How the hell do readied actions work!

[keterys]

Keterys:
Obviously in a 1 on 1 battle delaying to act before an enemy will not work. In certain situations simply delaying is a better tactic than readying. I think you see that, even though really conceptually what you are doing is readying.

Mechanically, though, you're still losing action economy by Delaying, even if you do it for a later enemy. It all adds up.

Also on those passages from the PHB I was looking for your interpretation on those passages and what they mean to you and how they factor into your judgment and adjudication of the readying rules. My understanding or misunderstanding of them has no bearing. I still wouldn't mind your opinion on them.

Movement explicitly reacts to readies at every square of the movement. The 'interrupt' they use in your quote is referring to the fact that _after they move a square_ you can take your readied action, interrupting the middle of their action (but not rolling back before it as an immediate interrupt would), nor removing their ability to change targets or change their action (as an immediate interrupt would). You've interrupted their action by going 'Hold it, I'm going now' but not in the same sense as the official Immediate Interrupt. It's still an Immediate Reaction. It's still following all of the same rules, it's just noting that movement is done square by square.

Hence the example I gave you with Deft Strike earlier.

I've also given many examples of actions that could trigger a readied action. I really do explicitly need you to explain what you don't understand if you want any more explanation there.

Sadrik, you might want to try using the DM hotline that wotc has setup for Oct 8-11.

 

[KarinsDad]

DC 50, so not really. I mean, sure, with a spell they could, but in real life someone with a device could do the same. And honestly I'd hope that, say, Hercules could, if we're just comparing demigods now.

So, the demigod can jump 10 feet, but cannot attack before the invisible wizard becomes visible???

A low level PC can have an Athletics skill of 20. That's 8 possible feet right there.

I find that cinematic is seeing the reflection on the scope or the slight movement of the sniper before the shot. Plausible is seeing the flash after the fact.

Though one of them is _still_ baffled by the whole combat challenge thing on her fighter, I'll admit

As is my wife. She has played a Fighter for 3 months now and still forgets to mark foes almost every other round.

I had a player who couldn't remember to have his Rogue flank.


It's all dependent on how passionate people are concerning the game.

 

[Sadrik]

Movement explicitly reacts to readies at every square of the movement. The 'interrupt' they use in your quote is referring to the fact that _after they move a square_ you can take your readied action, interrupting the middle of their action (but not rolling back before it as an immediate interrupt would), nor removing their ability to change targets or change their action (as an immediate interrupt would). You've interrupted their action by going 'Hold it, I'm going now' but not in the same sense as the official Immediate Interrupt. It's still an Immediate Reaction. It's still following all of the same rules, it's just noting that movement is done square by square.

I am leaning this way also. When the writers said interrupt they did not mean immediate interrupt, they simply meant the non-game term use of the word. So by your estimation there is no switching to an immediate interrupt when a power with movement is used. I hope you see where the confusion stems from. Still not sure if that is 100% right but we will move forward.

On the other passage which you did not comment on the word that is confusing is action. Do they mean the non-game term use of the word "to do something" or are they speaking of a specific action must be called to trigger the readied action. Like I said previously this could be interpreted multiple ways. How specific was the intent of what the action needs to be?

As to the usefulness of readied actions I see some use but it is pretty much a non-start. Champions, Savage Worlds and heck even 3e do a better job of modeling this (to name a few off the top of my head). I see that immediate interrupts cannot model the time flow of this properly as they jump to the beginning of the action. A whole new type of immediate action would need to be created to handle something like many think readied actions ought to work so it is a non-start.

 

[keterys]

Okay, now I get where you're coming from. There is some room for argument on the picking an action, but it explicitly says 'to a creature’s action or an event.' in the description above, and the trigger of 'the door opens' has been cited somewhere in the past, I believe, so I don't believe it needs to be tied explicitly to an action (standard, move, minor) but rather a descriptive trigger.

So 'When the box explodes' is as valid as 'When the troll attacks', I believe.

Much like when they say 'and immediately attack' I wish that if they were defining terms (Immediate, Action, etc) that they'd use _other_ terms for prose Or capitalize consistently when they want the term - ie, pick an Action to Trigger, or 'may Interrupt the movement'

 

[keterys]

I find that cinematic is seeing the reflection on the scope or the slight movement of the sniper before the shot. Plausible is seeing the flash after the fact.

