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?
You could CHOOSE to take it that way, but it doesn't SAY it's an exception. The text just describes what the trigger is (which it HAS to do... it's a reaction spell, after all. They ALL specify their triggers.) There's nothing special going on with the description of the spell to actually support the idea that it somehow behaves differently from any other reaction.
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?
According to FTL's line of reasoning, you COULDN'T interrupt a character. Even the trigger of "when the orc comes around the corner" would mean you're doing it BEFORE the orc actually fully comes around, and by his reasoning, that would mean the orc could then choose to not actually do so.
Bluntly, if every action or act that could potentially set off a trigger could be "taken back" by the character that sets it off, and replaced with some other activity, that pretty much renders readied actions useless.
(And that still doesn't change the core question I asked at the end... if someone's trigger is "when you are hit by an attack," what RAW explanation would have that trigger behave any differently from Shield? It's the exact same language.)
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?
You could CHOOSE to take it that way, but it doesn't SAY it's an exception. The text just describes what the trigger is (which it HAS to do... it's a reaction spell, after all. They ALL specify their triggers.) There's nothing special going on with the description of the spell to actually support the idea that it somehow behaves differently from any other reaction.
No, I don't CHOOSE to take it that way, my opinion is that this is how the rules should be understood.
To me it seems quite obvious that the rules about readying are those that is explained in PHB. The only reason to add the extra info to Shield is because this is an exception.
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?
According to FTL's line of reasoning, you COULDN'T interrupt a character. Even the trigger of "when the orc comes around the corner" would mean you're doing it BEFORE the orc actually fully comes around, and by his reasoning, that would mean the orc could then choose to not actually do so.
FTL has to answer for what he/she means. But my interpretation of him/her, and what I am talking about, is the ACTION a player has each round. As I see it a readied action should/must occur before the player (or NPC) "takes" his/her "action". If the readied action somehow "interrupts" that action, in my opinion NO action has been made, and the player/NPC still can choose what she wants to do with her action.
Let me give an example:
My human with a movement of 30 feet stands in a corridor. 30 feet away from another human, RODRICK (with the same movement) is planning to attack me. I have the highest initiative. I choose to "ready" my action: If he attacks me, I'll simply move 10 feets away from him. All fine. According to your logic (as I understand it), when the DM says Rodrick attacks is this:
Rodrick moves 30 feet towards me and attacks. However, since this is my trigger, I instantly move 10 feet back, and is thus out of his reach. Attack misses. Rodrick has taken his action, and can do no more.
In my opinion, this is wrong. I would have said: fine, you can have that trigger (kind of), but when you start to move back, he will dash forward to engage you in combat. He will not stop and start to hack and slash at the empty space you have just moved out of.
AND A FINAL THOUGHT:
I actually think my interpretation is much more player friendly than yours. If my players started to use/abuse this, I would simply have all my NPC's start to use the exact same "loop hole". I think my player would be quite eager to get rid of this as soon as they started to "waste" their actions on NPC's with readied actions.
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?
You could CHOOSE to take it that way, but it doesn't SAY it's an exception. The text just describes what the trigger is (which it HAS to do... it's a reaction spell, after all. They ALL specify their triggers.) There's nothing special going on with the description of the spell to actually support the idea that it somehow behaves differently from any other reaction.
No, I don't CHOOSE to take it that way, my opinion is that this is how the rules should be understood.
We're not machines, and we're rarely as rational as we think we are. We always choose what to believe, sometimes in alignment with data, sometimes against it, for a wide variety of reasons, which often have little to do with the actual belief. (Sorry, I couldn't help but give a psychological rebuttal to that. Feel free to ignore.)
To me it seems quite obvious that the rules about readying are those that is explained in PHB. The only reason to add the extra info to Shield is because this is an exception.
What "extra info?" The trigger isn't extra, it's just a necessary part of describing when the spell can legitimately go off.
Consider the triggers of all the other reaction spells:
Absorb Elements - "when you take acid, cold, firel, lightning or thunder damage" Counterspell - "when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell" Feather Fall - "when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls" Gift of Gab - "when you speak to another creature" Hellish Rebuke - "in response to being damaged by a creature within 60 feet of you that you can see" [Tooltip Not Found] - "when you are forced to make an Intelligence, a Wisdom, or a Charisma saving throw" Soul Cage - "when a humanoid you can see within 60 feet of you dies"
Do all of those also deliver "extra info?" How is Shield different? It it's not, then are these ALL somehow exceptions, or is it more likely that all of the described triggers are just legitimate means of enacting reactions? And if I ready an Action using an identical trigger to one of these spells, why should it not react in an identical manner?
(Also, relevant to your later point, notice that only half of the reaction spells--Counterspell, Gift of Gab, Hellish Rebuke and Shield specifically--actually necessitate any character "Action" taking place at all.)
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?
According to FTL's line of reasoning, you COULDN'T interrupt a character. Even the trigger of "when the orc comes around the corner" would mean you're doing it BEFORE the orc actually fully comes around, and by his reasoning, that would mean the orc could then choose to not actually do so.
FTL has to answer for what he/she means. But my interpretation of him/her, and what I am talking about, is the ACTION a player has each round. As I see it a readied action should/must occur before the player (or NPC) "takes" his/her "action". If the readied action somehow "interrupts" that action, in my opinion NO action has been made, and the player/NPC still can choose what she wants to do with her action.
So then not only are you apparently in alignment with FTL's view, you also apparently AGREE with me that this view of readied actions does NOT allow interrupting of actions, since the actions never need actually go off. In this view, you'll never actually interrupt an attack with a readied action unless the attacker just lets you, because he could always choose to do something else instead.
AND A FINAL THOUGHT:
I actually think my interpretation is much more player friendly than yours. If my players started to use/abuse this, I would simply have all my NPC's start to use the exact same "loop hole". I think my player would be quite eager to get rid of this as soon as they started to "waste" their actions on NPC's with readied actions.
Perhaps it is more player-friendly. That's not really my point. As DM, you're free to use whatever justification you like for whatever rules and interpretations you like.
My only point is that it seems abundantly clear that readied actions were intended to forcibly interrupt the activities (whether Actions or not) that trigger them, and that if you disagree, you're effectively just making readied actions nearly useless.
Honestly, I'd suggest actually playing a session with the typical usage of readied actions in effect. You seem to think they'd be quite overpowered; I suspect you'll be surprised at how risky they can actually be.
