The OP's situation is clearly more like the latter example. "I am suspicious of these NPCs, so I have my crossbow trained on them, and if any attack I'm going to shoot." One "free" crossbow attack is not going to break an encounter, and denying the reaction flies in the face of what any reasonable person would expect from a story that's trying to imitate reality. It's contrived to the point of being sincerely immersion-breaking.
This doesn't seem too great to me! Because, well... the NPCs can see that there's a crossbow trained on them. So, obviously, they're gonna try to attack fast enough that the PC doesn't get a chance to take the shot.
Are they successful? That's what initiative is for! Can the PCs react fast enough to get the first shot, or are the enemies too fast?
I don't think the PCs get to just say "I'm going to go faster than them." and then have that automatically be true.
I can certainly as a DM see times where a PC might get a chance to do a free attack on an enemy. But I don't think that has much to do with the "ready an action" rules at all; it's an independent thing.
The issue is that anyone who readies an action in combat already does get to just say "I'm going to go faster than them." That's how readying works. D&D is not a simulation, but it still aims for verisimilitude, and conceptually, it's easier to prepare like this outside the stress of combat. There's no rule for it outside of combat, but there's also no reason for a DM not to say "well, the rule's already there in combat, and it's easier to do out of combat, so we'll just use the same mechanic."
The OP's situation is clearly more like the latter example. "I am suspicious of these NPCs, so I have my crossbow trained on them, and if any attack I'm going to shoot." One "free" crossbow attack is not going to break an encounter, and denying the reaction flies in the face of what any reasonable person would expect from a story that's trying to imitate reality. It's contrived to the point of being sincerely immersion-breaking.
This doesn't seem too great to me! Because, well... the NPCs can see that there's a crossbow trained on them. So, obviously, they're gonna try to attack fast enough that the PC doesn't get a chance to take the shot.
Are they successful? That's what initiative is for! Can the PCs react fast enough to get the first shot, or are the enemies too fast?
I don't think the PCs get to just say "I'm going to go faster than them." and then have that automatically be true.
I can certainly as a DM see times where a PC might get a chance to do a free attack on an enemy. But I don't think that has much to do with the "ready an action" rules at all; it's an independent thing.
here’s my way of making this more complicated than needs to be too...
player has crossbow trained and “readies” a attack if...
what’s to stop the NPCs they fought from seeing said crossbow, and outside combat ALL reading a “dodge” action then?
now every first round attack by PCs, until the NPCs turn, has disadvantage because of dodge.
its a slippery slope, and that’s why the rules are there for a reason.
or are you telling me, if someone points a crossbow at you, you wouldn’t try and dodge knowing it’s there pointed at you while you’re talking?
I don't think that's a slippery slope at all. I don't see the problem. If the NPCs are readying a dodge, then they're not doing anything else like attacking, so the triggers never occur.
This whole scenario is not a common one. The particular circumstance of two groups not actively contending but each wary of the other is something you see like once a year. At that frequency, it's fun to have a very chaotic pre-initiative phase of everyone's readied actions going off at once.
I think readying actions outside of combat is an unnecessary complication, and not well supported by the rules as they are written. There are two main mechanics to represent being well-prepared and ill-prepared for combat: surprise and initiative. Then there are very many levels of intensity with which a DM can apply those: straight initiative roll, initiative rolls with advantage/disadvantage for some creatures, automatic highest/lowest initiative, surprise based on contested stealth-v-perception or deception-v-insight with advantages as required, automatic surprise, etc.
If in my game a player wanted to demonstrate how they are specially well prepared to attack then they would tend to get some advantage to initiative and that's it.
The issue is that anyone who readies an action in combat already does get to just say "I'm going to go faster than them." That's how readying works.
Well, in combat readying means you're doing something *slower* than you normally would. You have to pass up your action on your turn to do it; you act later than you would otherwise, instead of acting earlier.
That's not the case with out-of-combat readying - the player isn't postponing anything, since actions/turns aren't being tracked until initiative is rolled. Out-of-combat readying just gives the player a free in-combat action with no cost.
The case of two groups in a tense stand-off is not common, but the case of players opening a door into a room with enemies IS common, and that's another case where players could easily get a lot of mileage out of pre-combat readied actions - one player opens the door, the rest "ready" ranged attacks at enemies inside the room.
In the case of Readying an attack before another PC opens the door, you can still be surprised if you don’t know what’s on the other side. If you are surprised, you don’t have a reaction until after your first turn is done so Readying before initiative doesn’t help you in that situation.
