Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="keterys" data-source="post: 4954951" data-attributes="member: 43019">... what? Let's take two examples for a moment.1) On init 8 Gar readies an attack against Dex making an attack. On init 5 Dex makes his attack, so Gar responds. Gar's initiative is set to 5 right before Dex's, so next round he gets another attack on Dex before Dex gets to go.2) On init 8, Gar delays until he knows if Dex is going to attack. On init 5, Dex attacks. Gar comes out of delay and makes his own attack. Next round, Dex goes _before_ Gar instead of the reverse.Seems pretty similar to me. Someone has a hostage, readies an attack, fails to take the attack because they were killed, disarmed, knocked unconscious, whatever. 'Readying' as a concept is fallible. Even readying to shoot someone and you get the shot off can miss if that person's movement surprises you and it's certainly the case in a melee that you can have two people next to each other and one can decide to swing if the other does, so the other starts to swing... and what do you know, the one who started to swing first often lands first or at least is sometimes not second. Just physics there, really.Please explain to me which part of the rule you don't understand, or what thing I said that wasn't clear, and I'd be happy to do so. I gave a Deft Strike example, even.Again, what part don't you understand? It is indeed a singular use of all words involved, so clearly 'The enemy does _this_ -or- the enemy does _that_' is not valid. You could say 'The enemy takes any action other than a free action' if you want them to stay still, though.Of course the DM defines the trigger, just as the player does. That doesn't mean the player knows what that trigger is, any more than the monster knows what the monster's trigger is - when a monster uses an ability, do you go 'It uses Howl of the Ancients, at +12 to hit Fort, I rolled a 5 so I guess that barely misses you. It's recharge 5 or 6, so I'll be rolling that again next round' or do you describe the monster 'howling horrifically as spirits emerge and whip past you, claws tearing through and... barely missing you'. Well, maybe neither and somewhere in between, but it's up to the table how much information they require - most tables I've played at, the player states their ready and the DM doesn't, and the group works together to ensure everyone has fun.If that's not the case for you, I'd advise you to read through the DMG a bit more to get the right feel for things. You definitely want to give the players the information to know that it's readied for some action, but neither side should innately know 'Well, if I pull out a bow I'll be safe' or 'If I attack someone else, their action is wasted'. If the DM can't cope with not exploiting his knowledge of their ready, he could have the player write it out or intentionally trigger it some percentage of the time.Whatever it takes to have a fun game.</blockquote>

Verification