Absorb - "when you take acid, cold, firel, lightning or thunder damage" Counterspell - "when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell" Feather Fall - "when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls" Gift of Gab - "when you speak to another creature" Hellish Rebuke - "in response to being damaged by a creature within 60 feet of you that you can see" [Tooltip Not Found] - "when you are forced to make an Intelligence, a Wisdom, or a Charisma saving throw" Soul Cage - "when a humanoid you can see within 60 feet of you dies"
Do all of those also deliver "extra info?" How is Shield different? It it's not, then are these ALL somehow exceptions, or is it more likely that all of the described triggers are just legitimate means of enacting reactions? And if I ready an Action using an identical trigger to one of these spells, why should it not react in an identical manner?
(Also, relevant to your later point, notice that only half of the reaction spells--Counterspell, Gift of Gab, Hellish Rebuke and Shield specifically--actually necessitate any character "Action" taking place at all.)
All those spells are reactions. They specify WHEN you might use them. Some of them might be valid triggers for a readied action, some might not. I still hold that it is the paragraph from PHB that "rules". The reason they specify it in spells is either because it is more narrow or "break" the rule. If the trigger action was exactly the same, it is simply just poor writing to use space on specifying it in the spell.
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?
You could CHOOSE to take it that way, but it doesn't SAY it's an exception. The text just describes what the trigger is (which it HAS to do... it's a reaction spell, after all. They ALL specify their triggers.) There's nothing special going on with the description of the spell to actually support the idea that it somehow behaves differently from any other reaction.
No, I don't CHOOSE to take it that way, my opinion is that this is how the rules should be understood.
We're not machines, and we're rarely as rational as we think we are. We always choose what to believe, sometimes in alignment with data, sometimes against it, for a wide variety of reasons, which often have little to do with the actual belief. (Sorry, I couldn't help but give a psychological rebuttal to that. Feel free to ignore.)
To me it seems quite obvious that the rules about readying are those that is explained in PHB. The only reason to add the extra info to Shield is because this is an exception.
What "extra info?" The trigger isn't extra, it's just a necessary part of describing when the spell can legitimately go off.
Consider the triggers of all the other reaction spells:
Absorb Elements - "when you take acid, cold, firel, lightning or thunder damage" Counterspell - "when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell" Feather Fall - "when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls" Gift of Gab - "when you speak to another creature" Hellish Rebuke - "in response to being damaged by a creature within 60 feet of you that you can see" Mental Barrier (UA) - "when you are forced to make an Intelligence, a Wisdom, or a Charisma saving throw" Soul Cage - "when a humanoid you can see within 60 feet of you dies"
Do all of those also deliver "extra info?" How is Shield different? It it's not, then are these ALL somehow exceptions, or is it more likely that all of the described triggers are just legitimate means of enacting reactions? And if I ready an Action using an identical trigger to one of these spells, why should it not react in an identical manner?
(Also, relevant to your later point, notice that only half of the reaction spells--Counterspell, Gift of Gab, Hellish Rebuke and Shield specifically--actually necessitate any character "Action" taking place at all.)
So then not only are you apparently in alignment with FTL's view, you also apparently AGREE with me that this view of readied actions does NOT allow interrupting of actions, since the actions never need actually go off. In this view, you'll never actually interrupt an attack with a readied action unless the attacker just lets you, because he could always choose to do something else instead.
What I don't think is that a readied action may "force" you to take an action. You might ready an action, you might interrupt me, but if you allow me to take MY action, I do it first (like attack or whatever), and then you do your readied action. You cannot "wait" until I take my ACTION and then do something that makes that more or less invalid - unless you have a spell or feature or something that allows you to do so.
Absorb - "when you take acid, cold, firel, lightning or thunder damage" Counterspell - "when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell" Feather Fall - "when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls" Gift of Gab - "when you speak to another creature" Hellish Rebuke - "in response to being damaged by a creature within 60 feet of you that you can see" [Tooltip Not Found] - "when you are forced to make an Intelligence, a Wisdom, or a Charisma saving throw" Soul Cage - "when a humanoid you can see within 60 feet of you dies"
Do all of those also deliver "extra info?" How is Shield different? It it's not, then are these ALL somehow exceptions, or is it more likely that all of the described triggers are just legitimate means of enacting reactions? And if I ready an Action using an identical trigger to one of these spells, why should it not react in an identical manner?
(Also, relevant to your later point, notice that only half of the reaction spells--Counterspell, Gift of Gab, Hellish Rebuke and Shield specifically--actually necessitate any character "Action" taking place at all.)
All those spells are reactions. They specify WHEN you might use them. Some of them might be valid triggers for a readied action, some might not. I still hold that it is the paragraph from PHB that "rules". The reason they specify it in spells is either because it is more narrow or "break" the rule. If the trigger action was exactly the same, it is simply just poor writing to use space on specifying it in the spell.
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?
You could CHOOSE to take it that way, but it doesn't SAY it's an exception. The text just describes what the trigger is (which it HAS to do... it's a reaction spell, after all. They ALL specify their triggers.) There's nothing special going on with the description of the spell to actually support the idea that it somehow behaves differently from any other reaction.
No, I don't CHOOSE to take it that way, my opinion is that this is how the rules should be understood.
We're not machines, and we're rarely as rational as we think we are. We always choose what to believe, sometimes in alignment with data, sometimes against it, for a wide variety of reasons, which often have little to do with the actual belief. (Sorry, I couldn't help but give a psychological rebuttal to that. Feel free to ignore.)
To me it seems quite obvious that the rules about readying are those that is explained in PHB. The only reason to add the extra info to Shield is because this is an exception.
What "extra info?" The trigger isn't extra, it's just a necessary part of describing when the spell can legitimately go off.
Consider the triggers of all the other reaction spells:
Absorb Elements - "when you take acid, cold, firel, lightning or thunder damage" Counterspell - "when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell" Feather Fall - "when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls" Gift of Gab - "when you speak to another creature" Hellish Rebuke - "in response to being damaged by a creature within 60 feet of you that you can see" Mental Barrier (UA) - "when you are forced to make an Intelligence, a Wisdom, or a Charisma saving throw" Soul Cage - "when a humanoid you can see within 60 feet of you dies"
Do all of those also deliver "extra info?" How is Shield different? It it's not, then are these ALL somehow exceptions, or is it more likely that all of the described triggers are just legitimate means of enacting reactions? And if I ready an Action using an identical trigger to one of these spells, why should it not react in an identical manner?
(Also, relevant to your later point, notice that only half of the reaction spells--Counterspell, Gift of Gab, Hellish Rebuke and Shield specifically--actually necessitate any character "Action" taking place at all.)