They're both plausible, it's just a different trigger. That first trigger is 'When I perceive the enemy'. Which is why I mentioned it earlier as something that happens in movies sometimes

As is my wife. She has played a Fighter for 3 months now and still forgets to mark foes almost every other round. I had a player who couldn't remember to have his Rogue flank.

Yep - I've actually been tending to guide certain players away from certain builds / towards certain builds. One of my players has all sorts of cool ideas and tries to get another to play them, and it never works, and it's like 'Stop trying to give him things that require that he use these three abilities together, remember all of his reactive abilities... or for that matter read his character sheet'

It's all dependent on how passionate people are concerning the game.

Yepyep. Though one of them is actually passionate about it, just not that niggling rules detail. So, like, her rogue never uses the stealth rules, despite her taking all kinds of powers to use them... and I noted how they worked and what kind of things she'd have to do to use 'em. And it wasn't really working that great for her. So she steadily replaced them and gave up on stealth, cause it was just too high maintenance.

 

[DracoSuave]

I don't think you understand the rules completely. It says you can interrupt a creature by attacking it before it attacks you, but to do so it has to move. There is nothing in there about moving adjacent to you. (In fact by strict interpretation these rules will not allow an interrupting attack unless you have reach and the monster is one square away from you.)

Right. So, you have to use the move as your trigger. Which means you have to determine -where- it moves, and you do -not- get to decide once it starts its attack.

When you announce your trigger you have to say, "When this goblin moves I attack it" but what you really are trying to do is attack it before it attacks. It will not work if they do not move.

Nope, and I believe I said that.

If it pulls a bow and and attacks and does not move you lose out on your action because it did not move. Even though you are trying to attack it before you or one of your allies gets attacked by it.

This is absolutely correct. If it does not move, you cannot pre-empt its attack.

So can you say nebulously, "If it attacks or moves I attack it"? Would it triggers one of the two possible outcomes in the readied action bullet points?

If you set 'if it attacks' then you'll attack it -after- it does its attack. That's the whole point. You cannot -preempt- an attack by using its attack as a trigger.

Do you have to say I attack it with a specific power or can you say I attack and then use a power at that point?

Good question. Ask your DM.

If they move do they get attacked when about to move out of the square but are still in the square or do they move one square and then get attacked by you. In the former case you could not use the action to ready it and wait for them to move into the square unless you had reach or a ranged attack.

No. It's a -REACTION-. Which means you attack it -after- it has left the square and entered another square. Not before. Nothing in triggered happens -before-. That would be an interrupt. Not a reaction.

Can you call for a certain square of movement or does it have to be the first square they move out of and furthermore would this fall under immediate reaction or Interrupting an enemy bullet point?

No you do not need to call a specific square. But given that readying a attack is generally a melee move vs another attacker, or a ranged move vs melee, specific squares suffices.

Bangs head.

It's not that hard.

 

[Sadrik]

Okay, now I get where you're coming from. There is some room for argument on the picking an action, but it explicitly says 'to a creature’s action or an event.' in the description above, and the trigger of 'the door opens' has been cited somewhere in the past, I believe, so I don't believe it needs to be tied explicitly to an action (standard, move, minor) but rather a descriptive trigger.

So 'When the box explodes' is as valid as 'When the troll attacks', I believe.

The odd thing is that you use a descriptive trigger but then you have to apply it to an "action" so you have to say it is a non-movement "action" or a movement "action" and each one of those has a specific meaning in the the readied "action" rules. Lol, the action is ripe for misunderstanding, as the group has had.

Also, just as a future reference does the descriptive text above an action have any bearing on an action? I know you cite the, "to a creature’s action or an event" passage as a possible explanation to the intent of the writers. I have heard from various sources on the boards and elsewhere that you are essentially to ignore the text because it can be contradictory to how the game effects actually work.

And to go back to the interrupt thing in the text I think most people will read that and think that it actually does use an immediate interrupt when a movement power is used. Whatever happened to examples in the book anyway? I think if some examples were thrown in it would go lengths to adding some clarity to designer/writer/editor intent!