The difference between surprising an enemy and being surprised by an enemy is huge. Allowing PCs and NPCs to Ready attacks before initiative will make the difference even bigger. That’s something the DM needs to think about when deciding how to rule on this issue.
Rules as written (RAW), you can't ready an action out of combat, and initiative is rolled as soon as combat starts. So if you're playing RAW you can't do that, no. My reason for saying that is that a Readied Action can only be "taken on your turn" and there is no such thing as a turn outside of combat scenarios.
Searching and using social skills like persuade or intimidate are mentioned to take a turn, even though you very rarely attempt to do them in combat. I assume that there's a very loose 'turn' system going on out of combat, just to ensure that players can't take three different actions at the same time.
There's also the matter of your movement speed (which is listed per-turn) dictating how far you can travel in a day, or whether you can outrun something.
I guess that could be an athletics check, but depending on the DM they might just look at your char-sheet and say 'Well, you can run 30ft in six seconds, and this wolf can run 40, so it's gonna catch you.'
As for doing nothing else... that's fair. RAW, it only takes your action, so you should still have access to your move and maybe your bonus action (so a rogue could move, use cunning action to hide, and still ready) but not being able to move after readying your action sounds like a fair way to balance something that could be pretty exploitable.
What it comes down to is: as far as RAW is concerned, if there is not a rule about it, it cant be done. The things that you listed all have rules for situations in and out of combat.
So should you have been rewarded for your vigilance? Yes, probably. But will you get rewarded? Depends entirely on DM, no rewards are suggested by the rules.
I suggest asking your DM what their ruling is before acting. Or better yet, don't tell the DM what your character does, tell them what you want the character to do and let the DM tell you how they do it.
Couple ways to handle this. As a DM I would look at the situation and if one attack would possibly turn the tide of battle (a rogue that would have assassinate and sneak attack for a million damage), I would have everyone roll initiative. Then on that player's turn he can ready his attack as a held action and then allow everyone to do their looting, looking, whatever on their initiative rolls. If it's not too big a deal, I would allow the readied attack action to be triggered like a delay in that it would take up their reaction for that turn. Outside of that then just use the normal surprise rules if applicable.
I'm on the firm belief that hostile actions require initiative. For the fun of the game. I get that people think that having fun is being "rewarded" but players shouldn't always be patted on the head and told they did a good for everything they do, even if it's foreword thinking.
Players can easily get huge legs up in encounters doing this and the DM either has to introduce monsters above what players should be able to handle or all of the monsters have an automatic cut to health as long as players want to attack first. Imagine if a player readies a fireball before combat starts, the group of ogres just turned into a group of begging charcoal before anyone else got to use any of **their** cool combat abilities. So you rewarded the player, but that didn't necessarily make it fun.
In this example, I'd say that as soon as the player lifts the crossbow up, initiative is on and it's the crossbowers turn to explain why even though he has an armed weapon trained on his target, that he doesn't intend on shooting it until things go bad which would require him to take the ready action before being the other person reacts to, oh you know, a crossbow pointed between their eyes. Imagine if someone was pulling a gun on you but you draw faster. It wouldn't be unreasonable to fire at him first, since you didn't know he was going to just threaten you and not kill you on-the-spot.
For the goblins in the other room example, you can aim at the door but surprise and initiative still take effect. I agree with Saga that it's boring to have 5 rounds of uninteresting movement, but I disagree that you get to basically bypass intiative.
If the PCs are in a situation where readying an attack is appropriate, rolling for initiative is appropriate.
Not really.
Being ready to shoot if someone makes a hostile move, and shooting them preemptively because you suspected that things were about to go south aren't the same thing at all.
As for 'just saying that you're going to be faster than them'... yeah, actually.
If I have my weapon drawn and pointed at someone, because of an action that I chose to take before combat started, I should absolutely be faster to attack than someone who's sword is still in their sheathe, because I already prepared my attack in advance.
I have less distance to move because I already prepared my attack in advance.
Iamnuff, sorry but nothing in the rules supports that at all. If you can find anything in the books to support it, I would honestly be glad because to me it makes more sense realistically, but is not supported mechanically.
RAW: If the enemy knows you are there, then they are also "prepared" for combat and it is settled by rolling initiative to determine who is quicker to react. If they are unaware you are there, surprise should be determined by the DM. It's as simple as that.