So then not only are you apparently in alignment with FTL's view, you also apparently AGREE with me that this view of readied actions does NOT allow interrupting of actions, since the actions never need actually go off. In this view, you'll never actually interrupt an attack with a readied action unless the attacker just lets you, because he could always choose to do something else instead.
What I don't think is that a readied action may "force" you to take an action. You might ready an action, you might interrupt me, but if you allow me to take MY action, I do it first (like attack or whatever), and then you do your readied action. You cannot "wait" until I take my ACTION and then do something that makes that more or less invalid - unless you have a spell or feature or something that allows you to do so.
Because of the damage it takes when it moves? Yeah, that would be fantastic with spell sniper as well. A kind of 'move and die, or end your movement and be a good boy' for melee enemies:)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hi there! I'm a Christian musician based in Canada :)
It's been a while...I thought I'd post here:) I think, in light of some valid posts, this thread should be renamed: 'Three potential uses of the Ready Action, which add flavour to combat.'
Something which wasn't mentioned is readying a spell requires concentration and burns the spell slot whether you use it or not. If an intelligent creatrure such as a dragon sees you readying a spell such as wall of force he is quite likeli to do something like attack you with his claws and bite, in the hope that you will lose concentration (you if you cast the spell before he attacks he still has his breath either for someone not in the sphere or for as soon as the sphere is dropped). If he has minions he could hold his action of fire breath for as soon as his minions attacks break your concentration.
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?
You could CHOOSE to take it that way, but it doesn't SAY it's an exception. The text just describes what the trigger is (which it HAS to do... it's a reaction spell, after all. They ALL specify their triggers.) There's nothing special going on with the description of the spell to actually support the idea that it somehow behaves differently from any other reaction.
Okay, I was curious about this so I had to look it up. The first thing to remind everyone at the outset is that D&D is an exceptions based game. This means that individual spells can create exceptions to general rules. You cannot read a spell and say, "well, it says it does XYZ, therefor XYZ must be the rule unless it says otherwise." That is never the case.
Okay, with that in mind, here we go. Page 196 of the PHB details the process for resolving an attack. In the damage section it reads: "You make the attack roll. On a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise."
So, let's take two examples. In the first, an orc rolls an attack again a Wizard. The Orc rolls a 14 and the Wizard's AC is 13. The Wizard casts Shield and the attack misses. Why is this possible, given the rule in the PHB? It's because Shield provides a rule under which damage is not rolled.
In the second example suppose the same setup, but instead of casting Shield the Wizard releases a held spell of Wall of Force, which had been held on the trigger of "if the Orc hits me." In this case, nothing in the text of holding actions or Wall of Force provides an exception to the rule that, "on a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise." Therefor, Wall of Force will not block the attack in the way Shield will. Shield works because the text of the Shield spell gives an exception to the general rule that you roll damage if an attack hits.
To the original question of a Dragon's breath weapon. Interestingly, a Dragon's breath weapon is not an attack as it doesn't involve an attack roll (see the Sage Advice compendium regarding the Dragon's Breath spell and the Find Familiar spell for an explanation on that one). Instead, the Dragon's breath weapon is a special action it takes in place of an attack. This should be easier to adjudicate because it doesn't need to reference any other rules (if I'm wrong, please correct me). The text of that action says, "the Dragon exhales fire in a 60-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 21 Dexterity saving throw, taking 63 (18d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one."
There is nothing in the text of that action that allows it to be interrupted by a spell. Therefor, the only way it can be interrupted by a spell is if the spell gives text saying that it can. And Wall of Force does not give such text.
Therefor, Wall of Force cannot be used in the way that the Shield spell works.
At the end of the day, of course, it's all up to the DM. The DM can choose to allow it, even though it's not allowed by the rules of the game.
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?
You could CHOOSE to take it that way, but it doesn't SAY it's an exception. The text just describes what the trigger is (which it HAS to do... it's a reaction spell, after all. They ALL specify their triggers.) There's nothing special going on with the description of the spell to actually support the idea that it somehow behaves differently from any other reaction.
Okay, I was curious about this so I had to look it up. The first thing to remind everyone at the outset is that D&D is an exceptions based game. This means that individual spells can create exceptions to general rules. You cannot read a spell and say, "well, it says it does XYZ, therefor XYZ must be the rule unless it says otherwise." That is never the case.
Okay, with that in mind, here we go. Page 196 of the PHB details the process for resolving an attack. In the damage section it reads: "You make the attack roll. On a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise."
So, let's take two examples. In the first, an orc rolls an attack again a Wizard. The Orc rolls a 14 and the Wizard's AC is 13. The Wizard casts Shield and the attack misses. Why is this possible, given the rule in the PHB? It's because Shield provides a rule under which damage is not rolled.
In the second example suppose the same setup, but instead of casting Shield the Wizard releases a held spell of Wall of Force, which had been held on the trigger of "if the Orc hits me." In this case, nothing in the text of holding actions or Wall of Force provides an exception to the rule that, "on a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise." Therefor, Wall of Force will not block the attack in the way Shield will. Shield works because the text of the Shield spell gives an exception to the general rule that you roll damage if an attack hits.
To the original question of a Dragon's breath weapon. Interestingly, a Dragon's breath weapon is not an attack as it doesn't involve an attack roll (see the Sage Advice compendium regarding the Dragon's Breath spell and the Find Familiar spell for an explanation on that one). Instead, the Dragon's breath weapon is a special action it takes in place of an attack. This should be easier to adjudicate because it doesn't need to reference any other rules (if I'm wrong, please correct me). The text of that action says, "the Dragon exhales fire in a 60-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 21 Dexterity saving throw, taking 63 (18d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one."
There is nothing in the text of that action that allows it to be interrupted by a spell. Therefor, the only way it can be interrupted by a spell is if the spell gives text saying that it can. And Wall of Force does not give such text.
Therefor, Wall of Force cannot be used in the way that the Shield spell works.
At the end of the day, of course, it's all up to the DM. The DM can choose to allow it, even though it's not allowed by the rules of the game.
I don't quite understand (or agree with) your point; I think you're looking at this the wrong way:) It doesn't matter that nothing in the text states it can happen, as there is nothing that explicitly states it can't, either. End of;)
In my opinion, there is a grey area in which the correct trigger for a readied action lies. Can you identify said trigger only as after a certain significant event takes place (such as an orc's warhammer actually hitting you), or can you alternately set the trigger as a the moment before the event takes place? By RAW, the latter is a viable option. A trigger can be set for any time.
There is never any specification on which is more correct, so really....it's up to the DM:)
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?