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The odd thing is that you use a descriptive trigger but then you have to apply it to an "action" so you have to say it is a non-movement "action" or a movement "action" and each one of those has a specific meaning in the the readied "action" rules. Lol, the action is ripe for misunderstanding, as the group has had.

Also, just as a future reference does the descriptive text above an action have any bearing on an action? I know you cite the, "to a creature’s action or an event" passage as a possible explanation to the intent of the writers. I have heard from various sources on the boards and elsewhere that you are essentially to ignore the text because it can be contradictory to how the game effects actually work.

And to go back to the interrupt thing in the text I think most people will read that and think that it actually does use an immediate interrupt when a movement power is used. Whatever happened to examples in the book anyway? I think if some examples were thrown in it would go lengths to adding some clarity to designer/writer/editor intent!

I'd put it this way, 4e is not a model for the ideal prose style to use when you want to make a set of rules that have bullet-proof language. I think (and I'm pretty sure I'm not alone in this) that the people who wrote the PHB were not really well versed in authoring rules for wargames. If they had been the language would have been more precise and declarative and they would have avoid the use of terms in a more casual context. I get the impression the writers are good WRITERS but they did constantly make the mistake of choosing their words for reasons of style vs reasons of absolute clarity. That being said, the actual game mechanics are pretty solid and when you really pull it apart and analyze it you find that they actually DO cover all the bases pretty well.

There are some ambiguities here and there, like your question about needing to specify a specific power use to be readied which is not clearly stated. Still, the action mechanics in general are remarkably good and both more workable and thorough than in any other RPG I've played.

I guess the real question that comes to my mind is what would actually be an improvement on the way ready works now in 4e? It DOES work and it seems like the majority of us have no problems doing what we want, but if you have examples of things that are actually issues I'm sure there is plenty of brainpower here to provide you with an answer.

 

[DracoSuave]

This is the problem with the 4E Ready. The game mechanics control what makes sense in some people's minds, not the result that the player is trying to achieve.


The Dragon has done a breath weapon. The entire party knows about it. The player of the Wizard, trying to be a good team player says:

"I ready an action to cast Globe of Invulnerability if he breathes to stop it"

Guess what? The ready action does nothing significant in 4E.

Guess what? This isn't Magic: The Gathering, and these power things aren't 'fast effects' that go on a stack, where you resolve the last thing done quicker by dint of it being last.

Granted, the PC Wizard should have been able to cast Wall of Ice to stop the breath weapon, but Wall of Ice stops line of sight without explicitly stopping line of effect (another strange rule or lack thereof).

That's -only- reasonable if casting a Wall of Ice is actually a faster task to do than breathing fire. It either is, or it is not. If they take the same amount of time, that is -not good enough.-

Seeing as both actions are seen as taking the same amount of time to complete, interrupts can't happen.

And if they could, then you'd have the situation where breath is faster than Wall of Ice if the breath starts -last- and Wall of Ice would be faster if it went -last.- In other words, actions are quicker to cast the more people are doing things to each other.

Doesn't. Make. Sense.

Personally, I don't think that giving up a Standard Action in order for a foe to possibly (or possibly not) lose a Standard Action is all that overpowered. I have no idea where this overpowered notion comes from, but it has nothing to do with actual balance. There are all kinds of immediate interrupts in the game system and even ones that are not IIs like Opportunity Attacks. This is more of a "4E is designed this way, hence, it must be a good idea" POV.

Well, those immediate interrupts -are- fast. Shield, for example, takes barely a thought, BAM, it's up as a split-second reaction to a magic missle headed your way.

The Shield spell can effectively take away an opponent's Standard Action and it is not even a Standard Action and loss of initiative to do so.

Yes. And it is a power designed to do -just that-. It is not at -all- the same thing as waiting for the right moment to summon the energies to cast that Wall of Ice.

 

[Sadrik]

Guess what? This isn't Magic: The Gathering, and these power things aren't 'fast effects' that go on a stack, where you resolve the last thing done quicker by dint of it being last.

Lol, 4e goes more into defining how interrupts and reactions work more than any role playing game I have ever seen. It does feel like a card game with fast effects. It tries to leave very little gray area for DM adjudication and explanation and tries to let the rules define every nuance.