Readying Outside of Combat

[Sidekick]

Hmm I’m divided here. While the DM shouldn’t be using readied actions to cheat the players there are situations where the PCs opponents getting the drop on them can’t be properly illustrated within the RAW.

Here’s two example from my campaign.

1) (where I would have used RAW). The wizard is about to hand over an item to the bad guys. She’s got about 6 Emerald Claw soldiers covering her with Crossbows.

She decides to cast a spell (mage hand) to float it over to the enemies leader. Now I didn’t do this, but I should have.

The archers all get a surprise round to shoot her (flat-footed) and riddle her full of bolts.

2) (not covered in RAW). The PCs come home to find one of the other PCs sitting at the kitchen table with a Boromar-hired assassin sitting in the window sill with a crossbow leveled at the PCs chest. Clearly they’ve been like this for a while (ie he’s had his 3 rounds worth of ‘watching the subject’).

There’s another Boromar here to offer the PCs a job – its an offer they can’t refuse.

The (same) wizard, who is currently invisible casts gaseous form. The assassin hears the verbal component, assumes that the PCs are about to kick off and *twang* shoots the other PC bad. Now luckily he made his save and survived but I’d have had no qualms about killing that PC – the other player made a grave error that tipped the situation into violence.


Now example 2 isn’t strickly RAW, but as the DM there are situations where the RAW doesn’t cover the campaign adequately. So you rule on the fly to keep consistency with the situation/game/feel.

Your DM shouldn’t be taking the piss with this, but I can see how sometimes a readied action outside of combat is acceptable.

Ohh here’s another (I forget where this was illustrated). A mercenary group are holding some ruins. The PCs approach and are challenged.

The leader ‘readies’ to shoot anyone who tries to cast a spell, while his troops ready to shoot anyone who tries to attack them.

The wizard casts a spell. *thunk*. He gets shot. Then the fighter charges forward and *thump* he get riddled with bolts.

While that would occur IN a combat round, the readying of the action wouldn’t have…

 

[Dei]

A mercenary group are holding some ruins. The PCs approach and are challenged.

The leader ‘readies’ to shoot anyone who tries to cast a spell, while his troops ready to shoot anyone who tries to attack them.

The wizard casts a spell. *thunk*. He gets shot. Then the fighter charges forward and *thump* he get riddled with bolts.

While that would occur IN a combat round, the readying of the action wouldn’t have…

This is a situation I've always wondered about as well. As far as I can tell there's no raw governing it but essentially they are readying an action outside of combat. In my opinion it's a little stupid to say no readied actions outside of combat. Let's say there's a closed door that you know will be opened any minute by an enemy who knows of their presence. The entire party draws and loads missile weapons and need only pull the triggers on their crossbows to shoot. The door opens, they loose initiative and suddenly the monster is able to cross the room and attack before they're able to pull the trigger. Um... no.

Why would this situation be any different than one were the party is already in combat and readies actions to shoot the first thing to come through the door? There's no logical reason to deny readied actions outside of combat and personally it's a rule I've always played without.

 

[Infiniti2000]

Hmm I’m divided here. . . .

Both of those situations can be covered under RAW merely by when the DM defines combat to start. In the first case, combat can start as soon as the two parties meet. The DM can streamline this combat by making it narrative and saying that the crossbowmen are readied. The wizard needs to take actions to move, etc. but the crossbowmen will have the drop on him. In the second case, the assassin will have a surprise round to ready first as he hears the PC's enter or approach. The PC's enter and see what's going on and that the assassin looks readied to fire the bolt. The entire, talking-only (i.e. RP) encounter can take place while in combat without really resorting to, "Okay, Phil, your turn..."

 

[Infiniti2000]

NPCs don't get NPC-specific actions in the rules. They get the same action options as PCs.

I agree, but there are people who allow NPC's to do things PC's cannot. To whit:

Actually, whatever I rule for NPCs can be for NPCs and not for PCs. And PCs and NPCs don't always use the same rules anyway.

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

My problem with this sort of thing usually comes when players try to "beat" the initiative system by doing things that will allow them to automatically get the first action. For example, the players suspect that around the corner, there are some goblins. They don't know there are, and have no evidence that there are, but let's say for the sake of the example that this is a dungeon with several corners around which goblins are (and several around which they are not). However, no listen or spot checks have been successful in indicating the presence of enemies. So they get ready to ambush the goblins they "know" are there. The party creeps up to the corner, and on "go" they run around to attack.

The goblins, who are in fact there, hearing the party coming, pick up loaded crossbows and wait. They know the party is there.

When combat begins, which will presumably happen as soon as the PCs stick their heads around the corner, initiative is rolled and the goblins get a surprise round because they knew the PCs were there, but the PCs were pretty much guessing at something that wasn't a sure thing. The goblins could conceivably get two attacks worth of crossbow bolts on the lead PC before he can act.

