Sustained effects and Delay/Ready

[Eric Finley]

(Forked from this thread for clarity.)

Something that bugs me in the RAW is simply this - a Sustained Effect is supposed to be continuous, so long as you concentrate on it. So, apparently you can (say) cast a 29th level daily spell without disrupting that concentration (assuming it's a Sustain Move or Minor), but even a tiny bit of tactical coordination with your allies (pausing to cast a spell until after the Fighter scrambles out of the blast radius) is a deal-breaker. Huh??

Now, if there's simply no solution that doesn't open up a can of loopholes, fine; but if I can, I'd like to come up with a solution that allows things that are supposed to be continuous to remain so, like intuition would assume.

My thought is this:
- When you delay, you can commit to a sustain action on the delayed turn. (Basically, you say, "I'm going to delay until after Joe, but yeah, I'll keep the Wall of Acid in effect.") The effect is provisionally sustained and remains in effect. If the sustain action has an effect other than "the effect persists", you don't do that now.
- When your delayed turn comes up, you must spend that action and sustain the effect. The sustain action is resolved normally.
- If, at any point, you suddenly don't have access to the action you committed to do but haven't performed yet (such as because you were stunned, or it's a Sustain Standard and you got hit with Far Realm Phantasm from Dragon #366 which coopts your next standard action, or what have you), the sustained effect stops immediately. If you have an Action Point and you could use that to keep the sustain going (works in the Far Realm Phantasm case, not in the stun), then you can commit to that as well, if you want.

Two examples:
1) Wizard has cast Flaming Sphere, and has been sustaining it for a while. But he's immobilized at range nine to the sphere, range 11 to an ogre, and range 12 to Fighter (all in a line). Fighter's got Tide of Iron and offers to use it. Wizard delays until after Fighter (who, say, goes right after Wizard anyway).

Per RAW: Wizard delays, Flaming Sphere evaporates instantly. Wizard: "@$%#&!"
Per this fix: Wizard delays, commits to sustaining the Sphere. Fighter acts, uses Tide of Iron to push the ogre adjacent to the Sphere and to within 10 of Wizard. Wizard takes his delayed turn. His minor action MUST be to sustain the Sphere. He does so, and adds a Scorching Burst as well, producing a nicely seasoned Cajun-blackened ogre.

2) Same example, but between Wizard and Fighter in the initiative order there's an oni. Wizard delays and commits to maintaining the sphere. Oni hits Wizard with a stun-until-EoNT smash to the head. Wizard's commitment to maintain the sphere now can't be kept; the sphere evaporates as soon as we see that Wizard is stunned.

Now... can anyone construct an abuse with this rule? How about an abuse which is nonobvious and/or intevitable, and thus can't be remedied with the GM smack-stick (or simply ignored, in a high-trust game like all of mine)?

 

[KarinsDad]

Well, this question really belongs in the house rules forum.

I think Sustain and Delay as written work fine. The Wizard takes and loses his action in order to do the sustain for Delay.

He just cannot delay without losing it. Not all situations allow for all options. His turn came up and he chose not to sustain. He also chose not to take his turn at that point.


I don't see the issue for Ready. His turn occurs on round four, he uses a minor action sustain and readies. When his ready action fires off, it is not his turn (until the following round). The ready action occurs at this point in time, but the Wizard's turn has already occurred. So, he does not need to sustain at that point. He only needs to sustain on his turn.

 

[RangerWickett]

I'd just let him start his turn, spend the action to sustain, and delay the rest of his turn. When he takes his turn, his initiative as a whole slides down.

Compare with readying, where you get to react to a specific action. Here, you just get to go after someone else finishes their entire action. Small nuance. I see no brokenness in allowing Gandalf to keep his flaming sphere going but delay the rest of his turn a few seconds.

 

[Plane Sailing]

Well, this question really belongs in the house rules forum.

No, it is working out a reasonable interpretation of the rules. The house rules forum isn't for discussing tweaks to existing rules, they can live quite happily here.

 

[KarinsDad]

No, it is working out a reasonable interpretation of the rules. The house rules forum isn't for discussing tweaks to existing rules, they can live quite happily here.

It sounds like there is no question as to the rules. Just how to change them to fit a model of playing the game that the OP wants. He wants to both delay and sustain. But, shrug.

Is there an interpretation problem with the rules here?

 

[Eric Finley]

I wondered about the forum classification myself... but I figured this was both a slightly better fit, and more likely to get the kind of responses I'm looking for. (Not "is this cool" but "is this broken".) And with an admin's OK, I'm not going to sweat the distinction.

RangerWickett... that was my first thought. But I'm not sure it couldn't produce some weird, broken stuff, by separating the sustain action out from the rest of your turn like that. Certainly seems like more dangerous territory, gut reaction, although my sleepy brain can't currently build a specific example. Lets you do damage or inflict an effect with the sustain, hold the rest of your turn, and then if the critter's not dead jump back in just before it gets its own turn. Let me think about that one...

 

[Plane Sailing]

It sounds like there is no question as to the rules. Just how to change them to fit a model of playing the game that the OP wants. He wants to both delay and sustain. But, shrug.