If the PCs are in a situation where readying an attack is appropriate, rolling for initiative is appropriate.
Not really.
Being ready to shoot if someone makes a hostile move, and shooting them preemptively because you suspected that things were about to go south aren't the same thing at all.
As for 'just saying that you're going to be faster than them'... yeah, actually.
If I have my weapon drawn and pointed at someone, because of an action that I chose to take before combat started, I should absolutely be faster to attack than someone who's sword is still in their sheathe, because I already prepared my attack in advance.
I have less distance to move because I already prepared my attack in advance.
Iamnuff, sorry but nothing in the rules supports that at all. If you can find anything in the books to support it, I would honestly be glad because to me it makes more sense realistically, but is not supported mechanically.
RAW: If the enemy knows you are there, then they are also "prepared" for combat and it is settled by rolling initiative to determine who is quicker to react. If they are unaware you are there, surprise should be determined by the DM. It's as simple as that.
to respond to both of you...
You both are assuming that the enemy doesn’t prepare as well seeing the crossbow raised, now, no one can (without magic to read the others mind to see what they are thinking) know what someone else is thinking in these situations.
typically, nobody is going to not react in anyway to someone training a crossbow on them right in front of their eyes.
the game mechanics, the raw, all that. There’s no added bonus, up to the DM. The DM in this case didn’t reward it, that’s his choice, and backed by the PhB.
Some DMs will allow it.
some DMs will allow it but also have all the NPC/enemies that had the crossbow trained at them also get their round of preparations too for you pointing a crossbow at them, thusly screwing over the PCs that did not do pre battle preparatory actions.
it is all completely up to the DM, since it’s not something by Rule.
(hence why I said, and maintain, it’s a slippery slope)
You can't Ready outside of combat. But if you could, everyone would, and you'd need to resolve them in some sort of order... probably initiative order... which sounds a lot like an initial combat round (in which some participants might be surprised).
I just assume that anyone that could've readied an action (were it allowed) is not surprised, and thus goes on the initial round.
is there a rule against a PC being in that situation...
and saying: “I would like to roll initiative for this conversational encounter”
thus, starting the initiative rolls, even though there’s no combat yet. Because Initiative doesn’t 100% mean you have to attack.
I think players never really get to say "I would like to roll" anything. The players describe the actions their character tries to take - the DM will tell them if/when a roll of any sort is required, including rolling initiative at the start of any turn-based event (usually combat).
If I have my weapon drawn and pointed at someone, because of an action that I chose to take before combat started, I should absolutely be faster to attack than someone who's sword is still in their sheathe, because I already prepared my attack in advance.
If you draw your weapon on someone, you're immediately creating a combat situation because the other person will perceive you as a threat. The time to roll initiative was when you declared you were reaching for your weapon. If your target didn't foresee this, they'd be surprised, and if you don't immediately attack them, you're effectively taking turns using the Ready and Dodge actions until they take an action that would trigger your attack or the situation is defused. A quick target that wasn't caught off guard should absolutely get the chance to draw their weapon and try to beat you to the punch in response to seeing you reach for your weapon. You're not supposed to deny them that opportunity or devalue feats like Alert, class features like Feral Instinct or magic items like a Weapon of Warning or Sentinel Shield. Those are all intended to grant varying degrees of "spidey sense" that let the character make split-second reactions to bad situations.
is there a rule against a PC being in that situation...
and saying: “I would like to roll initiative for this conversational encounter”
thus, starting the initiative rolls, even though there’s no combat yet. Because Initiative doesn’t 100% mean you have to attack.
I think players never really get to say "I would like to roll" anything. The players describe the actions their character tries to take - the DM will tell them if/when a roll of any sort is required, including rolling initiative at the start of any turn-based event (usually combat).
that’s what I thought.
(so essentially, I think I am implying his DM could be more effective and thus not cause these problems/questions)
The fact that enemies can be taken out before anyone's turn was done should show why this can be broken. And if it works the first time, all players are going to be doing it so why not just try doing a surprise round?
That's actually a great point, I love InquisitiveCoder's solution, it's probably what I would do moving forward in this situation in my campaign. Roll for initiative but let everyone take non-hostile actions if appropriate. Initiative then is just to track who gets to do what and when, to make sure everyone gets to do about the same amount of Acting when it's a tense situation, and doesn't mean everyone is immediately shooting. I'd probably clarify that to the players, just to make sure that they don't assume that "roll for initiative" means "everyone start the murderin'".
