Regarding #1 (Wall of Force): You could ready a casting of Wall of Force to use on a trigger (such as a dragon inhaling, preparing to use its dragon breath). BUT... I'd argue that *intentionally dropping concentration* on Wall of Force would require *another action*, which you wouldn't be able to do until your next turn.
Per RAW you may drop concentration at any time without needing an action or it even needing to be your turn.
"Concentration
Some spells require you to maintain concentration in order to keep their magic active. If you lose concentration, such a spell ends.
If a spell must be maintained with concentration, that fact appears in its Duration entry, and the spell specifies how long you can concentrate on it. You can end concentration at any time(no action required)."
Regarding #2 (the Rogue "Bolts from the Grave"): "Immediately after using your cunning action, you can make a ranged spell attack against a creature within 30 feet of you." It's not explicitly said either way in the write-up, but I'd argue that using this feature counts as the "cast a spell" action, and thus you don't have a second action that you can ready to use as a reaction later.
Nope. Only casting a spell uses the cast a spell action. Making a spell attack does not. Features, spells and abilities can give you the option of making a weapon or spell attack without the need of using the normal actions associated with them (Attack action and Cast a Spell action respectively).
You only use a cast a spell action to cast a spell or if a feature specifically specifies it. The wording is clear that this is just a spell attack made as part of the Cunning Action bonus action.
A weapon attack is any normal physical attack. A spell attack is any attack that is magical. You don't need spells to make spell attacks. For example, The Way of the Sun Soul monk can use radiant blasts as "spell attacks" as part of their Attack action.
On concentration - I stand corrected. That one could work.
On the second, I still disagree. It doesn't say bolts from the grave is *part of* the cunning action. It says it happens *after* your cunning action. I'd still argue that using Bolts From the Grave requires an action, it's just one you can only take *after* using cunning action as your bonus action.
On the second, I still disagree. It doesn't say bolts from the grave is *part of* the cunning action. It says it happens *after* your cunning action. I'd still argue that using Bolts From the Grave requires an action, it's just one you can only take *after* using cunning action as your bonus action.
As written, Bolts from the Grave do not require any form of action. From here on, it is up to the DM's interpretation.
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It sounds fair to me, but you aren't you relying on the DM not using the ready action?
Given you need to cast the spell BEFORE the dragons action, it hasn't actually attacked yet. Thus the dragon might choose to simply "ready" his breath weapon, and release it when the first PC strikes. I think as a DM I might would have allowed the players one round where it worked (because I think it is a cool and clever idea - nice battle tactics), but unless the dragon is completely mindless, the second round, it would simply wait until the wall drops, and then attack with a readied action.
Yes - but you're only triggering the WoF after an attack is made. So either the dragon attacks, or the situation is a stale mate where nobody acts.
I'm not a rule expert, but as a DM I wouldn't allow that. If you say that the attack itself is the trigger, attack happens first, the readied action happens next. You have to set some trigger that comes before the attack (like: "the dragon seems to get ready for toasting us" or "the great beast charges us". Something the character might perceive ).
As I said, I think I would have perhaps allowed it to work for the first round, but unless it is a completely mindless creature, it would not fall for it a second time in my game.
I'm not a rule expert, but as a DM I wouldn't allow that. If you say that the attack itself is the trigger, attack happens first, the readied action happens next. You have to set some trigger that comes before the attack (like: "the dragon seems to get ready for toasting us" or "the great beast charges us". Something the character might perceive ).
As I said, I think I would have perhaps allowed it to work for the first round, but unless it is a completely mindless creature, it would not fall for it a second time in my game.
Exactly. It may require some player-DM cooperation, but the trigger for WoF specified wasn't the actual flame being spewed from the dragon's maw, but rather movements/actions that would hint to the fact that the dragon was about to breathe fire. Dragons, being notoriously vain, would put on some fearsome display before actually attacking (ie. spreading wings, raising head to the heavens and gurgling like a mad cow...that sort of thing).
Maybe an Insight/ Perception check from the player would be necessary to intuit when the attack was going to happen.
And it doesn't matter wether the Dragon was mindless or not. Unless it thought to bluff an attack (if the trigger for WoF was a hint that the dragon was about to attack, a bluff would therefore trigger the spell. Possibly, the dragon would have to make a Deception check against the player's Insight to pull this off), then the dragon can either attack and be blocked, or not attack at all.
I'm not a rule expert, but as a DM I wouldn't allow that. If you say that the attack itself is the trigger, attack happens first, the readied action happens next. You have to set some trigger that comes before the attack (like: "the dragon seems to get ready for toasting us" or "the great beast charges us". Something the character might perceive ).