You could CHOOSE to take it that way, but it doesn't SAY it's an exception. The text just describes what the trigger is (which it HAS to do... it's a reaction spell, after all. They ALL specify their triggers.) There's nothing special going on with the description of the spell to actually support the idea that it somehow behaves differently from any other reaction.
Okay, I was curious about this so I had to look it up. The first thing to remind everyone at the outset is that D&D is an exceptions based game. This means that individual spells can create exceptions to general rules. You cannot read a spell and say, "well, it says it does XYZ, therefor XYZ must be the rule unless it says otherwise." That is never the case.
Okay, with that in mind, here we go. Page 196 of the PHB details the process for resolving an attack. In the damage section it reads: "You make the attack roll. On a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise."
So, let's take two examples. In the first, an orc rolls an attack again a Wizard. The Orc rolls a 14 and the Wizard's AC is 13. The Wizard casts Shield and the attack misses. Why is this possible, given the rule in the PHB? It's because Shield provides a rule under which damage is not rolled.
In the second example suppose the same setup, but instead of casting Shield the Wizard releases a held spell of Wall of Force, which had been held on the trigger of "if the Orc hits me." In this case, nothing in the text of holding actions or Wall of Force provides an exception to the rule that, "on a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise." Therefor, Wall of Force will not block the attack in the way Shield will. Shield works because the text of the Shield spell gives an exception to the general rule that you roll damage if an attack hits.
To the original question of a Dragon's breath weapon. Interestingly, a Dragon's breath weapon is not an attack as it doesn't involve an attack roll (see the Sage Advice compendium regarding the Dragon's Breath spell and the Find Familiar spell for an explanation on that one). Instead, the Dragon's breath weapon is a special action it takes in place of an attack. This should be easier to adjudicate because it doesn't need to reference any other rules (if I'm wrong, please correct me). The text of that action says, "the Dragon exhales fire in a 60-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 21 Dexterity saving throw, taking 63 (18d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one."
There is nothing in the text of that action that allows it to be interrupted by a spell. Therefor, the only way it can be interrupted by a spell is if the spell gives text saying that it can. And Wall of Force does not give such text.
Therefor, Wall of Force cannot be used in the way that the Shield spell works.
At the end of the day, of course, it's all up to the DM. The DM can choose to allow it, even though it's not allowed by the rules of the game.
(Good grief, this again? *Points finger at badbovine* -- "Necromancer!!!" )
Anyway, re-reading all this, I think most everyone is missing the central point here.
Either readied actions/spells can interrupt other character's actions (read: the other action STILL occurs, but the readied spell happens before the full act completes,) or they cannot.
If they can, then using the reaction spells, and their triggers, as a model for determining how to word triggers, and for determining the results, makes sense.
If they can't, then that seriously weakens the utility of readying a spell.
To address the specific rule objection that BioticHamster brought up, let me just say the following:
"There is nothing in the text of that action that allows it to be interrupted by a spell." -- BioticHamster
Agreed. But what allows the interruption is the specific exemption that readying an action provides:
"Sometimes you want to get the jump on a foe or wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you can take the Ready action on your turn, which lets you act using your reaction before the start of your next turn.
First, you decide what perceivable circumstance will trigger your reaction. Then, you choose the action you will take in response to that trigger, or you choose to move up to your speed in response to it. Examples include "If the cultist steps on the trapdoor, I'll pull the lever that opens it," and "If the goblin steps next to me, I move away."
When the trigger occurs, you can either take your reaction right after the trigger finishes or ignore the trigger."
Emphasis added. The text of the feature actually gives examples; the one I'll focus on is "if the cultist steps on the trapdoor, I'll pull the lever." Now, it seems silly to suggest that "well, if the cultists sees you reach for that lever, they'll just not move! You can't force them to move, after all!" That defeats the entire purpose of readying. The cultist tried to move a certain number of feet, and in the process of doing so--before completing the act--he steps on the trapdoor; you can't retcon the activity that led to the trigger occurring!
And yes, yes, the wording specifies "right after the trigger finishes." But in that specific example, the trigger isn't moving--which is one act on its own--it's specifically "the cultist steps on the trapdoor." So if that can be the trigger--literally interrupting a character's movement--then "preparing to attack," or "opens its mouth to launch a breath weapon" or "begins to cast a spell" also seem like perfectly valid triggers to me, and it seems equally silly to then suggest the target can suddenly pull back on attempting to complete the act it was attempting to complete, all because you used a normal, in-game mechanic.
Final takeaway:
You can make all the arguments you want that readied actions don't necessarily act the same way as specific reaction spells. That's fine. They can even be decent arguments.
But since I don't think the game designers meant for readied spells/actions to be near-useless, it makes sense to me that they CAN interrupt other actions (read: occur before them while the action still attempts to complete.)
Now, if you feel otherwise, for whatever reason, fine. But if that's the case, you should recognize you've essentially nerfed readying actions, as you've only left movement, at most, as valid triggers for readied spells.
That is all.
(Addendum: it really is annoying that, despite suggesting that ANY perceivable circumstance can act as a trigger, the only examples they give are of the target moving, not performing any other action. That would have really nailed this shut.)
You can make all the arguments you want that readied actions don't necessarily act the same way as specific reaction spells. That's fine. They can even be decent arguments.
But since I don't think the game designers meant for readied spells/actions to be near-useless, it makes sense to me that they CAN interrupt other actions (read: occur before them while the action still attempts to complete.)
Now, if you feel otherwise, for whatever reason, fine. But if that's the case, you should recognize you've essentially nerfed readying actions, as you've only left movement, at most, as valid triggers for readied spells.
That is all.
(Addendum: it really is annoying that, despite suggesting that ANY perceivable circumstance can act as a trigger, the only examples they give are of the target moving, not performing any other action. That would have really nailed this shut.)
Hmm... I see your point. I think your final observation (that their example is of movement) speaks to part of the problem. Movement can be broken up. A cultist can move on to the trap door, take an action, then move off of it. Even if that wasn't his intention, the point is that each increment of five feet is its own "act." I'm not sure that opening your mouth for a breath weapon necessarily is. (counterpoint to what I just said: grid based combat, although the most common way to play, is actually a variant rule and the core rules assume you're not using a grid)
That said... I think you've persuaded me. I think you CAN set the trigger as "the dragon opens his mouth for his breath weapon attack," but like you said (I think this is what you're saying) the dragon could then choose not to use his breath weapon and instead take a different action. So Wall of Force isn't really doing what the caster is hoping it will, if the intention was to get the dragon to waste his breath weapon.
However - once the breath weapon is INITIATED, I don't think anything can interrupt it unless it specifically says it can.
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?