Is there an interpretation problem with the rules here?

Don't be a fool.

This forum isn't just about "the rules". It also includes any kind of discussion about how someone might want to apply the rules in their own situation.

House Rules forum is for major changes to stuff.

That's how it always has been, and that is how it is likely to stay. Anyone who finds it difficult to understand that is likely to end up getting into trouble.

This forum is not for rules lawyers.
OK?

 

[KarinsDad]

Two examples:
1) Wizard has cast Flaming Sphere, and has been sustaining it for a while. But he's immobilized at range nine to the sphere, range 11 to an ogre, and range 12 to Fighter (all in a line). Fighter's got Tide of Iron and offers to use it. Wizard delays until after Fighter (who, say, goes right after Wizard anyway).

Per RAW: Wizard delays, Flaming Sphere evaporates instantly. Wizard: "@$%#&!"
Per this fix: Wizard delays, commits to sustaining the Sphere. Fighter acts, uses Tide of Iron to push the ogre adjacent to the Sphere and to within 10 of Wizard. Wizard takes his delayed turn. His minor action MUST be to sustain the Sphere. He does so, and adds a Scorching Burst as well, producing a nicely seasoned Cajun-blackened ogre.

Per RAW, the Wizard could Ready to use the Sphere. No special rule needed.

2) Same example, but between Wizard and Fighter in the initiative order there's an oni. Wizard delays and commits to maintaining the sphere. Oni hits Wizard with a stun-until-EoNT smash to the head. Wizard's commitment to maintain the sphere now can't be kept; the sphere evaporates as soon as we see that Wizard is stunned.

Per RAW, the Wizard could Ready to use the Sphere. No special rule needed. The sphere would evaporate regardless when the Wizard's normal turn comes up when stunned.

Now... can anyone construct an abuse with this rule? How about an abuse which is nonobvious and/or intevitable, and thus can't be remedied with the GM smack-stick (or simply ignored, in a high-trust game like all of mine)?

I cannot think of a major abuse other than the fact that the Wizard gains not just the Ready standard action, but a move action after delaying as well by the Special Delay.

The Wizard can already do what you want him to do, he just can do it with a Ready action instead of a Delay action.


Personally, I think sustainable attack powers are too potent as is. Giving a PC yet another way to sustain and use them seems a bit overkill.


There are rules in the game system that are mutually exclusive. This is one example. The designers did not want any Delay cheese with sustainable powers and put an entire paragraph on it restricting it on page 288. This is totally understandable due to the power of sustainable attack powers. They understood that people would want to increase the duration of their sustain powers without using the minor (or move or standard) action to do so by delaying. So, they ruled that one cannot do both. It also makes the rules consistent if the PC has to use all of their actions in the same turn for delay.

But, the out is the Readied action. There one can (often) do both, but one is restricted.

But I'm not sure it couldn't produce some weird, broken stuff, by separating the sustain action out from the rest of your turn like that. Certainly seems like more dangerous territory, gut reaction, although my sleepy brain can't currently build a specific example.

Broken, probably not.

Potent, sure. In the case of Flaming Sphere, the Wizard not only gets to sustain the power, he gets to attack with it and then move it to attack some other foes at the start of their next turn. That's a free attack over core rules.

The Cleric with Spiritual Weapon could attack with it using his sustain minor, and then wait and see if his allies kill the bloodied foe. If they do not, he uses his Special Delay to both attack the foe and to use a move action before the foe's turn.

If they do kill the foe, he attacks a different foe and uses the move action to move the weapon to that foe, thus not having to use the move action first on the following turn.

So yeah, there is some cheese there. I'm sure that the extra move action can be used for other things like special powers, or merely moving away.


Effectively, what this does is it comes close to using a special delay instead of a ready action to gain an extra move action when using sustainable powers. Not identical, but close.

 

[RangerWickett]

You can ready any standard action, right? And you can ready as a standard action?

Okay. On each of your turns, you say, "I ready to ready an action whenever any creature moves, attacks, or uses an ability." So the first time someone moves a square, your ready comes up, and you say, "Okay now, I ready the same way as last time."

So you are constantly waiting for something to happen that you want to respond to, and the moment that happens, you can perform any standard action you want. Yay, rules lawyering.

It reminds me of efforts in 3.5 to jump and attack something in the air. By a nuanced reading of the readied action rules, Hypersmurf argued you could ready an action to do something in response to yourself, then take the rest of your turn. So if you readied to attack whenever you moved adjacent to an enemy, you could jump, and you'd attack when you got next to the enemy. Otherwise, normally, gravity apparently grabs you out of the air at the end of each individual action.

Unfortunately, if you allowed that logic, everyone got pseudo-Spring Attack for free.

 

[KarinsDad]

You can ready any standard action, right? And you can ready as a standard action?

Okay. On each of your turns, you say, "I ready to ready an action whenever any creature moves, attacks, or uses an ability." So the first time someone moves a square, your ready comes up, and you say, "Okay now, I ready the same way as last time."

Ready requires a single action trigger, not any trigger out of all possible actions.