As I said, I think I would have perhaps allowed it to work for the first round, but unless it is a completely mindless creature, it would not fall for it a second time in my game.
Exactly. It may require some player-DM cooperation, but the trigger for WoF specified wasn't the actual flame being spewed from the dragon's maw, but rather movements/actions that would hint to the fact that the dragon was about to breathe fire. Dragons, being notoriously vain, would put on some fearsome display before actually attacking (ie. spreading wings, raising head to the heavens and gurgling like a mad cow...that sort of thing).
Maybe an Insight/ Perception check from the player would be necessary to intuit when the attack was going to happen.
And it doesn't matter wether the Dragon was mindless or not. Unless it thought to bluff an attack (if the trigger for WoF was a hint that the dragon was about to attack, a bluff would therefore trigger the spell. Possibly, the dragon would have to make a Deception check against the player's Insight to pull this off), then the dragon can either attack and be blocked, or not attack at all.
I mostly agree with you here. There might be some tests etc. However what you describe here is more or less the exact reason I would allow for this to happen ONE time. First round the dragon will just go ahead and do its attack. However, the next time - it would have learned. If the wizard try the same trick again, the dragon would hold its action. Perhaps just put a claw on the "wall" with a readied action that says, "whenever this barrier disappears, there will be fire".
In my game, I would say that an attack only happens when you roll for it. The dragon making displays etc - I would certainly describe that, but until I have rolled for attack, the dragon hasn't actually done its action, and might change and do something else. This is only fair - if it wasn't a dragon, but another wizard - well he would recognize the WoF (perhaps rolling arcana), and then decide to hold. If he's already rolled for his fireball (or whatever) - it is too late to get up the wall.
But I'm a little uncertain here. Can you use a readied action to "trick" someone into doing something? Lets say its a face off between a wizard and an archer. Can the archer say: I hold my action until he starts to cast a spell. What happens first if the wizard starts to cast the spell? The spell or the shot? Can the wizard change his action when he understand he's being shot at to, let's say dodge?
All of this is dependent on the DM's willingness to accommodate the players' shenanery, and frankly Player Shenanery should always try to be in service of a better game for everybody, DM included.
Coming up with a clever stratagem on the spot to reverse a difficult battle is the sort of story people love to tell. Trying to engineer weird corner cases because You The Player want to prove that you're Better At D&D(TM) than your DM is the very situation Rule Zero was invented for, and nobody will feel bad for your DM stepping on your aspirations to assholedom.
I'm not a rule expert, but as a DM I wouldn't allow that. If you say that the attack itself is the trigger, attack happens first, the readied action happens next. You have to set some trigger that comes before the attack (like: "the dragon seems to get ready for toasting us" or "the great beast charges us". Something the character might perceive ).
As I said, I think I would have perhaps allowed it to work for the first round, but unless it is a completely mindless creature, it would not fall for it a second time in my game.
Exactly. It may require some player-DM cooperation,
Then it's not the ready action that's "broken", it's player-DM cooperation. Which is true! If you work with the DM to do cool things the DM likes, you can break any rules or any encounter you want!
but the trigger for WoF specified wasn't the actual flame being spewed from the dragon's maw, but rather movements/actions that would hint to the fact that the dragon was about to breathe fire. Dragons, being notoriously vain, would put on some fearsome display before actually attacking (ie. spreading wings, raising head to the heavens and gurgling like a mad cow...that sort of thing).
Maybe an Insight/ Perception check from the player would be necessary to intuit when the attack was going to happen.
See now you're just making stuff up for the DM. There's nothing in the dragon's statblock that requires them to put on a fearsome display before attacking, much less a fearsome display that indicates exactly when they're attacking. They're more intelligent than most humans (INT 16), they're not World of Warcraft bosses that always telegraph their moves. There may or may not be any way for the player to predict a dragon's movements. My guess is that unless the players had previously done extensive research on that particular dragon, a check to predict its movements would have a DC of 25 or 30, or not be allowed at all.
And it doesn't matter wether the Dragon was mindless or not. Unless it thought to bluff an attack (if the trigger for WoF was a hint that the dragon was about to attack, a bluff would therefore trigger the spell. Possibly, the dragon would have to make a Deception check against the player's Insight to pull this off), then the dragon can either attack and be blocked, or not attack at all.
If the trigger was the attack action, then the dragon would roll for attack and damage, and THEN the WoF would happen. On the other hand, if the trigger is something that happens BEFORE the attack action, then the WoF would be put up before the dragon attacks... but then it could use its action to do something else.