You could CHOOSE to take it that way, but it doesn't SAY it's an exception. The text just describes what the trigger is (which it HAS to do... it's a reaction spell, after all. They ALL specify their triggers.) There's nothing special going on with the description of the spell to actually support the idea that it somehow behaves differently from any other reaction.
Okay, I was curious about this so I had to look it up. The first thing to remind everyone at the outset is that D&D is an exceptions based game. This means that individual spells can create exceptions to general rules. You cannot read a spell and say, "well, it says it does XYZ, therefor XYZ must be the rule unless it says otherwise." That is never the case.
Okay, with that in mind, here we go. Page 196 of the PHB details the process for resolving an attack. In the damage section it reads: "You make the attack roll. On a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise."
So, let's take two examples. In the first, an orc rolls an attack again a Wizard. The Orc rolls a 14 and the Wizard's AC is 13. The Wizard casts Shield and the attack misses. Why is this possible, given the rule in the PHB? It's because Shield provides a rule under which damage is not rolled.
In the second example suppose the same setup, but instead of casting Shield the Wizard releases a held spell of Wall of Force, which had been held on the trigger of "if the Orc hits me." In this case, nothing in the text of holding actions or Wall of Force provides an exception to the rule that, "on a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise." Therefor, Wall of Force will not block the attack in the way Shield will. Shield works because the text of the Shield spell gives an exception to the general rule that you roll damage if an attack hits.
To the original question of a Dragon's breath weapon. Interestingly, a Dragon's breath weapon is not an attack as it doesn't involve an attack roll (see the Sage Advice compendium regarding the Dragon's Breath spell and the Find Familiar spell for an explanation on that one). Instead, the Dragon's breath weapon is a special action it takes in place of an attack. This should be easier to adjudicate because it doesn't need to reference any other rules (if I'm wrong, please correct me). The text of that action says, "the Dragon exhales fire in a 60-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 21 Dexterity saving throw, taking 63 (18d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one."
There is nothing in the text of that action that allows it to be interrupted by a spell. Therefor, the only way it can be interrupted by a spell is if the spell gives text saying that it can. And Wall of Force does not give such text.
Therefor, Wall of Force cannot be used in the way that the Shield spell works.
At the end of the day, of course, it's all up to the DM. The DM can choose to allow it, even though it's not allowed by the rules of the game.
I don't quite understand (or agree with) your point; I think you're looking at this the wrong way:) It doesn't matter that nothing in the text states it can happen, as there is nothing that explicitly states it can't, either. End of;)
In my opinion, there is a grey area in which the correct trigger for a readied action lies. Can you identify said trigger only as after a certain significant event takes place (such as an orc's warhammer actually hitting you), or can you alternately set the trigger as a the moment before the event takes place? By RAW, the latter is a viable option. A trigger can be set for any time.
There is never any specification on which is more correct, so really....it's up to the DM:)
You can trigger your action for when the Orc is attacking, but not for "if the Orc hits me." Because the rule does say that once a hit occurs, you roll damage. Unless another ability specifically stops that damage (such as with the Shield spell) the damage occurs because the rules in the PHB say it occurs.
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?
You could CHOOSE to take it that way, but it doesn't SAY it's an exception. The text just describes what the trigger is (which it HAS to do... it's a reaction spell, after all. They ALL specify their triggers.) There's nothing special going on with the description of the spell to actually support the idea that it somehow behaves differently from any other reaction.
Okay, I was curious about this so I had to look it up. The first thing to remind everyone at the outset is that D&D is an exceptions based game. This means that individual spells can create exceptions to general rules. You cannot read a spell and say, "well, it says it does XYZ, therefor XYZ must be the rule unless it says otherwise." That is never the case.
Okay, with that in mind, here we go. Page 196 of the PHB details the process for resolving an attack. In the damage section it reads: "You make the attack roll. On a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise."
So, let's take two examples. In the first, an orc rolls an attack again a Wizard. The Orc rolls a 14 and the Wizard's AC is 13. The Wizard casts Shield and the attack misses. Why is this possible, given the rule in the PHB? It's because Shield provides a rule under which damage is not rolled.
In the second example suppose the same setup, but instead of casting Shield the Wizard releases a held spell of Wall of Force, which had been held on the trigger of "if the Orc hits me." In this case, nothing in the text of holding actions or Wall of Force provides an exception to the rule that, "on a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise." Therefor, Wall of Force will not block the attack in the way Shield will. Shield works because the text of the Shield spell gives an exception to the general rule that you roll damage if an attack hits.
To the original question of a Dragon's breath weapon. Interestingly, a Dragon's breath weapon is not an attack as it doesn't involve an attack roll (see the Sage Advice compendium regarding the Dragon's Breath spell and the Find Familiar spell for an explanation on that one). Instead, the Dragon's breath weapon is a special action it takes in place of an attack. This should be easier to adjudicate because it doesn't need to reference any other rules (if I'm wrong, please correct me). The text of that action says, "the Dragon exhales fire in a 60-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 21 Dexterity saving throw, taking 63 (18d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one."
There is nothing in the text of that action that allows it to be interrupted by a spell. Therefor, the only way it can be interrupted by a spell is if the spell gives text saying that it can. And Wall of Force does not give such text.
Therefor, Wall of Force cannot be used in the way that the Shield spell works.
At the end of the day, of course, it's all up to the DM. The DM can choose to allow it, even though it's not allowed by the rules of the game.
I don't quite understand (or agree with) your point; I think you're looking at this the wrong way:) It doesn't matter that nothing in the text states it can happen, as there is nothing that explicitly states it can't, either. End of;)
In my opinion, there is a grey area in which the correct trigger for a readied action lies. Can you identify said trigger only as after a certain significant event takes place (such as an orc's warhammer actually hitting you), or can you alternately set the trigger as a the moment before the event takes place? By RAW, the latter is a viable option. A trigger can be set for any time.
There is never any specification on which is more correct, so really....it's up to the DM:)
You can trigger your action for when the Orc is attacking, but not for "if the Orc hits me." Because the rule does say that once a hit occurs, you roll damage. Unless another ability specifically stops that damage (such as with the Shield spell) the damage occurs because the rules in the PHB say it occurs.
This option is not valid once the orc hits you, correct. But to activate the trigger before the strike makes contact, regardless of wether it would have hit you or not, is legitimate as per RAW.
I never mentioned damage reduction, as that would obviously not be viable. I proposed a strategy, similar to the action of raising a shield in the attempt to deflect an enemy attack.