In the tense-standoff situation, the question is - how fast does everyone react to one person reaching for their crossbow, and what do they do about it? Roll for initiative, and then go through the actions in initiative order. Maybe that results in everyone readying actions for the first round, as everyone waits for someone else to take the first move! And maybe after a round or two of that, plus talking, things calm down if it turns out nobody really wants to throw the first punch. Or maybe it immediately resolves into a brawl, if someone's reaction to seeing a PC reach for their crossbow is to try and get in the first blow before they can. Or maybe it does go down the same way, with the PC winning initiative and readying an action and then getting to set it off when the enemy triggers it.
To go back to another example in the original post - that the character chose to ready an attack with a crossbow instead of drinking a potion or buffing or something. The "instead of" bit of that sentence makes sense when you're doing things in turns and counting actions - otherwise you'd just say that you drank the potion AND readied the attack. So that also tells me that this would have been done best by having initiative already rolled and turn order already being tracked, just with no actual attacking happening yet.
This would naturally suggest strategies like - if one team hunkers down and readies ranged attacks, then the other guys would probably have their highest-AC tank take the Dodge action and THEN advance and trigger all these ranged attacks, hopefully soaking them all up with the disadvantage from Dodge.
Yeah, I think I really like that as a solution. It lets the players do all the things that make sense - readying attacks, preparing, trading off between different preparations - without reducing it to a free "I get to go first, because I said so" call.
You can't Ready outside of combat. But if you could, everyone would, and you'd need to resolve them in some sort of order... probably initiative order... which sounds a lot like an initial combat round (in which some participants might be surprised).
I just assume that anyone that could've readied an action (were it allowed) is not surprised, and thus goes on the initial round.
Thanks for linking that. This also includes the Attack action which can only be done in initiative, so you can't prepare combat actions outside initiative.
Rather than saying, “You can’t do this,” I think it is more productive to just shape the intentions of the players into the game as designed. If the player wants to ready the attack action before combat kicks off, then let them. Let them make a sleight of hand check against an appropriate DC and then immediately call for initiative to be rolled.
Rather than saying, “You can’t do this,” I think it is more productive to just shape the intentions of the players into the game as designed. If the player wants to ready the attack action before combat kicks off, then let them. Let them make a sleight of hand check against an appropriate DC and then immediately call for initiative to be rolled.
It's probably worth explaining to players that pretty much everyone is 'ready' if they know an enemy is present (i.e. not surprised), so they don't need to continually state it. That said, here's an option I haven't seen discussed yet:
Advantage on the Initiative roll? Even if an enemy isn't "Surprised", there still might be circumstances (like Sleight of Hand) that allows PC's to react quicker. A DM is free to bestow Advantage (or Disadvantage) for any circumstance they see fit.
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The issue is that anyone who readies an action in combat already does get to just say "I'm going to go faster than them." That's how readying works. D&D is not a simulation, but it still aims for verisimilitude, and conceptually, it's easier to prepare like this outside the stress of combat. There's no rule for it outside of combat, but there's also no reason for a DM not to say "well, the rule's already there in combat, and it's easier to do out of combat, so we'll just use the same mechanic."
I don't think that's a slippery slope at all. I don't see the problem. If the NPCs are readying a dodge, then they're not doing anything else like attacking, so the triggers never occur.
This whole scenario is not a common one. The particular circumstance of two groups not actively contending but each wary of the other is something you see like once a year. At that frequency, it's fun to have a very chaotic pre-initiative phase of everyone's readied actions going off at once.
I think readying actions outside of combat is an unnecessary complication, and not well supported by the rules as they are written. There are two main mechanics to represent being well-prepared and ill-prepared for combat: surprise and initiative. Then there are very many levels of intensity with which a DM can apply those: straight initiative roll, initiative rolls with advantage/disadvantage for some creatures, automatic highest/lowest initiative, surprise based on contested stealth-v-perception or deception-v-insight with advantages as required, automatic surprise, etc.
If in my game a player wanted to demonstrate how they are specially well prepared to attack then they would tend to get some advantage to initiative and that's it.
Well, in combat readying means you're doing something *slower* than you normally would. You have to pass up your action on your turn to do it; you act later than you would otherwise, instead of acting earlier.
That's not the case with out-of-combat readying - the player isn't postponing anything, since actions/turns aren't being tracked until initiative is rolled. Out-of-combat readying just gives the player a free in-combat action with no cost.
