How do you deal with characters when they whine in confusion?

[CCamfield]

I hope you'll give the benefit of this house rule to your players too. Presumably when the fighter gains another level he'll have two attacks.

I don't really think that using it against the players is really a good way of introducing a house rule to them. You may get some unhappy objections that it's illegal.

 

[D'karr]

Then I'd recommend you make this house rule way in advance of using this technique.

For a drastic change of how combat works they should know that they have an option to hold their last attack from an attack sequence as a ready action. By the way this would probably be considered a hold action instead of a ready action, meaning that the person being attacked would get to act first.

Personally I wouldn't do it that way. Have the NPC ready an action just as normal.

 

[Pielorinho]

First, if he's a fifth level fighter, he only gets on attack per round. Did you mean sixth level or higher?

SEcond, if you house rule this, I highly recommend telling the players about the new house rule before the session begins, so they can take advantage of this new tactical option as well.

The normal tradeoff is that readying an action disallows the use of a full-round action: you can do less stuff, because you take the time to ready the action (i.e., getting in position and watching for the action's trigger). If you're going to make readying an action as easy as any other action, let the players know -- after all, the PC might decide to ready an action to trip the fighter when he attacks, and then follow up with the remainder of her attacks.

Third, I recommend against this house rule. Readied actions are already confusing enough, and this is going to make it much worse. If a fighter gets three attacks in a round, and she readies her second attack to disrupt a mage's spell, when does her third attack go off? immediately after their second, readied one, or after the mage's turn? If it goes off after the second attack, does damage from it force a concentration check for the mage? Can the mage take a 5' step between the 2nd and 3rd attack? Next round, how do the mage and the fighter compare in initiative order? Can a hasted character cast a full-round spell as a readied action?

There's a way to accomplish what you want within the rules. Actually, there are two ways:
1) Have the fighter hasted. He attacks as a full-round action, and then with his extra partial action readies the sundering attempt.
2) Have the fighter attack normally during the first round. On the second round of combat, he does the readying thing.

Daniel

 

[Mercule]

Then I will house rule it. There is no logical reason why a fighter couldnt take his last attack from a full round attack and use it as a ready action. Especially since there is a good chance he will lose the attack if his foe merely takes a 5' step.

Wholeheartedly disagree, here. Readying is an action in it's own right because it 1) interupts the flow of your round, 2) requires a bit more thought and judgement than simply attacking, 3) is obvious (as DM, I actually tell the players that "it looks like the NPC is prepared to do something), 4) actually involves letting time pass waiting for the condition in question.

If a DM pulled this on me, I'd be pretty POed. Not because I got tricked, that's all part of combat, but because the ruling a) breaks the rules in the book and I wasn't aware of the new rule, and b) doesn't make sense.

Of course, odds are pretty good that I'll never participate in your game and your ruling has no bearing on my life, so have at it if you want. Just letting you know that you might get some steamed players.

 

[Pielorinho]

Also, in response to the thread's title, "How do you deal with characters when they whine in confusion?" here's what I do:

*Try to minimize their confusion -- if they're not confused, they won't whine in confusion. I do this by making sure they understand the rules in effect at the start of the session.
* Don't hold them in contempt. I wouldn't say they're "whining", especially if I'm planning to introduce a houserule mid-combat in order to favor a villainous character.
* Listen to their concerns. If they dislike something that happened in-game, I'll talk to them about why it made them unhappy, and generally I'll try to avoid repeating that situation.

Daniel

 

[JacktheRabbit]

First, if he's a fifth level fighter, he only gets on attack per round. Did you mean sixth level or higher?

SEcond, if you house rule this, I highly recommend telling the players about the new house rule before the session begins, so they can take advantage of this new tactical option as well.

The normal tradeoff is that readying an action disallows the use of a full-round action: you can do less stuff, because you take the time to ready the action (i.e., getting in position and watching for the action's trigger). If you're going to make readying an action as easy as any other action, let the players know -- after all, the PC might decide to ready an action to trip the fighter when he attacks, and then follow up with the remainder of her attacks.