At this point, the players will cry, "but we were in the middle of an action! How can they get two attacks before we even get one?" The DM answers "you didn't know that there were goblins there. They knew you were there, and they were ready. If I let you guess at there being enemies around every corner, there will never again be surprise rounds that don't go in your favour. You weren't prepared for crossbow bolts in the face, so you're surprised."

The players whine and cry and try to tell the DM that it doesn't make sense that their advance be halted while goblins shoot, reload, and shoot again. The DM wonders why he plays with players who insist on trying to circumvent the rules for their benefit.

Being able to just roll initiative for the goblins when they hear the PCs, and allow them to ready an action to shoot the first enemy they see makes more sense, and saves having to fight with the players over weird rule effects.

 

[DungeonMaester]

Its a little off topic but one situation where it would be a good strategy to use a ready action rather then a surpize round is detialed in the following example.

[qoute=DungeonMaester] The players moving long on the main road hear activities going on at a hill side to the road. Deciding to check it out the sent the Ninja to go see what was going on. When he got back he told the rest of the party that a gorup of bandits. They decided that rather than go up there and try a sneak attack on them, on thier home ground, they would instead lure them into thier own trap. The
Ninja ran up ahead with the scouts in the party and traps. They rest of the party took a ready action to blast them with a hail of arrows/spells as they banits charged down the hill.[/qoute]

I think its just one of the rules that means well, but in a single situation, can be over come.

To get back on topic..Well, the Dm can do what ever he want. Dms=God.

---Rusty

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

Its a little off topic but one situation where it would be a good strategy to use a ready action rather then a surpize round is detialed in the following example.

[qoute=DungeonMaester] The players moving long on the main road hear activities going on at a hill side to the road. Deciding to check it out the sent the Ninja to go see what was going on. When he got back he told the rest of the party that a gorup of bandits. They decided that rather than go up there and try a sneak attack on them, on thier home ground, they would instead lure them into thier own trap. The
Ninja ran up ahead with the scouts in the party and traps. They rest of the party took a ready action to blast them with a hail of arrows/spells as they banits charged down the hill.[/qoute]

I think its just one of the rules that means well, but in a single situation, can be over come.

To get back on topic..Well, the Dm can do what ever he want. Dms=God.

---Rusty

Wouldn't combat start when the ninja and bandits become aware of one another? Everyone rolls initiative, and on round 1, the ninja runs away, the bandits pursue, and everyone else readies an action. On round 2, the ninja gets to the kill zone, the bandits pursue, and everyone's readied action goes off. No need to tinker with the rules in this situation, I think.

 

[DungeonMaester]

Wouldn't combat start when the ninja and bandits become aware of one another? Everyone rolls initiative, and on round 1, the ninja runs away, the bandits pursue, and everyone else readies an action. On round 2, the ninja gets to the kill zone, the bandits pursue, and everyone's readied action goes off. No need to tinker with the rules in this situation, I think.

No, the Ninja was being sneaky. The bandits where first level compared to the 5th level ninja, which made it easy to spy from a distance with out being found out.

---Rusty

 

[Lonely Tylenol]

No, the Ninja was being sneaky. The bandits where first level compared to the 5th level ninja, which made it easy to spy from a distance with out being found out.

---Rusty

If I understand the plan, the ninja and scout move forward to where the bandits are, say something like, "oh no! Bandits! We are undone!" and run away, back to where the party is waiting. At the point at which the bandits become aware of the ninja and scout, initiative is rolled, and it plays out as I described above.

If they just set up an ambush for the bandits and waited for them to walk into it, the regular surprise round rules would suffice.

 

[DungeonMaester]

If I understand the plan, the ninja and scout move forward to where the bandits are, say something like, "oh no! Bandits! We are undone!" and run away, back to where the party is waiting. At the point at which the bandits become aware of the ninja and scout, initiative is rolled, and it plays out as I described above.

If they just set up an ambush for the bandits and waited for them to walk into it, the regular surprise round rules would suffice.

Ok then, allow me to add a little more detail on what happened.

The party is moving along a road. Off in the distance they hear the sound of people talking, clashing of metal, ect ect, but can see anything. The Ninja says "Zomg. Eye are ninja. Me go sneaky sneaky" He sneaks up the mountain and sees the bandits then sneaks back down the the mountain where they are both out of seeing range, and tells the party. Then, the scout and the ninja go up the road and lay traps. The rest of the party takes ready actions to interrupt. Had they tried a surpize round, they would find that the hill gives them too much cover to launch a attack. So they let the bandit charge thinking they have the surpize round, then intterupt once they get close and blast them to La la land.

---Rusty