Readied actions triggering off of things that happen in the middle of an action

[Alex319]

Consider the following three situations:

1. A fighter readies an action to attack anything that enters a square adjacent to him. A wizard thunderwaves an enemy through a square adjacent to him, but the enemy ends up past him. Does the fighter's readied action go off as the monster is on its way past him?

2. A monster readies an action to attack anything that enters a square next to him. A fighter uses Passing Attack, attacking another monster, and shifting through a square adjacent to the monster and ending up past him. Does the monster's readied action go off?

3. A fighter readies the following action: "If the wizard uses his Shield power, charge the person who attacked him." A ranged attack monster shoots the wizard, and the wizard uses his Shield. At what point in the process does the fighter move and charge. If the fighter's charge kills the monster, does it negate the attack? Does the fighter get an AO since he was adjacent to the monster while the attack was in progress?

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Basically, the general principle I'm after is to understand when immediate reactions go off. If you say that they only go off after you've finished the whole action, that seems to stop (1) and (2) from working, which don't really make sense. But if you say that they go off immediately after the thing that triggers them, then that would allows (3) - which seems to allow an exploit where you make any readied action an interrupt by piggybacking off of someone else's unrelated interrupt.

 

[Infiniti2000]

1. Yes, you can interrupt movement. I don't think it was worded explicitly to required move action.
2. Same as #1.
3. No, you cannot interrupt other actions. The monster gets to finish his action. In addition, isn't there a rule that you cannot ready on immediate actions?

 

[Hypersmurf]

3. No, you cannot interrupt other actions. The monster gets to finish his action. In addition, isn't there a rule that you cannot ready on immediate actions?

Not on PHB291. Somewhere else?

-Hyp.

 

[mneme]

Readied actions are Immediate Reactions. Therefore, they cannot interrupt their trigger (Shield is a very weird case, as you're reacting to an interrupt -- but I'd certainly rule that you'd go off after the interrupted action).

Every square of movement counts as a separate trigger -- so reactions (including readied actions) on movement go after the triggering movement but not the intended actiosn after them -- just like reactions (including readied actions) on attacks can stop successive attacks (if they're in sequence) but not other things simultaneous to the original attack (like the rest of an area attack).

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

The first 2 situations I think are ones where things work as others have already answered. Even forced movement CAN trigger an Immediate Reaction because it is movement "if a creature triggers your immediate reaction while moving", but since the terms move, movement, and moving are ill-defined this may still provoke legitimate debate. An IA is NOT an OA and isn't forbidden to trigger by the general "forced movement doesn't trigger OAs" clause, but still...

As for #3 I think if you take the RAW literally then the readied action takes place as soon as Shield itself has resolved and before the power triggering shield resolves. An IR only happens after the triggering action. The rules say nothing about actions that triggered the triggering action.

 

[KarinsDad]

As for #3 I think if you take the RAW literally then the readied action takes place as soon as Shield itself has resolved and before the power triggering shield resolves. An IR only happens after the triggering action. The rules say nothing about actions that triggered the triggering action.

Actually, literal RAW has a different interpretation:

Choose the specific action you are readying (what attack you plan to use, for example) as well as your intended target.

One cannot choose to attack any target that triggers the Shield. The readying creature must choose which target to attack when declaring the Ready.

A readied action is an immediate reaction. It takes place after your enemy completes the action that triggers it.

According to literal RAW, the resolution of the ready action can only occur after the enemy who triggered it has completed its action.

The triggering action, event, or condition occurs and is completely resolved before you take your reaction, except that you can interrupt a creature’s movement

One could also rule that the real triggering action is the "enemy's attack" which must be completely resolved.


So literally, one could ready such an action, but the readying creature must declare the target and the triggering enemy's action resolves first.

 

[Doctor Proctor]

I think something like "The first creature to come through that door" or "the first creature to move adjacent to me" would be specific enough to qualify as an "intended target". For example, if the first creature through a door is the Captain of the local guard, you would attack him because he fit the "target" description...better hope you miss though!

I think the "intended target" line is to prevent things like "I'm going to attack someone coming through the door, but I'll decide who as they're coming through", which is something that could be abused, whereas "I'm going to attack the first/second/third creature coming through the door" is a specific trigger that you will be forced to follow.

 

[CapnZapp]

Threads like this makes me glad I'm pretty much ignoring readied actions.

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

Actually, literal RAW has a different interpretation:



One cannot choose to attack any target that triggers the Shield. The readying creature must choose which target to attack when declaring the Ready.



According to literal RAW, the resolution of the ready action can only occur after the enemy who triggered it has completed its action.



One could also rule that the real triggering action is the "enemy's attack" which must be completely resolved.


So literally, one could ready such an action, but the readying creature must declare the target and the triggering enemy's action resolves first.

Unfortunately there are a certain number of things you've ignored there. You don't have to ready an action related to a specific action of another creature at all. Therefor the rules stating the triggering creature must be an enemy and a specific creature are mutually contradictory with the rest of the action readying rules text. In fact readying would simply be useless in a large number of situations it is obviously (I mean they clearly state its useful for) intended to cover. Things like coordinating actions with an ally (IE "when Fred passes through the door I will slam the door"). If Fred happened to be an enemy creature that would be legal but it isn't legal simply because he's an ally? That makes no sense at all. It would also mean you couldn't do something like wait for a pendulum trap to swing past and then move simply because a trap isn't a creature and so can't be an enemy. Yet Ready an Action clearly states that you CAN do this kind of thing.

Thus my interpretation is that phrases like "It takes place after your enemy completes the action that triggers it." are not establishing requirements like the trigger has to involve an enemy, they are just descriptive of the mechanics. Likewise "as well as your intended target" doesn't mean that the trigger must have a specific creature as part of the triggering conditions, just that you must be able to unambiguously interpret the trigger with respect to a specific creature/object/event when it triggers. Likewise "Choose the action that will trigger your readied action" is using the term "action" in an informal sense to mean "something that happens", not a specific formal action taken by another creature.

This is all made pretty clear by the general description of ready an action which states clearly that it responds to an "event".

Thus I disagree that you can't ready on an ally's actions and in fact no text in the rules clearly says you can't. So you CAN ready on your ally setting off his shield power. Since your action will resolve directly after his, it will happen before the completion of the attack which triggered the use of shield. I see nothing in the rules text which contradicts this at all.

As an aside there are good reasons why this kind of thing would be unlikely to ever come up. Readying on an allies triggered action is a doubly risky move. Not only might your ally not ever choose to trigger shield, but the enemy might not even choose to attack that ally in the first place. Any time you ready an action you risk losing the action. Making it doubly dependent is even more of a risk. If it did ever come up it would be a very specific and unusual situation and it certainly wouldn't be something you would need to prevent players from trying.

Overall the DM is going to have a lot of leeway with these trigger conditions in deciding what is and isn't precise enough to allow. Its easy to come up with examples that probably shouldn't be allowed and the rules text is flexible enough to let the DM say yes or no as he sees fit.

 

[KarinsDad]

This is all made pretty clear by the general description of ready an action which states clearly that it responds to an "event".

The problem is that we have multiple RAW sentences that conflict based on interpretation and scenario (as I illustrated, the one RAW interpretation that you were using can be opposed by other RAW interpretations which you CHOOSE to consider less RAW than the RAW you were quoting).

Hence, one has to use RAI to interpret since RAW conflicts.

In the case of #3, the general "one cannot interrupt actions other than movement" is RAI (and RAW). Hence, interrupting the attacking enemy's action by basing the trigger off of casting of Shield is trumped by the rule that one cannot interrupt an action.