I'm not a rule expert, but as a DM I wouldn't allow that. If you say that the attack itself is the trigger, attack happens first, the readied action happens next. You have to set some trigger that comes before the attack (like: "the dragon seems to get ready for toasting us" or "the great beast charges us". Something the character might perceive ).
As I said, I think I would have perhaps allowed it to work for the first round, but unless it is a completely mindless creature, it would not fall for it a second time in my game.
Exactly. It may require some player-DM cooperation, but the trigger for WoF specified wasn't the actual flame being spewed from the dragon's maw, but rather movements/actions that would hint to the fact that the dragon was about to breathe fire. Dragons, being notoriously vain, would put on some fearsome display before actually attacking (ie. spreading wings, raising head to the heavens and gurgling like a mad cow...that sort of thing).
Maybe an Insight/ Perception check from the player would be necessary to intuit when the attack was going to happen.
And it doesn't matter wether the Dragon was mindless or not. Unless it thought to bluff an attack (if the trigger for WoF was a hint that the dragon was about to attack, a bluff would therefore trigger the spell. Possibly, the dragon would have to make a Deception check against the player's Insight to pull this off), then the dragon can either attack and be blocked, or not attack at all.
I mostly agree with you here. There might be some tests etc. However what you describe here is more or less the exact reason I would allow for this to happen ONE time. First round the dragon will just go ahead and do its attack. However, the next time - it would have learned. If the wizard try the same trick again, the dragon would hold its action. Perhaps just put a claw on the "wall" with a readied action that says, "whenever this barrier disappears, there will be fire".
In my game, I would say that an attack only happens when you roll for it. The dragon making displays etc - I would certainly describe that, but until I have rolled for attack, the dragon hasn't actually done its action, and might change and do something else. This is only fair - if it wasn't a dragon, but another wizard - well he would recognize the WoF (perhaps rolling arcana), and then decide to hold. If he's already rolled for his fireball (or whatever) - it is too late to get up the wall.
But I'm a little uncertain here. Can you use a readied action to "trick" someone into doing something? Lets say its a face off between a wizard and an archer. Can the archer say: I hold my action until he starts to cast a spell. What happens first if the wizard starts to cast the spell? The spell or the shot? Can the wizard change his action when he understand he's being shot at to, let's say dodge?
I'd say it's similar to the dragon case - actions either have happened or they haven't. If the archer says "I attack the wizard when he starts to cast a spell", I would say that means they're looking for some sort of hand gesture or reaching for the focus or words. The shot happens first, as long as the wizard does something spell-like. But then the wizard could choose to do something else with their action. They started casting a fire bolt, then they got hit with an arrow and so they cast a fireball instead, something like that. They could choose to dodge, but it wouldn't retroactively apply to the arrow that's already been shot.
Or vice versa, the archer could fire the shot after the wizard casts their spell, if that's what they meant to do. That's pretty straightforward to resolve.
All of this is dependent on the DM's willingness to accommodate the players' shenanery, and frankly Player Shenanery should always try to be in service of a better game for everybody, DM included.
Coming up with a clever stratagem on the spot to reverse a difficult battle is the sort of story people love to tell. Trying to engineer weird corner cases because You The Player want to prove that you're Better At D&D(TM) than your DM is the very situation Rule Zero was invented for, and nobody will feel bad for your DM stepping on your aspirations to assholedom.
100% this.
It's fun when players come up with cool clever strategies or tricks, or work with the DM to come up with something awesome that relates to the campaign and the map and the enemies they're facing. Many DMs would bend the rules for that.
It's silly when instead of thinking about the campaign world, instead you're thinking about rules loopholes and trying to convince the DM they're valid if you pass a skill check.
By the way, this stuff with Readied actions, if it worked, would make so many combats such a royal pain to run. Like, I'm imagining a party of four PCs fighting a group of bandits or something. A normal combat would be the players and monsters taking their actions and shooting spells and arrows and blows at each other. If you allow readied actions to interrupt other actions, then every combat becomes a morass of "I ready an action to attack the bandit when he raises his bow, to interrupt his attack" and combat resolution becomes "OK, so I have eight readied actions to keep track of, bandit 4 tries to shoot which triggers player 2's readied action which triggers bandit 3's readied action which triggers player 1's readied action, player 1 shoots bandit 3 but misses, so bandit 3 gets their shot off and hits player 2 which interrupts their attack so bandit 4 gets to shoot and hold on, whose turn is all this happening on again?"
