Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gantros" data-source="post: 2116977" data-attributes="member: 15836">You can't just ready an action to charge or attack.  It has to be triggered by something specific.  The assassin has to say, "I prepare to charge at the king and attack if he does x", where x has to be some specific event. If the guards didn't ready an action to intercept the assassin if he tried to approach the king, then they would have to roll initiative against the assassin and would be flat-footed until their turn.  If they did ready such an action before the assassin decided to attack, then they would not be flat-footed and would get AoOs as the assassin rushed by.  If the guards decided to ready their action and the assassin chose that moment to attack, then they have to check initiative and win in order to ready their action in time.  The DM decides who takes the first action, and thus when combat begins.  The guards can't just sit there all day with a readied action, because there is no specific threat to prepare for.  Only once they are aware of a specific threat (in this case the potential assassin walking toward them) can they choose to ready an appropriate action, and the DM can initiate combat at that point to allow them to do so.  If the assassin sees them ready their weapons and decides to respond, then initiative can be rolled to determine if he can react before they were able to prepare.  If he chooses not to attack or charge right away, then there is no need to roll initiative until he does so.</blockquote>

Verification