The case of two groups in a tense stand-off is not common, but the case of players opening a door into a room with enemies IS common, and that's another case where players could easily get a lot of mileage out of pre-combat readied actions - one player opens the door, the rest "ready" ranged attacks at enemies inside the room.
In the case of Readying an attack before another PC opens the door, you can still be surprised if you don’t know what’s on the other side. If you are surprised, you don’t have a reaction until after your first turn is done so Readying before initiative doesn’t help you in that situation.
The difference between surprising an enemy and being surprised by an enemy is huge. Allowing PCs and NPCs to Ready attacks before initiative will make the difference even bigger. That’s something the DM needs to think about when deciding how to rule on this issue.
What it comes down to is: as far as RAW is concerned, if there is not a rule about it, it cant be done. The things that you listed all have rules for situations in and out of combat.
So should you have been rewarded for your vigilance? Yes, probably. But will you get rewarded? Depends entirely on DM, no rewards are suggested by the rules.
I suggest asking your DM what their ruling is before acting. Or better yet, don't tell the DM what your character does, tell them what you want the character to do and let the DM tell you how they do it.
Couple ways to handle this. As a DM I would look at the situation and if one attack would possibly turn the tide of battle (a rogue that would have assassinate and sneak attack for a million damage), I would have everyone roll initiative. Then on that player's turn he can ready his attack as a held action and then allow everyone to do their looting, looking, whatever on their initiative rolls. If it's not too big a deal, I would allow the readied attack action to be triggered like a delay in that it would take up their reaction for that turn. Outside of that then just use the normal surprise rules if applicable.
I'm on the firm belief that hostile actions require initiative. For the fun of the game. I get that people think that having fun is being "rewarded" but players shouldn't always be patted on the head and told they did a good for everything they do, even if it's foreword thinking.
Players can easily get huge legs up in encounters doing this and the DM either has to introduce monsters above what players should be able to handle or all of the monsters have an automatic cut to health as long as players want to attack first. Imagine if a player readies a fireball before combat starts, the group of ogres just turned into a group of begging charcoal before anyone else got to use any of **their** cool combat abilities. So you rewarded the player, but that didn't necessarily make it fun.
In this example, I'd say that as soon as the player lifts the crossbow up, initiative is on and it's the crossbowers turn to explain why even though he has an armed weapon trained on his target, that he doesn't intend on shooting it until things go bad which would require him to take the ready action before being the other person reacts to, oh you know, a crossbow pointed between their eyes. Imagine if someone was pulling a gun on you but you draw faster. It wouldn't be unreasonable to fire at him first, since you didn't know he was going to just threaten you and not kill you on-the-spot.
For the goblins in the other room example, you can aim at the door but surprise and initiative still take effect. I agree with Saga that it's boring to have 5 rounds of uninteresting movement, but I disagree that you get to basically bypass intiative.
Not really.
Being ready to shoot if someone makes a hostile move, and shooting them preemptively because you suspected that things were about to go south aren't the same thing at all.
As for 'just saying that you're going to be faster than them'... yeah, actually.
If I have my weapon drawn and pointed at someone, because of an action that I chose to take before combat started, I should absolutely be faster to attack than someone who's sword is still in their sheathe, because I already prepared my attack in advance.
I have less distance to move because I already prepared my attack in advance.
Iamnuff, sorry but nothing in the rules supports that at all. If you can find anything in the books to support it, I would honestly be glad because to me it makes more sense realistically, but is not supported mechanically.
RAW: If the enemy knows you are there, then they are also "prepared" for combat and it is settled by rolling initiative to determine who is quicker to react. If they are unaware you are there, surprise should be determined by the DM. It's as simple as that.
to respond to both of you...
You both are assuming that the enemy doesn’t prepare as well seeing the crossbow raised, now, no one can (without magic to read the others mind to see what they are thinking) know what someone else is thinking in these situations.
typically, nobody is going to not react in anyway to someone training a crossbow on them right in front of their eyes.
the game mechanics, the raw, all that. There’s no added bonus, up to the DM. The DM in this case didn’t reward it, that’s his choice, and backed by the PhB.
Some DMs will allow it.
some DMs will allow it but also have all the NPC/enemies that had the crossbow trained at them also get their round of preparations too for you pointing a crossbow at them, thusly screwing over the PCs that did not do pre battle preparatory actions.
it is all completely up to the DM, since it’s not something by Rule.