Trying to engineer weird corner cases because You The Player want to prove that you're Better At D&D(TM) than your DM is the very situation Rule Zero was invented for, and nobody will feel bad for your DM stepping on your aspirations to assholedom.
I only wrote any of this to give ideas for a more visual session. Wether a DM allows this material or not is up to them - they can use it as a tool, but it should never be used as a means to 'Wreck your DM's day...', as I stated in the title of this thread (I admit that I love a funny title now and then....). DM to Character cooperation is what makes dnd more than just the roll of dice, but if these ideas become a detriment to playing the game? It is better that they had never been written in the first place.
So, anyone who is reading this or the initial post, know that these ideas should only be used if they run well with the DM, and within the bounds of what he/she finds acceptable - a bonus to rather than a takeaway from the game. Otherwise, combat either becomes so much work that it is no longer fun, or it just completely undermines the DM's hard work.
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By the way, this stuff with Readied actions, if it worked, would make so many combats such a royal pain to run. Like, I'm imagining a party of four PCs fighting a group of bandits or something. A normal combat would be the players and monsters taking their actions and shooting spells and arrows and blows at each other. If you allow readied actions to interrupt other actions, then every combat becomes a morass of "I ready an action to attack the bandit when he raises his bow, to interrupt his attack" and combat resolution becomes "OK, so I have eight readied actions to keep track of, bandit 4 tries to shoot which triggers player 2's readied action which triggers bandit 3's readied action which triggers player 1's readied action, player 1 shoots bandit 3 but misses, so bandit 3 gets their shot off and hits player 2 which interrupts their attack so bandit 4 gets to shoot and hold on, whose turn is all this happening on again?"
Fortunately, it doesn't.
Like it or not, this is more like real life happenings than the standard rules for combat.
But again, if 'real life' gets in the way of playing the game, then screw real life!
It is the kind of thing you must work out with your DM before the session, instead of springing it on him/her mid game, and only then running through the numbers.
Again, these ideas were only created to give thoughts on more visual combats. But if they become more confusing than fun, or become detrimental to the DM's hard work, then they should never be used.
They only work if they compliment the game, not if they only serve to fuel a player's ego.
I'd say it's similar to the dragon case - actions either have happened or they haven't. If the archer says "I attack the wizard when he starts to cast a spell", I would say that means they're looking for some sort of hand gesture or reaching for the focus or words. The shot happens first, as long as the wizard does something spell-like. But then the wizard could choose to do something else with their action. They started casting a fire bolt, then they got hit with an arrow and so they cast a fireball instead, something like that. They could choose to dodge, but it wouldn't retroactively apply to the arrow that's already been shot.
Or vice versa, the archer could fire the shot after the wizard casts their spell, if that's what they meant to do. That's pretty straightforward to resolve.
This all depends on how quickly a player can react - is it after the flames have consumed the characters that the wizard helpfully triggers the WoF? Or is it as soon as he sees the flame leave the dragon's mouth?
With this in mind, maybe it is a Dexterity check that is necessary to accomplish this feat, with the DC increasing the closer you get to the dragon.
This would make sense in what you said about dodging the arrow - the Dexterity bonus in your armour class determines how well you can dodge out the way of a harmful effect
And in this way, it is different from triggering WoF: it is possible to dodge an arrow. It is not easily possible for a dragon to blast characters who are behind full cover. I suppose what I'm trying to say is, while dodging the arrow isn't a certainty, as soon as you trigger WoF, there is no possible way (except teleportation) for the dragon to harm you.
I only wrote any of this to give ideas for a more visual session. Wether a DM allows this material or not is up to them - they can use it as a tool, but it should never be used as a means to 'Wreck your DM's day...', as I stated in the title of this thread (I admit that I love a funny title now and then....).
My main point in all of this discussion has been that the Ready action is NOT brokenly powerful as you claimed it is, and that if you're trying to wreck your DM's day with it you're doing it wrong. You claimed that all 3 of the things you posted were legitimate RAW, which I also disagreed with, for options 1 and 3.
If your intended discussion was something different than what your title and first post said, well, maybe you should say what your point or intended discussion actually is.
I only wrote any of this to give ideas for a more visual session. Wether a DM allows this material or not is up to them - they can use it as a tool, but it should never be used as a means to 'Wreck your DM's day...', as I stated in the title of this thread (I admit that I love a funny title now and then....).
My main point in all of this discussion has been that the Ready action is NOT brokenly powerful as you claimed it is, and that if you're trying to wreck your DM's day with it you're doing it wrong. You claimed that all 3 of the things you posted were legitimate RAW, which I also disagreed with, for options 1 and 3.
