Stand your ground damn you!

[AuraSeer]

If he wants you to chase him, don't. Never play by the enemy's rules.

The easiest solution is not to follow. Stand your ground and ready an attack. If the enemy comes back in toward you, he gets that move and a single attack. You get your readied action right them, plus a full attack on your next action. You clearly come out ahead, and if he retreats again you gain even more advantage. Meanwhile, your archers and spellcasters should be unloading on him.

Another solution is to use magic to modify the battlefield to your advantage. Wall spells are great for this. A particular favorite is to create a wall of force six inches off the ground, twenty feet ahead of the enemy, in the direction he's trying to escape. It's invisible, so unless he has Spellcraft or makes a Spot check over DC 40, he'll probably run straight into it.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Kind of defeats the purpose of feats like Spring Attack no?

I have a barbarian in the party I GM who uses a greatsword and has boots of speed. He is completely devistating.

That's why Quick Draw and Rapid Shot are such useful feats for NPCs. I don't give them to every NPC, but anyone whose heard of this guy and is going against him, takes his fighting style into account and generally tries to pick terrain that limits movement.

Of course, holding your action and wailing on the character when he closes with you is another beautiful thing. I'll never forget the first time I did that to him. "What do you mean he attacks me! I have the initiative! I went before him... oh wait... he's holding his actions right? Damn!"

 

[Mystery Man]

Kind of defeats the purpose of feats like Spring Attack no?

I have a barbarian in the party I GM who uses a greatsword and has boots of speed. He is completely devistating.

That's why Quick Draw and Rapid Shot are such useful feats for NPCs. I don't give them to every NPC, but anyone whose heard of this guy and is going against him, takes his fighting style into account and generally tries to pick terrain that limits movement.

Of course, holding your action and wailing on the character when he closes with you is another beautiful thing. I'll never forget the first time I did that to him. "What do you mean he attacks me! I have the initiative! I went before him... oh wait... he's holding his actions right? Damn!"

If you hold your action you get your full monte of attacks even if he uses spring attack? Just needing clarification for myself.

 

[AuraSeer]

If you hold your action you get your full monte of attacks even if he uses spring attack? Just needing clarification for myself.

By the book, no, that doesn't work. If you Delay, you can't interrupt someone else's actions; you need to wait until he's done with his turn, and by that time he's back out of range again.

You can Ready an action for when the enemy comes in range, but that only gives you one attack (or one other standard action).

 

[JoeGKushner]

By the book, no, that doesn't work. If you Delay, you can't interrupt someone else's actions; you need to wait until he's done with his turn, and by that time he's back out of range again.

You can Ready an action for when the enemy comes in range, but that only gives you one attack (or one other standard action).

Hmmm... Reading an action only gives you one attack or one other standard action? I guess in that case the standard action would be to move away?

I'll have to go check that again. It's been a while since I've had that problem with this player but I thought that by Delay, you went just before the other person did. After checking yes, it looks like I house-ruled in that if you ready all your actions and take no other activity, you can get you're full # of attacks. In my head, I see it as if you're not moving, you've in essence readied all of your attacks.

 

[Mystery Man]

"You can Ready an action for when the enemy comes in range, but that only gives you one attack (or one other standard action)."

You are correct, you can only ready a standard, move or free action. Taking all of your attacks is a full round action.

but..

[For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.]

You can't declare your readied action on someone elses turn so how would your initiative change?

 

[jmucchiello]

You are correct, you can only ready a standard, move or free action. Taking all of your attacks is a full round action.

but..

[For the rest of the encounter, your initiative result is the count on which you took the readied action, and you act immediately ahead of the character whose action triggered your readied action.]

You can't declare your readied action on someone elses turn so how would your initiative change?

On your turn you ready an attack against the other guy. On his turn he move up trigger your readied action. You attack. Your initiative is now just before his for the rest of combat. He finishes his action, presumably with an attack. One the next round. You go before him. Full attack him. Now he goes. If he attacks and runs, you get to repeat the whole process next round. If he full attacks, you get to go toe-to-toe.

If he has spring attack: You ready an attack against him. He springs in, your readied attack goes off. Initiative changes. He finishes his attack and springs out. On the next round you go before him. Ready another attack. He goes. Ad naseum.

 

[AuraSeer]

You can't declare your readied action on someone elses turn so how would your initiative change?

I think you may have some of the terms confused. You don't declare on someone else's turn; you declare on your own turn, and you get triggered on some other turn.

Say Fred the Fighter is in combat with Mike the Monk. Fred rolled high on initiative and goes at 19; Mike goes at 10. (There are a bunch of other combatants too, who go at other numbers, but they're not important right now.)

We pick up the story in the middle of the fight, in round 4, and Fred is sick of trying to chase Mike around the battlefield. So on Fred's action (count 19), Fred declares a Ready action, to make an attack when Mike comes within reach.

On Mike's turn (count 10), Mike uses Spring Attack to move in and attack. When he comes within reach of Fred, this triggers Fred's readied action, so Fred takes his single attack. Mike then finishes his Spring Attack action, by taking one attack and moving away.

In the next round, both characters act on count 10, but Fred goes first.

 

[rangerjohn]

I don't think anyone has really addressed the original poster's problem. Either he completely changes his character, going from melee to range, which is going to be sub-par for him as I doubt he chose his feats for range. Or he delays the combat himself. Either way combat is being stretched out even further, than it was already, which was part of his complaint. This goes double for telling him to get other party members solve his problem. Your telling him the way for him not to get bored and frustrated with the game is to particiapate less?

 

[Mystery Man]

Understood.