See? You don't use a shield (a physical shield; not talking about the spell) to reduce damage dealt to your person. You do, however, raise a shield in the space of less than a second to deflect an attack. Exactly like triggering WoF in the space of less than a second to deflect an attack. It is exactly the same.
You can trigger your action for when the Orc is attacking, but not for "if the Orc hits me." Because the rule does say that once a hit occurs, you roll damage. Unless another ability specifically stops that damage (such as with the Shield spell) the damage occurs because the rules in the PHB say it occurs.
Not when he orc hits you, correct. Before the strike is made, regardless of wether it would have hit you or not.
Oh, yes, then we are in agreement. If you want to trigger a held spell for if you are attacked (before the roll), then totally, you can do that. But you have to spend the spell without knowing if you were going to be hit, because whether or not the spell triggers it is cast when you ready.
You can trigger your action for when the Orc is attacking, but not for "if the Orc hits me." Because the rule does say that once a hit occurs, you roll damage. Unless another ability specifically stops that damage (such as with the Shield spell) the damage occurs because the rules in the PHB say it occurs.
Not when he orc hits you, correct. Before the strike is made, regardless of wether it would have hit you or not.
Oh, yes, then we are in agreement. If you want to trigger a held spell for if you are attacked (before the roll), then totally, you can do that. But you have to spend the spell without knowing if you were going to be hit, because whether or not the spell triggers it is cast when you ready.
Ah, okay. Yeah we agree. I apologize for editing my statement into a full on lecture😂
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
Hi there! I'm a Christian musician based in Canada :)
Glad there is agreement in most parts here. Reactions are great... and remember, they aren't just free things to throw around just to mess with the DM. They have a heavy tax on use. If you ready a spell and a specific trigger doesn't happen... you lose the spell. If a high level fighter readies an attack for when the Wall of Force drops, the Fighter gets to make 1 Attack, and you better hope you are in range or even that is wasted. You don't get to ready your Attack and take all your Attack Actions... you are readying your Attack to make an Attack as a Reaction (just like an opportunity attack with just one single attack). So sure... the entire party can hide behind a Wall of Force hoping the Dragon breathes fire this turn and maybe they can do half to a third of their usual damage, but at least they get to attack without being roasted. And if they misjudged it, the spent a spell and did no damage while the Dragon does something evil and nefarious and still gets to use its Lair and Legendary actions.
I'm kind of surprised no one mentions Opportunity Attack in the whole Reaction chain (or I missed it in the kefluffle). If someone moves and you use a Reaction to make an Opportunity Attack... then they would take no damage if Shield is an exception because they moved and were never there when the Opportunity Attack landed. But that's not how it works... the Reaction allows something to happen quickly so that the potential is still there for the Opportunity Attack BEFORE the person moves out of range.
That said... I think you've persuaded me. I think you CAN set the trigger as "the dragon opens his mouth for his breath weapon attack," but like you said (I think this is what you're saying) the dragon could then choose not to use his breath weapon and instead take a different action. So Wall of Force isn't really doing what the caster is hoping it will, if the intention was to get the dragon to waste his breath weapon.
However - once the breath weapon is INITIATED, I don't think anything can interrupt it unless it specifically says it can.
Er... I'm actually arguing that other way. That you SHOULD be able to block an initiated breath weapon by setting the trigger to something that occurs as part of doing it.
Otherwise, you're back to square one. If you can specify "opens its mouth for a breath weapon attack" as the trigger, but the target can then not activate the breath weapon, then why would it? Which means ANY trigger that can be "pulled back" like that will be. In which case, the readied spell is effectively wasted; you might as well have just cast it during your turn.
So again, if that's the interpretation, then you're back to only really letting movement be an effective trigger for readied spells.
I'd be fine playing that way if my DM said that that was how it was. But in that environment, I'd almost never ready an action--it would rarely be worth it.
And I just don't think the Ready action was only intended to be used in very rare circumstances, with only movement triggering it. Which is why I'd allow actions to be interrupted so long as the trigger was worded properly.
You could CHOOSE to take it that way, but it doesn't SAY it's an exception. The text just describes what the trigger is (which it HAS to do... it's a reaction spell, after all. They ALL specify their triggers.) There's nothing special going on with the description of the spell to actually support the idea that it somehow behaves differently from any other reaction.
According to FTL's line of reasoning, you COULDN'T interrupt a character. Even the trigger of "when the orc comes around the corner" would mean you're doing it BEFORE the orc actually fully comes around, and by his reasoning, that would mean the orc could then choose to not actually do so.
Bluntly, if every action or act that could potentially set off a trigger could be "taken back" by the character that sets it off, and replaced with some other activity, that pretty much renders readied actions useless.
(And that still doesn't change the core question I asked at the end... if someone's trigger is "when you are hit by an attack," what RAW explanation would have that trigger behave any differently from Shield? It's the exact same language.)
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
No, I don't CHOOSE to take it that way, my opinion is that this is how the rules should be understood.
To me it seems quite obvious that the rules about readying are those that is explained in PHB. The only reason to add the extra info to Shield is because this is an exception.
FTL has to answer for what he/she means. But my interpretation of him/her, and what I am talking about, is the ACTION a player has each round. As I see it a readied action should/must occur before the player (or NPC) "takes" his/her "action". If the readied action somehow "interrupts" that action, in my opinion NO action has been made, and the player/NPC still can choose what she wants to do with her action.
Let me give an example:
My human with a movement of 30 feet stands in a corridor. 30 feet away from another human, RODRICK (with the same movement) is planning to attack me. I have the highest initiative. I choose to "ready" my action: If he attacks me, I'll simply move 10 feets away from him. All fine. According to your logic (as I understand it), when the DM says Rodrick attacks is this:
Rodrick moves 30 feet towards me and attacks. However, since this is my trigger, I instantly move 10 feet back, and is thus out of his reach. Attack misses. Rodrick has taken his action, and can do no more.
In my opinion, this is wrong. I would have said: fine, you can have that trigger (kind of), but when you start to move back, he will dash forward to engage you in combat. He will not stop and start to hack and slash at the empty space you have just moved out of.
AND A FINAL THOUGHT:
I actually think my interpretation is much more player friendly than yours. If my players started to use/abuse this, I would simply have all my NPC's start to use the exact same "loop hole". I think my player would be quite eager to get rid of this as soon as they started to "waste" their actions on NPC's with readied actions.
Ludo ergo sum!
We're not machines, and we're rarely as rational as we think we are. We always choose what to believe, sometimes in alignment with data, sometimes against it, for a wide variety of reasons, which often have little to do with the actual belief. (Sorry, I couldn't help but give a psychological rebuttal to that. Feel free to ignore.)
