.

Now you're just making things up. Ready works just fine.

If there are multiple possible intents, you should be asking, rather than using a shoehorn

Yep.

 

[Saeviomagy]

The simple fact that he though he should have been going at point X shows that he meant something different.

I would have let him go with what he meant.

After all - he's supposed to BE the character here, not be a computer programmer typing in orders into his character's brain.

If he's obviously trying to abuse the 'readied actions' thing with statements like "I ready an action for... you know... anything and I'll decide what I want to do then", then tell him off, but otherwise it's not going to wreck the game if he decides he wants to attack when someone swings at him, but he said he'd attack if someone hit him.

 

[Squire James]

IMO the situation was complicated enough that I would have asked for clarification. However, if I let the action get declared and it slipped by, it'd go something like this:

DM: The guy to the left steps in and attacks you.

Player: (grabs dice)

DM: What are you doing?

Player: I'm making my readied attack.

DM: (thinks for a moment) OK, but next time be more precise with your wording. I thought you meant you were attacking the next person who hit you, since he's probably the most dangerous one. Go ahead.

Ready and Delay are two very important combat options that need to be explained clearly. If the player had declared a Delay "until someone hits me", the play would go something like:

DM: The guy to the left steps in and attacks you.

Player: (picks up dice)

DM: I take it you want to take your delayed action now?

Player: Of course!

DM: Very well, but it happens after the guy attacks you, and your initiative in future rounds is right after his. However, you DO get to do a full-attack against the guy if you live through the attack.

Player: What if I interrupt the guy's movement instead of his attack? Do I get to go before he attacks?

DM: Nope. That sort of thing is an advantage of Readying rather than Delaying. He gets his whole turn, then you get yours. (rolls dice) The guy missed. Your turn.

 

[Cowpie Zombie]

If I was in your game, I would have packed up my books and never would play with you again. People play games to have fun, not to have someone judge us harshly for verbal mistakes. You should have enough sense to know that the player simply made a mistake in his word choice, and you decided to simply be a mean DM.

Ouch! Somebody got up on the wrong side of the bed this morning!

 

[reiella]

Also, while Reiella is incorrect about the sequence of events. Readied actions can be triggered in the middle of another creature's action -- the specific example given is a creature moving into view for someone with a readied range weapon to attack. That happens in the middle of the creature's action, not before it.

Actually, by the reading of both 3.x PHs, it does occur in that manner. The 3.5 SRD thankfully phrases it slightly better but carries the same consequence.

3.0 PH "The partial action comes before the action that triggers it."
3.5 PH "The action occurs just before the action that triggers it."

3.5 SRD " 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."

[ 3.5 quote is longer to actually show the act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered part and maintain the interuption clause ]

It's easy enough to see the intent, but the letter is phrased differently. Further, given that actual actions occur in a strictly linear fashion in which actions DO NOT occur (in terms of the rules) simultaneously.

Readying an action to strike any foe that comes itno the area you threaten is probably the easiest way to show the trouble. Especially given that it is one of the examples given in the rules.

"Interupt" the action is probably the better way to refer to the situation, but even still, while combat remains structured as it is, it still results in a situation you attack a person that is out of your range.

 

[Ottergame]

See, that's why I edited out my post.

I initially read it exactly like you , and posted something to that effect.

On a second reading, though, it became clear that there is a very obvious non-contradictory interpretation: When someone hits him, he will attack them before attacking the other possible targets.

Or if you're not sure if you "enemies" actualy have violent intentions or not.

 

[S'mon]

It seems to me that what he was declaring wasn't a readied action at all, so I'd have explained at the time that it was an invalid action - he needed to either ready a valid action (which frankly makes no sense in this situation anyway) or just act normally, which is what he should have been doing. If he'd persisted he would essentially have just lost a round's action, I would still let him full-attack after the enemy attacked, rather than just take a standard action, since he was essentially Delaying.

 

[Umbran]

No.

Yes. (Do you really wanna argue minutae with the guy who has an evil lawyer as a user icon? )

It seems we must stoop to the dictionary: first adj.1.being before all others in order of time, order, rank, importance, etc. -adv 2. before all others or anything else.

"First" is a term denoting relative order. In order for one thing to be "first" there must be others from which it is chosen. If there's a first, there must be at least a potential second.

Now you're just making things up. Ready works just fine.

Not making things up at all. Just avoiding paradox.

The Delay is unambiguous - you wait to see what happens, and afterwards you take your own action. The order of events is straightforward.

A Readied action takes place before the action that triggers it. That means you often cannot allow triggers off of success, because the readied action might remove that success, thus removing the thing that triggered it in one of the oldest temporal paradoxes in the book....

PC: "I ready an action - if any of them hits me, I attack him."
DM: "One of them hits!"
PC: "Okay, my attack goes off before his - Critical! 432 points of damage!"
DM: "Okay, he dies. But he can't hit you if he's dead, so the thing that triggers your readied attack never happened. So, the readied attack never happened, which means he lives, so he can hit you..."

This is aside from the cinematic argument - that allowing the player to wait to see if the act succeeds means he's waited too long to undo it. It is easy to think of a character ready and waiting for someone to attempt to strike, and managing to get a shot in first. It is stretching credibility to think they can wait long enough to tell if that strike will succeed and still get their hit in first.

It's also aside from the absurd argument. If you're gong to allow the PC to trigger off of a successful to hit roll, why not off of the specifics of a damage roll? There's not particular reason not to, is there? "I ready an action, if I take more than 5 points, I act before he does." But, that way lies the ability to act from beyond the grave - "I ready an action - if he kills me, I take this action before he does so."

 

[S'mon]

Umbran (the Evil Lawyer) is correct. Valid readied actions are things like "if any enemy comes within 5' of me, I attack them". "If an opponent attacks me, I strike them first" is pushing it but allowable on a generous interpretation of what's going on - maybe the PC sees the opponent about to swing and strikes first. The important thing is that the PC's die roll is made before the NPC gets their to-hit roll.
"If an opponent hits me, I hit them before they hit me" is clearly not valid. You can't use readied actions to change prior events.

 

[Agamon]

At least he stated a condition, even if it was erroneous. Some of my players still just say, "I'll ready an attack." Argh.