If your intended discussion was something different than what your title and first post said, well, maybe you should say what your point or intended discussion actually is.
There is no need to be so hostile about this. I think you are taking a little matter far too seriously.
All three things are legitimate as per RAW - the only grey area is how you choose to interpret the Ready Action and what triggers it. Moreover, there is validity in every comment made on this thread, as the Ready Action is not explained to this great an extent in the PHB, and therefore is purely up to interpretation.
If you still wish to act offended about the title I chose, however, please note it was purely eye candy, and accept my apology for....offending your idea of righteousness.
If I really wished to wreck my DM's day, I would have to be quite thick, as I am the DM in my group (if you had actually read the initial post through, you would have noticed this). I only posted these ideas because I find combat quite mechanical.
Happy New Year:)
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Hi there! I'm a Christian musician based in Canada :)
Don't feel too bad, Bovine. A constant, if mercifully not an overpowering one, around these forums is the niggling idea that players are Out To Get their DMs, and that anybody who suggests a rules loophole or Clever Stratagem(C) is doing so because they're munchkins who hate any fun that gets in the way of winning.
That and a constant on the Internet in general is people with poorly calibrated sarcasm meters. Heh, punny/sarcastic thread titles are a classic troubleshooting technique for detecting miscalibrated sarcasm meters.
Anyways. "Mechanical" combat is an issue with any tabletop game, primarily because the alternative is "here's your pieces, here's my pieces, now start punching the table and whoever has pieces left last wins! FIGHT!" Tabletop mock combat needs rules, structure, and mechanical systems to be what it is, and that by necessity imposes that mechanical, turn-by-turn feeling. It bothers some folks because real-life combat is a messy, nasty, squirming affair in which several men and women do their best to out-dirty the other guys, but it's also somewhere within hailing distance of fair. Which is important for the 'Game' part of roleplaying game.
E.g. for option 1, If you put up the WoF BEFORE the enemy has attacked, then they still can take a different action, because they were unable to take the Attack action and thus have not taken an action on their turn. If you put up the WoF AFTER the enemy has attacked, then it doesn't do much because the attack and damage have already happened.
If you still wish to act offended about the title I chose, however, please note it was purely eye candy, and accept my apology for....offending your idea of righteousness.
Not offended at all! Just disagree about options 1 and 3 being legal RAW.
I think it can be seen either way - if you take RAW for readying a spell, it states that it can be released at any time. So you can either see it as blocked/mechanical (perfectly fine as well), or you could choose to reason; 'if one is quick or perceptive enough to raise a shield and block an enemy attack, is one not able enough to release concentration on a spell when he sees the fire of a dragons breath just leave the dragon's mouth?'
Either way, it is up to the DM, as the Ready Action isn't explained to a great enough extent in the PHB.
E.g. for option 1, If you put up the WoF BEFORE the enemy has attacked, then they still can take a different action, because they were unable to take the Attack action and thus have not taken an action on their turn. If you put up the WoF AFTER the enemy has attacked, then it doesn't do much because the attack and damage have already happened.
But if this were the case, then Readied Actions would lose most of their utility, because you could never actually interrupt a character.
In fact, look at the Shield spell. The trigger is explicitly stated as: "when you are hit by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell"
If your above reading were correct, then when you used Shield to block a Magic Missile coming your way, you'd literally be saying the attacker could just take another action instead, since the trigger was the targeting, BEFORE the actual attack happened.
And the former part of the trigger is even more blunt; it seems to retroactively take an instance of you being hit, inserts the raising of the Shield spell before then, and literally turns a hit into a miss (provided the AC becomes high enough.)
If that's the sort of thing that a reaction trigger can do, explicitly spelled out in a fairly easy-to-parse official spell reaction, then it really seems hard to justify NOT being able to block attacks with Wall of Force by setting one's own readied trigger. Just copy Shield and make the trigger "when you are hit by an attack" if you must; at that point, what's the difference between the two reactions?
E.g. for option 1, If you put up the WoF BEFORE the enemy has attacked, then they still can take a different action, because they were unable to take the Attack action and thus have not taken an action on their turn. If you put up the WoF AFTER the enemy has attacked, then it doesn't do much because the attack and damage have already happened.
But if this were the case, then Readied Actions would lose most of their utility, because you could never actually interrupt a character.
In fact, look at the Shield spell. The trigger is explicitly stated as: "when you are hit by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell"
If your above reading were correct, then when you used Shield to block a Magic Missile coming your way, you'd literally be saying the attacker could just take another action instead, since the trigger was the targeting, BEFORE the actual attack happened.