What "extra info?" The trigger isn't extra, it's just a necessary part of describing when the spell can legitimately go off.
Consider the triggers of all the other reaction spells:
Absorb Elements - "when you take acid, cold, firel, lightning or thunder damage"
Counterspell - "when you see a creature within 60 feet of you casting a spell"
Feather Fall - "when you or a creature within 60 feet of you falls"
Gift of Gab - "when you speak to another creature"
Hellish Rebuke - "in response to being damaged by a creature within 60 feet of you that you can see"
[Tooltip Not Found] - "when you are forced to make an Intelligence, a Wisdom, or a Charisma saving throw"
Soul Cage - "when a humanoid you can see within 60 feet of you dies"
Do all of those also deliver "extra info?" How is Shield different? It it's not, then are these ALL somehow exceptions, or is it more likely that all of the described triggers are just legitimate means of enacting reactions? And if I ready an Action using an identical trigger to one of these spells, why should it not react in an identical manner?
(Also, relevant to your later point, notice that only half of the reaction spells--Counterspell, Gift of Gab, Hellish Rebuke and Shield specifically--actually necessitate any character "Action" taking place at all.)
So then not only are you apparently in alignment with FTL's view, you also apparently AGREE with me that this view of readied actions does NOT allow interrupting of actions, since the actions never need actually go off. In this view, you'll never actually interrupt an attack with a readied action unless the attacker just lets you, because he could always choose to do something else instead.
Perhaps it is more player-friendly. That's not really my point. As DM, you're free to use whatever justification you like for whatever rules and interpretations you like.
My only point is that it seems abundantly clear that readied actions were intended to forcibly interrupt the activities (whether Actions or not) that trigger them, and that if you disagree, you're effectively just making readied actions nearly useless.
Honestly, I'd suggest actually playing a session with the typical usage of readied actions in effect. You seem to think they'd be quite overpowered; I suspect you'll be surprised at how risky they can actually be.
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
All those spells are reactions. They specify WHEN you might use them. Some of them might be valid triggers for a readied action, some might not. I still hold that it is the paragraph from PHB that "rules". The reason they specify it in spells is either because it is more narrow or "break" the rule. If the trigger action was exactly the same, it is simply just poor writing to use space on specifying it in the spell.
What I don't think is that a readied action may "force" you to take an action. You might ready an action, you might interrupt me, but if you allow me to take MY action, I do it first (like attack or whatever), and then you do your readied action. You cannot "wait" until I take my ACTION and then do something that makes that more or less invalid - unless you have a spell or feature or something that allows you to do so.
Ludo ergo sum!
GodrickGreat and RodTheBard - great points, both. Agree to disagree?
:D
Hi there! I'm a Christian musician based in Canada :)
Agreed :-D
Ludo ergo sum!
Booming Blade is a great held action
Because of the damage it takes when it moves? Yeah, that would be fantastic with spell sniper as well. A kind of 'move and die, or end your movement and be a good boy' for melee enemies:)
Hi there! I'm a Christian musician based in Canada :)
It's been a while...I thought I'd post here:) I think, in light of some valid posts, this thread should be renamed: 'Three potential uses of the Ready Action, which add flavour to combat.'
Hi there! I'm a Christian musician based in Canada :)
Only just seen this and I agree with the rename.
Something which wasn't mentioned is readying a spell requires concentration and burns the spell slot whether you use it or not. If an intelligent creatrure such as a dragon sees you readying a spell such as wall of force he is quite likeli to do something like attack you with his claws and bite, in the hope that you will lose concentration (you if you cast the spell before he attacks he still has his breath either for someone not in the sphere or for as soon as the sphere is dropped). If he has minions he could hold his action of fire breath for as soon as his minions attacks break your concentration.
Okay, I was curious about this so I had to look it up. The first thing to remind everyone at the outset is that D&D is an exceptions based game. This means that individual spells can create exceptions to general rules. You cannot read a spell and say, "well, it says it does XYZ, therefor XYZ must be the rule unless it says otherwise." That is never the case.
Okay, with that in mind, here we go. Page 196 of the PHB details the process for resolving an attack. In the damage section it reads: "You make the attack roll. On a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise."
So, let's take two examples. In the first, an orc rolls an attack again a Wizard. The Orc rolls a 14 and the Wizard's AC is 13. The Wizard casts Shield and the attack misses. Why is this possible, given the rule in the PHB? It's because Shield provides a rule under which damage is not rolled.
In the second example suppose the same setup, but instead of casting Shield the Wizard releases a held spell of Wall of Force, which had been held on the trigger of "if the Orc hits me." In this case, nothing in the text of holding actions or Wall of Force provides an exception to the rule that, "on a hit, you roll damage, unless the particular attack has rules that specify otherwise." Therefor, Wall of Force will not block the attack in the way Shield will. Shield works because the text of the Shield spell gives an exception to the general rule that you roll damage if an attack hits.
To the original question of a Dragon's breath weapon. Interestingly, a Dragon's breath weapon is not an attack as it doesn't involve an attack roll (see the Sage Advice compendium regarding the Dragon's Breath spell and the Find Familiar spell for an explanation on that one). Instead, the Dragon's breath weapon is a special action it takes in place of an attack. This should be easier to adjudicate because it doesn't need to reference any other rules (if I'm wrong, please correct me). The text of that action says, "the Dragon exhales fire in a 60-foot cone. Each creature in that area must make a DC 21 Dexterity saving throw, taking 63 (18d6) fire damage on a failed save, or half as much damage on a successful one."
There is nothing in the text of that action that allows it to be interrupted by a spell. Therefor, the only way it can be interrupted by a spell is if the spell gives text saying that it can. And Wall of Force does not give such text.
Therefor, Wall of Force cannot be used in the way that the Shield spell works.
At the end of the day, of course, it's all up to the DM. The DM can choose to allow it, even though it's not allowed by the rules of the game.
I don't quite understand (or agree with) your point; I think you're looking at this the wrong way:) It doesn't matter that nothing in the text states it can happen, as there is nothing that explicitly states it can't, either. End of;)
In my opinion, there is a grey area in which the correct trigger for a readied action lies. Can you identify said trigger only as after a certain significant event takes place (such as an orc's warhammer actually hitting you), or can you alternately set the trigger as a the moment before the event takes place? By RAW, the latter is a viable option. A trigger can be set for any time.
There is never any specification on which is more correct, so really....it's up to the DM:)
Hi there! I'm a Christian musician based in Canada :)
(Good grief, this again? *Points finger at badbovine* -- "Necromancer!!!" )
Anyway, re-reading all this, I think most everyone is missing the central point here.
