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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 4954982" data-attributes="member: 82106">OK, you're fine so far. One MINOR note, if an enemy uses a power that makes multiple attacks you can react to the first (or second etc) attack and do something before the rest of the attacks go off, just like the example with movement where you can react to any individual square of the movement. See PHB p268 for a full description of what you can do with an immediate reaction.As others have said, your readied action HAS to come after the other creature's action, otherwise it would not make sense. The bad guy is holding a dagger to the victim's throat. Bad guy attacks victim. Pazzap! I shoot him before he can act. Not going to happen. If you want to shoot him before he acts, JUST SHOOT. In point of fact a "standoff" situation is actually NOT COMBAT because nobody is actually attacking anyone, its a status quo situation. If one or the other side decides to act, then initiative is rolled and you either act first or not. Admittedly its possible a bad guy might hold a dagger to someone's throat in the MIDDLE of a battle, but then THEY are readying (or delaying or something). In that case YOU get to act first. There is never a problem with it being a reaction if the rules are used exactly as intended.Delaying is totally different from readying, though it may accomplish similar goals at times. You can only stop delaying at the start of a specific creature's turn, so you don't know what they are going to do. Delaying is normally used when you want to have an ally act first and then you're going to do something. Its mostly for those situations where some activity requires 2 characters to cooperate and the one that needs to go first is not first in the initiative order or something like that.Mechanically your understanding is fine here except there is no "special rule" for when they are going to use their NEXT action to attack you after the one they are finishing now. You simply are reacting to the movement, then they attack, no special rule. The only time it is at all "special" is if they were say charging you, which is a move and an attack all in one action. In that case you're still just reacting the last square of movement they performed and that reaction happens before the next "sub-step" (the attack part of the charge).The actual definition of what is an acceptable trigger is left a little bit flexible. The DM has the deciding vote on how vague the trigger can be. As far as your specific list, all of those things are potentially valid triggers since they all require the enemy to use an action. Note that if an enemy runs away from you, you could have readied a charge as your readied action and run up to them and hit them after they go one square. But like I said before, either you should have just attacked him, the situation is "status quo" and initiative determines who gets the jump on whom, or its a situation where the enemy SHOULD get go go first. There is no situation which is not covered by ready an action that you should be allowed to perform and are not.Honestly I've designed both software and rules systems many times and I can't come up with a better way to have this work, nor do other games have better ways that I'm aware of and I've played a lot of RPGs.As I said above, the ready an action is NOT intended to resolve the situation of a standoff where you want to get off a shot first. That is resolved by initiative because a standoff is not (yet) combat. The example/hint in the Ready an Action section may have confused you, but the rule itself is really easy to use once you understand it <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />Probably not, but you can probably state a trigger which is either broad enough to cover all possibilities or one which will make the difference moot. For example you could reasonably trigger on "the orc does ANYTHING at all except breathe". There are no good alternatives that I know of. Here are a couple of situations and how they would work out at my table:The party is behind a door and something is trying to break through the door. Fighter: I step up to the door and ready Crushing Blow to attack whatever is on the other side as soon as the door opens.DM: OK, you are in front of the door with your axe ready.(Ogre on the other side of the door breaks down door with a STR roll)DM: The door collapses, a troll stands in front of you. You Can use Crushing Blow now.Fighter: (rolls d20) etc...The evil bad guy has a dagger to a hostage's throat. The ranger has a bead drawn on the bad guy.Paladin: Sir! Pray do not slay that innocent girl. I'll duel you in fair combat instead. (attempts a diplomacy check and fails).DM: The villain laughs. "I'm not fooled by your tricks. Say good bye to your friend."DM: OK, the bad guy decides to act, everyone roll initiative. (figures out the init order, the bad guy goes first).DM: The bad guy cuts the girl's throat...(alternately, the ranger goes first)Ranger: I attack with Split the Tree (bad guy dies).I can't swear there isn't some situation I've never imagined where readying will fail, but I am about 95% sure its actually a pretty bulletproof rule. Its worst feature is its possible to cheat someone out of an OA/II if you use it just right or avoid certain penalties, but the DM is always free to just say "no" to that kind of thing if it gets out of hand.</blockquote>

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