And the former part of the trigger is even more blunt; it seems to retroactively take an instance of you being hit, inserts the raising of the Shield spell before then, and literally turns a hit into a miss (provided the AC becomes high enough.)
If that's the sort of thing that a reaction trigger can do, explicitly spelled out in a fairly easy-to-parse official spell reaction, then it really seems hard to justify NOT being able to block attacks with Wall of Force by setting one's own readied trigger. Just copy Shield and make the trigger "when you are hit by an attack" if you must; at that point, what's the difference between the two reactions?
That the shield spell explicitly states that, I would rather take as an argument for that this is an exception. Why specify it on the spell if this is vanilla?
It is also not true that readied actions can't let you "interrupt" a character. You can set the trigger like: "when the orc comes around the corner". As soon as you see the orc, you release your readied action. I would in some circumstances also allow something like "right before he strikes you", but he will be able to change his action afterwards. If you strike him hard enough, maybe he'll change his mind and disengage rather than attack?
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Ludo ergo sum!
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On concentration - I stand corrected. That one could work.
On the second, I still disagree. It doesn't say bolts from the grave is *part of* the cunning action. It says it happens *after* your cunning action. I'd still argue that using Bolts From the Grave requires an action, it's just one you can only take *after* using cunning action as your bonus action.
As written, Bolts from the Grave do not require any form of action. From here on, it is up to the DM's interpretation.
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Regarding #1 (WoF)
It sounds fair to me, but you aren't you relying on the DM not using the ready action?
Given you need to cast the spell BEFORE the dragons action, it hasn't actually attacked yet. Thus the dragon might choose to simply "ready" his breath weapon, and release it when the first PC strikes. I think as a DM I might would have allowed the players one round where it worked (because I think it is a cool and clever idea - nice battle tactics), but unless the dragon is completely mindless, the second round, it would simply wait until the wall drops, and then attack with a readied action.
Ludo ergo sum!
Yes - but you're only triggering the WoF after an attack is made. So either the dragon attacks, or the situation is a stale mate where nobody acts.
Hi there! I'm a Christian musician based in Canada :)
I'm not a rule expert, but as a DM I wouldn't allow that. If you say that the attack itself is the trigger, attack happens first, the readied action happens next. You have to set some trigger that comes before the attack (like: "the dragon seems to get ready for toasting us" or "the great beast charges us". Something the character might perceive ).
As I said, I think I would have perhaps allowed it to work for the first round, but unless it is a completely mindless creature, it would not fall for it a second time in my game.
Ludo ergo sum!
Exactly. It may require some player-DM cooperation, but the trigger for WoF specified wasn't the actual flame being spewed from the dragon's maw, but rather movements/actions that would hint to the fact that the dragon was about to breathe fire. Dragons, being notoriously vain, would put on some fearsome display before actually attacking (ie. spreading wings, raising head to the heavens and gurgling like a mad cow...that sort of thing).
Maybe an Insight/ Perception check from the player would be necessary to intuit when the attack was going to happen.
And it doesn't matter wether the Dragon was mindless or not. Unless it thought to bluff an attack (if the trigger for WoF was a hint that the dragon was about to attack, a bluff would therefore trigger the spell. Possibly, the dragon would have to make a Deception check against the player's Insight to pull this off), then the dragon can either attack and be blocked, or not attack at all.
Hi there! I'm a Christian musician based in Canada :)
I mostly agree with you here. There might be some tests etc. However what you describe here is more or less the exact reason I would allow for this to happen ONE time. First round the dragon will just go ahead and do its attack. However, the next time - it would have learned. If the wizard try the same trick again, the dragon would hold its action. Perhaps just put a claw on the "wall" with a readied action that says, "whenever this barrier disappears, there will be fire".
In my game, I would say that an attack only happens when you roll for it. The dragon making displays etc - I would certainly describe that, but until I have rolled for attack, the dragon hasn't actually done its action, and might change and do something else. This is only fair - if it wasn't a dragon, but another wizard - well he would recognize the WoF (perhaps rolling arcana), and then decide to hold. If he's already rolled for his fireball (or whatever) - it is too late to get up the wall.
But I'm a little uncertain here. Can you use a readied action to "trick" someone into doing something? Lets say its a face off between a wizard and an archer. Can the archer say: I hold my action until he starts to cast a spell. What happens first if the wizard starts to cast the spell? The spell or the shot? Can the wizard change his action when he understand he's being shot at to, let's say dodge?
Ludo ergo sum!
All of this is dependent on the DM's willingness to accommodate the players' shenanery, and frankly Player Shenanery should always try to be in service of a better game for everybody, DM included.
