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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Eric Finley" data-source="post: 4954676" data-attributes="member: 83401">The concept that they really didn't go into, which is the only thing that's poorly explained IMO, is what constitutes a "sub-action" ... what is a single increment of time/events which can't be broken up by a reaction.The OP originally seems to have understood that that increment was the action.  As per the use of readied actions in response to (e.g.) the movement portion of a charge, this is not the case.  It certainly appears that (a) a nonfree action is always at least one sub-action in size... that is, anything other than free actions can be reacted to as a whole; but (b) an individual square of movement, and (IMO) an individual attack, is a subaction in its own right, and can thus be reacted to even if it's part of a single compound action (like a charge, Twin Strike [cf. Black Arrow Style - they're sequential], etc).Now, as for the problems with readied actions, for the most part I don't see 'em.  For example, keterys, you're thinking of immediate actions - opportunity attacks can be taken on any turn, including your own, if someone else provokes during it.  (Cause Fear would be an excellent example of how this could happen).  Yes, immediate actions can't generally be taken during your own turn and thus you could in theory avoid a Combat Challenge attack by readying your attack until during the fighter's turn.  Personally I ignore the "not during your own turn" clause for the most part, if it causes something not to make sense, but by RAW you're correct that this is a problem.End-of-turn and Save-ends stuff is more problematic, yes... I proposed a solution to one version of this a long time back (basically, subsume Ready under the Delay rules, where it can't be used to get around an End-of-turn clause).  But as I expected, it doesn't come up... with decent players it mostly doesn't happen, and with problem players there are easier knobs to pull.And it's pretty clear to me that you can't just wait for a debuff to expire; you can only ready in response to an action, and those aren't actions.  I let players ready for "as soon as I can after this wears off" but that requires at least one action to happen in the next turn after their own... which can definitely prove problematic in some circumstances.In terms of ready-as-an-interrupt... that's covered already, in different form.  Look at Disrupting Strike, Delban's Deadly Attention, and a host of other immediate-interrupt effects; heck, look at Combat Challenge (+ Shield Push!) or Battle Awareness.  Basically, each of those is a limited-use resource which lets you "ready" a specific action for a specific type of trigger, for use as an interrupt.  It would be too powerful to give such things out as a general rule, so you have to buy 'em (as powers) and use 'em under those limitations - encounter if not daily use limits, and specific trigger circumstances.If you look at Ready Action as encapsulating both the actual "Ready" action and also the existence of those powers, then readying - much like, say, tripping someone - takes an appropriately specific place in the rules.  You can do it if you're built to do it... and by making them specific powers we can ensure that they're balanced and do not combo out of control (usually).</blockquote>

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