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

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="KarinsDad" data-source="post: 1282518" data-attributes="member: 2011">Yes, you can do that. In fact, that is a "standard" tactic against a charge, especially with a reach weapon. Someone charges up to you while you have a "ready for attack and then step back 5 foot". He comes up and attacks, you interrupt him, attack him, and retreat 5 feet. He cannot continue his move since his action was to charge to you, not to charge past you in anticipation of a readied action (the exception to this is if he is performing an overrun with the charge, where stepping back 5 feet only helps in that you do not get knocked prone, but even then he can continue his overrun if he has move left over). With a reach weapon you can actually get 2 attacks against him. One for the AoO of moving 10 feet to 5 feet through your threatened area and another for your readied action (if you ready to move 5 feet first and then attack or if using a spiked chain).The downside is that if someone does not attack you, you do not get your readied action.Pros and Cons. Otherwise it would be Cons and Cons for readied actions if the trigger action could be changed in any way.With regard to standard action spells, there are two sentences that illustrate this:3.5 PHB page 174: "You make all pertinent decisions about a spell (range, target, area, effect, version, and so forth) when the spell comes into effect."3.5 PHB page 140: "Most spells have a casting time of 1 standard action. A spell cast in this manner immediately takes effect."So, the instant you cast it, it immediately takes effect and you make all pertinent decisions. Immediately. It is irrelevant that the readied action triggers immediately before that.The issue here is that a standard action cannot be broken down into smaller chunks. There is no start of standard action, middle of standard action, and end of standard action. There is only standard action. It is indivisible (the exception to this is that you can do free actions or not an action within a standard action). Now, the standard action might not occur (opponent moved away, caster knocked unconscious, etc.) or the conditions might change (opponent knocked prone so you are now at +4 to hit), but the standard action itself cannot be change.A Full Round Action, on the other hand, can be broken down into smaller chunks (in some cases). For example, with a Full round attack, you can attack one opponent, knock him unconscious and then decide to attack a different opponent, or move away. With a One round spell, it is not until immediately before your initiative on the next round when it actually gets cast that you have to declare target, area of effect, etc.But, full round actions are different than standard actions. The action is the action. If an opponent readies an attack against you, you cannot change your Power Attack modifier after his readied attack since it is all part of your standard action.Ask Hyp. He'll tell you (if he's around).</blockquote>

Verification