Coming up with a clever stratagem on the spot to reverse a difficult battle is the sort of story people love to tell. Trying to engineer weird corner cases because You The Player want to prove that you're Better At D&D(TM) than your DM is the very situation Rule Zero was invented for, and nobody will feel bad for your DM stepping on your aspirations to assholedom.
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Then it's not the ready action that's "broken", it's player-DM cooperation. Which is true! If you work with the DM to do cool things the DM likes, you can break any rules or any encounter you want!
See now you're just making stuff up for the DM. There's nothing in the dragon's statblock that requires them to put on a fearsome display before attacking, much less a fearsome display that indicates exactly when they're attacking. They're more intelligent than most humans (INT 16), they're not World of Warcraft bosses that always telegraph their moves. There may or may not be any way for the player to predict a dragon's movements. My guess is that unless the players had previously done extensive research on that particular dragon, a check to predict its movements would have a DC of 25 or 30, or not be allowed at all.
If the trigger was the attack action, then the dragon would roll for attack and damage, and THEN the WoF would happen. On the other hand, if the trigger is something that happens BEFORE the attack action, then the WoF would be put up before the dragon attacks... but then it could use its action to do something else.
I'd say it's similar to the dragon case - actions either have happened or they haven't. If the archer says "I attack the wizard when he starts to cast a spell", I would say that means they're looking for some sort of hand gesture or reaching for the focus or words. The shot happens first, as long as the wizard does something spell-like. But then the wizard could choose to do something else with their action. They started casting a fire bolt, then they got hit with an arrow and so they cast a fireball instead, something like that. They could choose to dodge, but it wouldn't retroactively apply to the arrow that's already been shot.
Or vice versa, the archer could fire the shot after the wizard casts their spell, if that's what they meant to do. That's pretty straightforward to resolve.
100% this.
It's fun when players come up with cool clever strategies or tricks, or work with the DM to come up with something awesome that relates to the campaign and the map and the enemies they're facing. Many DMs would bend the rules for that.
It's silly when instead of thinking about the campaign world, instead you're thinking about rules loopholes and trying to convince the DM they're valid if you pass a skill check.
By the way, this stuff with Readied actions, if it worked, would make so many combats such a royal pain to run. Like, I'm imagining a party of four PCs fighting a group of bandits or something. A normal combat would be the players and monsters taking their actions and shooting spells and arrows and blows at each other. If you allow readied actions to interrupt other actions, then every combat becomes a morass of "I ready an action to attack the bandit when he raises his bow, to interrupt his attack" and combat resolution becomes "OK, so I have eight readied actions to keep track of, bandit 4 tries to shoot which triggers player 2's readied action which triggers bandit 3's readied action which triggers player 1's readied action, player 1 shoots bandit 3 but misses, so bandit 3 gets their shot off and hits player 2 which interrupts their attack so bandit 4 gets to shoot and hold on, whose turn is all this happening on again?"
Fortunately, it doesn't.
I only wrote any of this to give ideas for a more visual session. Wether a DM allows this material or not is up to them - they can use it as a tool, but it should never be used as a means to 'Wreck your DM's day...', as I stated in the title of this thread (I admit that I love a funny title now and then....). DM to Character cooperation is what makes dnd more than just the roll of dice, but if these ideas become a detriment to playing the game? It is better that they had never been written in the first place.
So, anyone who is reading this or the initial post, know that these ideas should only be used if they run well with the DM, and within the bounds of what he/she finds acceptable - a bonus to rather than a takeaway from the game. Otherwise, combat either becomes so much work that it is no longer fun, or it just completely undermines the DM's hard work.
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Like it or not, this is more like real life happenings than the standard rules for combat.
But again, if 'real life' gets in the way of playing the game, then screw real life!
It is the kind of thing you must work out with your DM before the session, instead of springing it on him/her mid game, and only then running through the numbers.
Again, these ideas were only created to give thoughts on more visual combats. But if they become more confusing than fun, or become detrimental to the DM's hard work, then they should never be used.
They only work if they compliment the game, not if they only serve to fuel a player's ego.
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This all depends on how quickly a player can react - is it after the flames have consumed the characters that the wizard helpfully triggers the WoF? Or is it as soon as he sees the flame leave the dragon's mouth?
With this in mind, maybe it is a Dexterity check that is necessary to accomplish this feat, with the DC increasing the closer you get to the dragon.
