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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Starfox" data-source="post: 6146800" data-attributes="member: 2303">Since the readied action happens before the triggering condition, this is not the case. Repeating the same argument does not make it stronger. For the debate continue, the argument must be explained or expanded. Otherwise it's oratory, not debate. Sorry if my post became long and obtuse as a result.Readying an Action from SRD 3.5You 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. [snip]My italics.The trouble lies in "The action occurs just before the action that triggers it.". Up to that point, the rule is talking about "condition" - and being in an area effect is a condition in this sense. But if you trigger on a condition and the ready happens before the action that created this condition - can the original source of that condition change his action and do something else? How much of the sequence is rewound? "Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action." tells me he must continue as he had planned - that is, the fireball hits the very same spot, regardless of if you are there or not. He cannot change his action. But I can see where the reading comes from that he gets to decide where to place the fireball after casting the spell. The problem with this is that he would then nullify the triggering condition - and we have a time loop. No fireball, no triggering condition, no readied action - and so the fireball goes off, which triggers the condition, which triggers the move, which makes the caster not cast the fireball... Infinite recursion. Another way to read this is that the only conditions you can ready actions for are the action's of others. Which would mean that you cannot trigger on such things as "rocks fall" or "the ship passes the pier" that are events, not actions. Not much support for that in the rules either.(A strict RAW interpretation could even lead to time travel. I have a readied action as above, and a time bomb explodes. The last action which affected the time bomb happened an hour ago - when it was set. As my ready action happens before the action that created the condition, I travel an hour back in time to interrupt the character setting the bomb. Clearly an absurd reading.)If the rule has said "The action occurs just before the condition that triggers it." things would have been much clearer in favor of my interpretation. Fireball is cast, explodes, victim triggers (before the explosion hits his space) and moves out of the way. If the rules had said "To do so, specify the action you will take and the action another must take to trigger your readied action. Then, any time before your next action, you may take the readied action in response to another character taking the specified action." that would have been clearer in favor of your interpretation. The condition for the readied "run away" must suddenly be an action, such as [casting a fireball (not the fireball explosion itself), and thus the victim might be forced to make Spellcraft rolls and such. But if it takes a spellcraft roll to identify that it is a fireball being cast, what kind of roll would be required to notice if the archer was shooting an explosive arrow that releases a fireball instead of an ordinary arrow? What kind of roll would it take to notice who the archer is even shooting at? Notice how convoluted this interpretation becomes - Occam's razor seems to favor my interpretation.The best way to get out of this hurdle is to be restrictive with the conditions allowed to ready actions on (without restricting them to only be actions). This is the easiest, most clear-cut way out. Simply disallow "I am in the area of a damaging area effect" as too generic to be a triggering condition. The rule does not limit what conditions you can use by RAW, but a DM is an arbiter, not a referee and can disallow too obtuse or open-ended triggering conditions. In fact, this kind of DM arbitration is usually the way out of RAW rules conundrums like this. This is not entirely trouble free either, as it reduces the utility of readied actions. But it is much better than any of the rules-wrangling above.Now, the issue has become a lot more serious than it was intended to be. I was pointing with the original post that we get humorous effects our of the trigger action RAW. I don't really find this a fault with the rules - this is a corner case. It requires DM interpretation. As a part of a combat trick, I could see this kind of readied action working - "Hey dragon, here I am, hit me" - ready "run away". Very cinematic. But again per the original post, this would not be fun if used repeatedly. The thread was only intended to point out a  funny quirk in the rules, but when my ability to read the rules was questioned, I become defensive and went into debate mode.</blockquote>

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