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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Empirate" data-source="post: 6273361" data-attributes="member: 78958">As for the first part, the action you combine with your 5-foot step doesn't have to be casting a spell, or using a weapon. It doesn't have to be anything that "distracts" you. In fact, while we all know turn-based combat is a huge abstraction, I like to imagine a character's combat turn as the moment when you gain focus, and can make snap decisions about your next move. Moving out of an ally's way using a 5-foot step is part of this moment, and you can immediately follow this up with readying a scroll and using it, for example.I'm not distracted in any way; in fact, for a moment there, I call the shots on the battlefield (i.e., I have some say over relative positioning on it, where I myself am concerned). I take "initiative", meaning I can do any number of things instead of merely reacting to the flow of combat around me. One thing I can do is move around relative to others, getting closer to/farther away from some of them etc. If I do this too quickly, this may leave me open to counterattack by opponents (move action --> AoO). But if I carefully judge the distance and step purposefully out of harm's way, they can forget about that (5-foot step).If I'm dazed by a maw of roiling purple energy that saps away my lifeforce and distorts the very gravitational field within my body (Maw of Chaos), there's no way I can take that kind of initiative. This also means that any purposeful and precise movement (indeed movement of any kind) is impossible, even if it would normally become a natural part of what else I'm doing - because there is nothing else I'm doing, I'm just standing around in pain, trying to keep my cells from exploding, all the while defending as best I can against other threats, but in no condition at all to make any decisions on what to do myself.I don't say that you have to buy this. It's just the fiction as I imagine it. As far as I'm concerned, while the rules aren't entirely clear, they can be interpreted in an unambiguous (and moreover sane) way, as I hoped to demonstrate earlier: "Any actions for you this round? If yes, you may also take a 5-foot step, if certain other conditions are met. If no, you may not take a 5-foot step either."This is a purely rules question, and has nothing to do with the fiction I provided above. My way of looking at it does offer the advantage of chiming with the fiction - always and strictly IMO, of course.As for the purely academical question whether a 5-foot step is a kind of action, is "not an action", or neither: Sorry, I can't seem to find anything else on this.Completely random thought to derail the thread even further: How would the game change if you could take a 5-foot step as a swift action (but not otherwise)?</blockquote>

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