Either readied actions/spells can interrupt other character's actions (read: the other action STILL occurs, but the readied spell happens before the full act completes,) or they cannot.
If they can, then using the reaction spells, and their triggers, as a model for determining how to word triggers, and for determining the results, makes sense.
If they can't, then that seriously weakens the utility of readying a spell.
To address the specific rule objection that BioticHamster brought up, let me just say the following:
Agreed. But what allows the interruption is the specific exemption that readying an action provides:
Emphasis added. The text of the feature actually gives examples; the one I'll focus on is "if the cultist steps on the trapdoor, I'll pull the lever." Now, it seems silly to suggest that "well, if the cultists sees you reach for that lever, they'll just not move! You can't force them to move, after all!" That defeats the entire purpose of readying. The cultist tried to move a certain number of feet, and in the process of doing so--before completing the act--he steps on the trapdoor; you can't retcon the activity that led to the trigger occurring!
And yes, yes, the wording specifies "right after the trigger finishes." But in that specific example, the trigger isn't moving--which is one act on its own--it's specifically "the cultist steps on the trapdoor." So if that can be the trigger--literally interrupting a character's movement--then "preparing to attack," or "opens its mouth to launch a breath weapon" or "begins to cast a spell" also seem like perfectly valid triggers to me, and it seems equally silly to then suggest the target can suddenly pull back on attempting to complete the act it was attempting to complete, all because you used a normal, in-game mechanic.
Final takeaway:
You can make all the arguments you want that readied actions don't necessarily act the same way as specific reaction spells. That's fine. They can even be decent arguments.
But since I don't think the game designers meant for readied spells/actions to be near-useless, it makes sense to me that they CAN interrupt other actions (read: occur before them while the action still attempts to complete.)
Now, if you feel otherwise, for whatever reason, fine. But if that's the case, you should recognize you've essentially nerfed readying actions, as you've only left movement, at most, as valid triggers for readied spells.
That is all.
(Addendum: it really is annoying that, despite suggesting that ANY perceivable circumstance can act as a trigger, the only examples they give are of the target moving, not performing any other action. That would have really nailed this shut.)
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf
Hmm... I see your point. I think your final observation (that their example is of movement) speaks to part of the problem. Movement can be broken up. A cultist can move on to the trap door, take an action, then move off of it. Even if that wasn't his intention, the point is that each increment of five feet is its own "act." I'm not sure that opening your mouth for a breath weapon necessarily is. (counterpoint to what I just said: grid based combat, although the most common way to play, is actually a variant rule and the core rules assume you're not using a grid)
That said... I think you've persuaded me. I think you CAN set the trigger as "the dragon opens his mouth for his breath weapon attack," but like you said (I think this is what you're saying) the dragon could then choose not to use his breath weapon and instead take a different action. So Wall of Force isn't really doing what the caster is hoping it will, if the intention was to get the dragon to waste his breath weapon.
However - once the breath weapon is INITIATED, I don't think anything can interrupt it unless it specifically says it can.
You can trigger your action for when the Orc is attacking, but not for "if the Orc hits me." Because the rule does say that once a hit occurs, you roll damage. Unless another ability specifically stops that damage (such as with the Shield spell) the damage occurs because the rules in the PHB say it occurs.
This option is not valid once the orc hits you, correct. But to activate the trigger before the strike makes contact, regardless of wether it would have hit you or not, is legitimate as per RAW.
I never mentioned damage reduction, as that would obviously not be viable. I proposed a strategy, similar to the action of raising a shield in the attempt to deflect an enemy attack.
See? You don't use a shield (a physical shield; not talking about the spell) to reduce damage dealt to your person. You do, however, raise a shield in the space of less than a second to deflect an attack. Exactly like triggering WoF in the space of less than a second to deflect an attack.
It is exactly the same.
Hi there! I'm a Christian musician based in Canada :)
Oh, yes, then we are in agreement. If you want to trigger a held spell for if you are attacked (before the roll), then totally, you can do that. But you have to spend the spell without knowing if you were going to be hit, because whether or not the spell triggers it is cast when you ready.
Ah, okay. Yeah we agree. I apologize for editing my statement into a full on lecture😂
Hi there! I'm a Christian musician based in Canada :)
Glad there is agreement in most parts here. Reactions are great... and remember, they aren't just free things to throw around just to mess with the DM. They have a heavy tax on use. If you ready a spell and a specific trigger doesn't happen... you lose the spell. If a high level fighter readies an attack for when the Wall of Force drops, the Fighter gets to make 1 Attack, and you better hope you are in range or even that is wasted. You don't get to ready your Attack and take all your Attack Actions... you are readying your Attack to make an Attack as a Reaction (just like an opportunity attack with just one single attack). So sure... the entire party can hide behind a Wall of Force hoping the Dragon breathes fire this turn and maybe they can do half to a third of their usual damage, but at least they get to attack without being roasted. And if they misjudged it, the spent a spell and did no damage while the Dragon does something evil and nefarious and still gets to use its Lair and Legendary actions.
I'm kind of surprised no one mentions Opportunity Attack in the whole Reaction chain (or I missed it in the kefluffle). If someone moves and you use a Reaction to make an Opportunity Attack... then they would take no damage if Shield is an exception because they moved and were never there when the Opportunity Attack landed. But that's not how it works... the Reaction allows something to happen quickly so that the potential is still there for the Opportunity Attack BEFORE the person moves out of range.
Er... I'm actually arguing that other way. That you SHOULD be able to block an initiated breath weapon by setting the trigger to something that occurs as part of doing it.
Otherwise, you're back to square one. If you can specify "opens its mouth for a breath weapon attack" as the trigger, but the target can then not activate the breath weapon, then why would it? Which means ANY trigger that can be "pulled back" like that will be. In which case, the readied spell is effectively wasted; you might as well have just cast it during your turn.
So again, if that's the interpretation, then you're back to only really letting movement be an effective trigger for readied spells.
I'd be fine playing that way if my DM said that that was how it was. But in that environment, I'd almost never ready an action--it would rarely be worth it.
And I just don't think the Ready action was only intended to be used in very rare circumstances, with only movement triggering it. Which is why I'd allow actions to be interrupted so long as the trigger was worded properly.
Sterling - V. Human Bard 3 (College of Art) - [Pic] - [Traits] - in Bards: Dragon Heist (w/ Mansion) - Jasper's [Pic] - Sterling's [Sigil]
Tooltips Post (2024 PHB updates) - incl. General Rules
>> New FOW threat & treasure tables: fow-advanced-threat-tables.pdf fow-advanced-treasure-table.pdf