Readied charge interrupts a charge...

[vic20]

This came up in a game Wednesday night that I was running:

I had a kobold dragon shield ready a charge to trigger on any PC crossing a given line. A PC declared a charge action against another kobold, the movement portion of which resulted in moving into a square across the triggering line, so as a response to that square being entered, I had the dragon shield charge the PC.

Now, after the DS attacked and missed the PC, the PC wanted to stop and fight the dragon shield instead of continuing with the charge as declared.

 

[abyssaldeath]

Charge is a standard action. If he stops the charge then he loses the action.

 

[brehobit]

Charge is a standard action. If he stops the charge then he loses the action.

What if he can't charge anymore (guy who interrupted is now in the way?)

 

[abyssaldeath]

Then his action was interrupted and he loses the action. Page 291 under "Ready an Action".

 

[Nytmare]

I kinda had the flip side of this happen the other night, and was unsure of how the timing worked out:

Archer decided to fire at point blank range into a Divine Challenged skeleton warrior.
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Skeleton warrior decides to ignore the paladin's challenge and skewer the archer.
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In the ensuing skewering, the paladin's divine challenge kills the skeleton.

The archer now wants to know if he can target a different baddie since his original target smote himself.
​

My guess for how I would handle vic20's dragon shield problem would be that the PC starts the charge, the kobold interrupts the charge, and then, depending on miniature placement, either have the interrupting kobold get charged, or have the charge revert to a move. I don't see anything official in the PHB.

 

[Nytmare]

Then his action was interrupted and he loses the action. Page 291 under "Ready an Action".

Does "interrupt" describe when it happens, or is it meant to mean that it stops the other action from being finished?

 

[Stalker0]

Readying is an immediate reaction, not an interrupt.

You ready to charge after the player crossed a certain line. His movement provoked that response, so the DS charged. The player now goes back to his action, he is still charging. He could at that point hit the dragon shield, who is now at the end of his charge...provided he at least move the 2 squares necessary to do a charge.

 

[Gloombunny]

Does "interrupt" describe when it happens, or is it meant to mean that it stops the other action from being finished?

Interrupt only describes the timing. The interrupted action finishes after you resolve the interrupt, unless the interrupting action makes the interrupted action invalid.

The PC whose charge was interrupted could continue it after the kobold's charge attack resolves, unless the kobold is blocking his path and he doesn't have enough movement to go around. (If he does continue the charge, though, he'd provoke an OA from the kobold who just charged him.)

I might rule that the PC can change his charge to be against the interrupting kobold, though. It would feel very weird if he couldn't.

 

[DracoSuave]

Nope, he has to continue his charge action (as the action is not yet resolved) against the original target (because charge -is- targetted, and you can't change targets of an action mid-action, without something saying you can.)

But he can (and indeed, must) go around the DS, provoke the opportunity attack, suck it up, and strike forth. This is -very- good tactics on behalf of the DS. Expect the players to learn it and pick it up.


This, of course, assumes he's during the charge portion of his movement. If he happens to be during the move -before- the charge, then he hasn't actually declared his charge yet, and he can do what he wants. (cause generally, you move your speed with a walk action before you use your charge action if you're closing into melee)



As for the archer/skeleton situation. The archer has already began resolving his attack action with its target. He -has to- in order to trigger the skeleton's opportunity attack. The skeleton's Divine Challenge is triggered by it's resolved attack. The skeleton dies, the archer's attack is used up.

If the archer can back up and attack and attack someone else, then the opportunity attack can back up and not be triggered, and the DC has to back up and never damage the skeleton. The archer's attack -has- to be wasted for this chain of events to occur. Besides, he's trying to take advantage of the situation, must likely. Unless he's forced not to shift, he's doing all this on purpose to trigger the skeleton's DC. Why he didn't target a different target to begin with is beyond me.

So in his case I'd say 'No, you can't target someone else, but next time you're in that situation, you'd have the result you want by targetting someone else to begin with.'

 

[Chen_93]

A readied action is an immediate reaction. However, it does specifically state it can interrupt movement (PHB P.268). Now it does not explicitly say this interrupting can negate the action, though in the section under immediate interrupts it does state "If an interrupt invalidates a triggering action, that action is lost". It doesn't specify this is only the case for immediate interrupts but rather for any interrupt. As such I'd say that the movement portion of the charge, that got interrupted by the readied action, would be invalidated and the remainder of that movement was lost (presuming the kobold got in the characters way so he could not continue moving).

In the movement restrictions on charge it says you must move to the closest square to attack the enemy. This implies your choice of target occurs when you declare the charge. I would say that the readied charge would invalidate this choice of targets unless the character was charging the kobold that readied the action. In that case it could attack the kobold since this was the initial target of the charge and charge states you make an attack after your move (which would be the case despite the fact your move was interrupted). Finally, if the kobold's readied charge reached the first charging player before the player had moved at least 2 squares, I'd rule the charge was completely invalidated by the interrupt and the charging character would lose the entire action.