This would make sense in what you said about dodging the arrow - the Dexterity bonus in your armour class determines how well you can dodge out the way of a harmful effect
And in this way, it is different from triggering WoF: it is possible to dodge an arrow. It is not easily possible for a dragon to blast characters who are behind full cover. I suppose what I'm trying to say is, while dodging the arrow isn't a certainty, as soon as you trigger WoF, there is no possible way (except teleportation) for the dragon to harm you.
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If you ready a spell and then it doesn't get cast, the spell slot is lost so the stale mate would be very short lived.
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My main point in all of this discussion has been that the Ready action is NOT brokenly powerful as you claimed it is, and that if you're trying to wreck your DM's day with it you're doing it wrong. You claimed that all 3 of the things you posted were legitimate RAW, which I also disagreed with, for options 1 and 3.
If your intended discussion was something different than what your title and first post said, well, maybe you should say what your point or intended discussion actually is.
There is no need to be so hostile about this. I think you are taking a little matter far too seriously.
All three things are legitimate as per RAW - the only grey area is how you choose to interpret the Ready Action and what triggers it. Moreover, there is validity in every comment made on this thread, as the Ready Action is not explained to this great an extent in the PHB, and therefore is purely up to interpretation.
If you still wish to act offended about the title I chose, however, please note it was purely eye candy, and accept my apology for....offending your idea of righteousness.
If I really wished to wreck my DM's day, I would have to be quite thick, as I am the DM in my group (if you had actually read the initial post through, you would have noticed this). I only posted these ideas because I find combat quite mechanical.
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Don't feel too bad, Bovine. A constant, if mercifully not an overpowering one, around these forums is the niggling idea that players are Out To Get their DMs, and that anybody who suggests a rules loophole or Clever Stratagem(C) is doing so because they're munchkins who hate any fun that gets in the way of winning.
That and a constant on the Internet in general is people with poorly calibrated sarcasm meters. Heh, punny/sarcastic thread titles are a classic troubleshooting technique for detecting miscalibrated sarcasm meters.
Anyways. "Mechanical" combat is an issue with any tabletop game, primarily because the alternative is "here's your pieces, here's my pieces, now start punching the table and whoever has pieces left last wins! FIGHT!" Tabletop mock combat needs rules, structure, and mechanical systems to be what it is, and that by necessity imposes that mechanical, turn-by-turn feeling. It bothers some folks because real-life combat is a messy, nasty, squirming affair in which several men and women do their best to out-dirty the other guys, but it's also somewhere within hailing distance of fair. Which is important for the 'Game' part of roleplaying game.
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No, they are not. Only option 2 is.
E.g. for option 1, If you put up the WoF BEFORE the enemy has attacked, then they still can take a different action, because they were unable to take the Attack action and thus have not taken an action on their turn. If you put up the WoF AFTER the enemy has attacked, then it doesn't do much because the attack and damage have already happened.
I think it can be seen either way - if you take RAW for readying a spell, it states that it can be released at any time. So you can either see it as blocked/mechanical (perfectly fine as well), or you could choose to reason; 'if one is quick or perceptive enough to raise a shield and block an enemy attack, is one not able enough to release concentration on a spell when he sees the fire of a dragons breath just leave the dragon's mouth?'
Either way, it is up to the DM, as the Ready Action isn't explained to a great enough extent in the PHB.
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But if this were the case, then Readied Actions would lose most of their utility, because you could never actually interrupt a character.
In fact, look at the Shield spell. The trigger is explicitly stated as: "when you are hit by an attack or targeted by the magic missile spell"
If your above reading were correct, then when you used Shield to block a Magic Missile coming your way, you'd literally be saying the attacker could just take another action instead, since the trigger was the targeting, BEFORE the actual attack happened.
And the former part of the trigger is even more blunt; it seems to retroactively take an instance of you being hit, inserts the raising of the Shield spell before then, and literally turns a hit into a miss (provided the AC becomes high enough.)
If that's the sort of thing that a reaction trigger can do, explicitly spelled out in a fairly easy-to-parse official spell reaction, then it really seems hard to justify NOT being able to block attacks with Wall of Force by setting one's own readied trigger. Just copy Shield and make the trigger "when you are hit by an attack" if you must; at that point, what's the difference between the two reactions?
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That the shield spell explicitly states that, I would rather take as an argument for that this is an exception. Why specify it on the spell if this is vanilla?
It is also not true that readied actions can't let you "interrupt" a character. You can set the trigger like: "when the orc comes around the corner". As soon as you see the orc, you release your readied action. I would in some circumstances also allow something like "right before he strikes you", but he will be able to change his action afterwards. If you strike him hard enough, maybe he'll change his mind and disengage rather than attack?
Ludo ergo sum!