Third, I recommend against this house rule. Readied actions are already confusing enough, and this is going to make it much worse. If a fighter gets three attacks in a round, and she readies her second attack to disrupt a mage's spell, when does her third attack go off? immediately after their second, readied one, or after the mage's turn? If it goes off after the second attack, does damage from it force a concentration check for the mage? Can the mage take a 5' step between the 2nd and 3rd attack? Next round, how do the mage and the fighter compare in initiative order? Can a hasted character cast a full-round spell as a readied action?

There's a way to accomplish what you want within the rules. Actually, there are two ways:
1) Have the fighter hasted. He attacks as a full-round action, and then with his extra partial action readies the sundering attempt.
2) Have the fighter attack normally during the first round. On the second round of combat, he does the readying thing.

Daniel

1. Yes I meant 6th level.

2. It will be posted in our House Rules section of a website we use.

3. I will only allow the last attack to be held this way. So if you get three attacks per round then you can only ready the last attack.


As a side item. How would you feel if this was a feat instead?

Impromptu Attack

General, Fighter Feat

Requirements: BAB +6, Combat Reflexes

This feat allows a fighter to ready his final attack of a full round attack. This final attack works then as a standard readied action. The figher must state the exact action that will make him take his readied attack.

 

[godfear]

It will probably cause less whining if set up as a feat.

 

[JacktheRabbit]

Also, in response to the thread's title, "How do you deal with characters when they whine in confusion?" here's what I do:

*Try to minimize their confusion -- if they're not confused, they won't whine in confusion. I do this by making sure they understand the rules in effect at the start of the session.
* Don't hold them in contempt. I wouldn't say they're "whining", especially if I'm planning to introduce a houserule mid-combat in order to favor a villainous character.
* Listen to their concerns. If they dislike something that happened in-game, I'll talk to them about why it made them unhappy, and generally I'll try to avoid repeating that situation.

Daniel

If I go with this then the houserule will be in effect and known well in advance.

I dislike though going into a technical explanation though. As an example in the last campaign the party encountered a rogue/assasin. When he attacked he was flanking his foe and he had a total attack bonus of +12. Now the party was about 5th or 6th level so they were shocked at this. Eventually they defeated the rogue but they thought he was much higher level than he was.

How did this happen? The rogue had the Unerring Strike feat from the Kalamar Players Guide. It is the reverse of Power attack and lets you reduce your damage by up to your BAB amount and add it to your chance to hit. Per the feat your weapon damage couldnt be reduced below 1 point. Since the weapon itself is a minor bit compared to the sneak attack damage it was a logical choice for a rogue.

If I explained all this though when a few of them started to grumble over his hitting them with ease it would have ruined the tension of the fight.

 

[WizarDru]

I'm curious, DocM, do you think your players will enjoy this suprise? It sounds very confrontational, in a 'I'll show them' sort of way. Unlike your DR changes, this is just plain violating a rule to gain an effect...which is your choice, but I wouldn't consider your players to be whining when you do it, and when you obviously expect them to be upset. I know I would be. If you, as DM, are going to just change the rules arbitrarily without any warning to your players, why bother even using rules at all?

EDIT: I take it back. The problem is, that feat looks like a justification to accomplish a particular task, namely, screwing your players.

 

[Pielorinho]

In terms of posting it in the house rules of the Web site, is this something they will definitely all look at before the session? If not, I think you should send them an email in which you mention that you've made a change to that website, probably including cut-and-pasted text from the site. Otherwise, it still comes across as a sneaky change, and defending yourself by saying, "But it was on the website!" will probably not go over well.

I'm less unhappy about this rule-change if you make it a feat, although I haven't thought it through completely; i'd be afraid that it still will allow some uber tactics, by removing one of the major restrictions on readying actions. I think you'd be better off either hasting the fighter or having him take this action over the course of two rounds.

Daniel