(hence why I said, and maintain, it’s a slippery slope)
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That said.
is there a rule against a PC being in that situation...
and saying: “I would like to roll initiative for this conversational encounter”
thus, starting the initiative rolls, even though there’s no combat yet. Because Initiative doesn’t 100% mean you have to attack.
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You can't Ready outside of combat. But if you could, everyone would, and you'd need to resolve them in some sort of order... probably initiative order... which sounds a lot like an initial combat round (in which some participants might be surprised).
I just assume that anyone that could've readied an action (were it allowed) is not surprised, and thus goes on the initial round.
I think players never really get to say "I would like to roll" anything. The players describe the actions their character tries to take - the DM will tell them if/when a roll of any sort is required, including rolling initiative at the start of any turn-based event (usually combat).
If you draw your weapon on someone, you're immediately creating a combat situation because the other person will perceive you as a threat. The time to roll initiative was when you declared you were reaching for your weapon. If your target didn't foresee this, they'd be surprised, and if you don't immediately attack them, you're effectively taking turns using the Ready and Dodge actions until they take an action that would trigger your attack or the situation is defused. A quick target that wasn't caught off guard should absolutely get the chance to draw their weapon and try to beat you to the punch in response to seeing you reach for your weapon. You're not supposed to deny them that opportunity or devalue feats like Alert, class features like Feral Instinct or magic items like a Weapon of Warning or Sentinel Shield. Those are all intended to grant varying degrees of "spidey sense" that let the character make split-second reactions to bad situations.
The Forum Infestation (TM)
that’s what I thought.
(so essentially, I think I am implying his DM could be more effective and thus not cause these problems/questions)
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The fact that enemies can be taken out before anyone's turn was done should show why this can be broken. And if it works the first time, all players are going to be doing it so why not just try doing a surprise round?
That's actually a great point, I love InquisitiveCoder's solution, it's probably what I would do moving forward in this situation in my campaign. Roll for initiative but let everyone take non-hostile actions if appropriate. Initiative then is just to track who gets to do what and when, to make sure everyone gets to do about the same amount of Acting when it's a tense situation, and doesn't mean everyone is immediately shooting. I'd probably clarify that to the players, just to make sure that they don't assume that "roll for initiative" means "everyone start the murderin'".
In the tense-standoff situation, the question is - how fast does everyone react to one person reaching for their crossbow, and what do they do about it? Roll for initiative, and then go through the actions in initiative order. Maybe that results in everyone readying actions for the first round, as everyone waits for someone else to take the first move! And maybe after a round or two of that, plus talking, things calm down if it turns out nobody really wants to throw the first punch. Or maybe it immediately resolves into a brawl, if someone's reaction to seeing a PC reach for their crossbow is to try and get in the first blow before they can. Or maybe it does go down the same way, with the PC winning initiative and readying an action and then getting to set it off when the enemy triggers it.
To go back to another example in the original post - that the character chose to ready an attack with a crossbow instead of drinking a potion or buffing or something. The "instead of" bit of that sentence makes sense when you're doing things in turns and counting actions - otherwise you'd just say that you drank the potion AND readied the attack. So that also tells me that this would have been done best by having initiative already rolled and turn order already being tracked, just with no actual attacking happening yet.
This would naturally suggest strategies like - if one team hunkers down and readies ranged attacks, then the other guys would probably have their highest-AC tank take the Dodge action and THEN advance and trigger all these ranged attacks, hopefully soaking them all up with the disadvantage from Dodge.
Yeah, I think I really like that as a solution. It lets the players do all the things that make sense - readying attacks, preparing, trading off between different preparations - without reducing it to a free "I get to go first, because I said so" call.
Thanks for linking that. This also includes the Attack action which can only be done in initiative, so you can't prepare combat actions outside initiative.
Rather than saying, “You can’t do this,” I think it is more productive to just shape the intentions of the players into the game as designed. If the player wants to ready the attack action before combat kicks off, then let them. Let them make a sleight of hand check against an appropriate DC and then immediately call for initiative to be rolled.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
It's probably worth explaining to players that pretty much everyone is 'ready' if they know an enemy is present (i.e. not surprised), so they don't need to continually state it. That said, here's an option I haven't seen discussed yet:
Advantage on the Initiative roll? Even if an enemy isn't "Surprised", there still might be circumstances (like Sleight of Hand) that allows PC's to react quicker. A DM is free to bestow Advantage (or Disadvantage) for any circumstance they see fit.