As the title suggests I was wondering whether or not a Ready action is still in effect after falling unconscious but before the trigger happens. I'll illustrate my question with an example below:
"The fighter takes the Ready action to grapple the first enemy that comes within his reach. Before anyone gets close to him however, he is struck by an arrow that brings him to 0 HP. He falls unconscious. But the cleric is quick to cast Healing Word, bringing the fighter back to consciousness. When an enemy bandit attempts to move towards the cleric to run him through, he passes through the fighter's melee range."
How does the story end? Does the enemy bandit kill the cleric or does the fighter manage to stop him? I.e does this trigger the fighter's readied action, or did he lose the action when falling unconscious? According to RAW
an interesting question! From checking through the rules, I can see no RAW that would prevent the readied action from taking place.
When the fighter is reduced to zero hit points, he is rendered unconscious, which also means he is prone and incapacitated.
From reading the rules on readying an action, there's nothing that discusses condition changes between readying the action and the trigger happening - as long as the character is able to perceive the trigger and undertake the action when the trigger happens.
Note that the fighter will be at disadvantage on the grapple attack, as they are prone though.
I thought as much. I have always had mixed feelings about how effective healing can be regarding the lack of disadvantages from falling unconscious.
Regarding the grapple roll, it is not an attack roll and there should therefore be no disadvantage when making the check. According to Jeremy Crawford, it is a skill check despite it taking the Attack action to perform.
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.
The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you and must be within your reach. Using at least one free hand, you try to seize the target by making a grapple check instead of an attack roll:
My personal take on this is that the wording under the grappling rules is important where it states, "making a grapple check instead of an attack roll" - this isn't saying that the character uses their athletics skill to make the attack roll, it's straight out saying that the attack roll is replaced with a skill check, which by inference isn't an attack roll.
As the prone condition only causes disadvantage to attack rolls (and not skill checks) we can thus interpret that it doesn't cause disadvantage to making a grapple attempt.
Cool - I like learning new things. Thank you. :)
There's a long section on this article from WotC that may have some further information in.
I agree with everything you mentioned in your reflections. I like learning new things too, which is why I really enjoy this Rules & Game Mechanics forum ^^
Getting back to the meat of the argument, my tendency is to say that getting knocked unconscious, even if you were subsequently revived, would break your focus enough that you wouldn't have the presence of mind to carry out your held action. I'd like to qualify that by saying it's just my take and others may well disagree.
TexasDevin: I agree with your thoughts on the (lack of) effect of unconsciousness. Also, if a character loses concentration when falling unconscious, I think there is an argument to be made that you also lose your focus and presence of mind to keep an action ready within the 6 second timespan. But as it is, concentration is not required to hold a readied action according to RAW, so I guess the argument can also be made that it should have no bearing on the issue, though unconsciousness is arguably not simply losing ones concentration.
FullMetalBunny: The crux of the situation is that you take the "Ready action" on your turn, and both fall unconscious and get healed before your next turn. As such you are not taking a new action (as it hasn't been your turn yet). I agree with your reasoning, but according to RAW there are no rules saying you lose your Ready action after getting back from unconsciousness, nor losing your reaction.
This is an instance which the RAW doesn't explicitly cover, however, while it is not explicitly stated, you could argue that: since, on being Incapacitated you can't take Actions or Reactions, you can't take one until the start of your next turn. This would negate the Readied action.
Of course, the actual wording from the Order of Combat section says, "... When you take a reaction, you can't take another one until the start of your next turn. ..." While the two points are not exactly the same, a reasonable DM could equate the two.
Now being incapacitated is not the same as being Unconscious, in fact being incapacitated is a bullet point listed under unconscious. So if your DM were to adopt this ruling it should apply to other incapacitating effects such as being Paralyzed, (Hold Person), Stunned, and Banishment. None of those possibilities seem overly harsh to me, though it does mean, if someone is banished, when they return one minute later, if a party is Ready to Smite them on returning, the target won't be able to, for example, Shield or Counterspell.
BDaddLy: If I understand you correctly you are saying that it seems to be a reasonable interpretation of RAW to have the incapacitated condition take away a creature's reaction for the round, despite the creature no longer being under the influence of the condition?
Personally I think it is neither RAW nor RAI, but if I were the rules designer of WOTC I would implement the ruling into the game as an effect of the unconscious condition. I will definitely use this in my own games, as it actually adds a penalty to reaching 0 HP that doesn't seem too severe.
This is an instance which the RAW doesn't explicitly cover, however, while it is not explicitly stated, you could argue that: since, on being Incapacitated you can't take Actions or Reactions, you can't take one until the start of your next turn. This would negate the Readied action.
Of course, the actual wording from the Order of Combat section says, "... When you take a reaction, you can't take another one until the start of your next turn. ..." While the two points are not exactly the same, a reasonable DM could equate the two.
That'd be unreasonable. The fighter didn't take a reaction so the quoted text doesn't apply. As soon as they stop being incapacitated, their reaction becomes available again.
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As the title suggests I was wondering whether or not a Ready action is still in effect after falling unconscious but before the trigger happens. I'll illustrate my question with an example below:
"The fighter takes the Ready action to grapple the first enemy that comes within his reach. Before anyone gets close to him however, he is struck by an arrow that brings him to 0 HP. He falls unconscious. But the cleric is quick to cast Healing Word, bringing the fighter back to consciousness. When an enemy bandit attempts to move towards the cleric to run him through, he passes through the fighter's melee range."
How does the story end? Does the enemy bandit kill the cleric or does the fighter manage to stop him? I.e does this trigger the fighter's readied action, or did he lose the action when falling unconscious? According to RAW
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D&D Beyond FoundersHi there BeyondMisty,
an interesting question! From checking through the rules, I can see no RAW that would prevent the readied action from taking place.
When the fighter is reduced to zero hit points, he is rendered unconscious, which also means he is prone and incapacitated.
From reading the rules on readying an action, there's nothing that discusses condition changes between readying the action and the trigger happening - as long as the character is able to perceive the trigger and undertake the action when the trigger happens.
Note that the fighter will be at disadvantage on the grapple attack, as they are prone though.edit: oops - see below!
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I thought as much. I have always had mixed feelings about how effective healing can be regarding the lack of disadvantages from falling unconscious.
Regarding the grapple roll, it is not an attack roll and there should therefore be no disadvantage when making the check. According to Jeremy Crawford, it is a skill check despite it taking the Attack action to perform.
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D&D Beyond FoundersInteresting on whether being prone causes disadvantage or not when making a grapple attack.
The tweet you linked doesn't actually cover this, it just says the following:
The rules on grappling state:
...and the rules on Prone include:
My personal take on this is that the wording under the grappling rules is important where it states, "making a grapple check instead of an attack roll" - this isn't saying that the character uses their athletics skill to make the attack roll, it's straight out saying that the attack roll is replaced with a skill check, which by inference isn't an attack roll.
As the prone condition only causes disadvantage to attack rolls (and not skill checks) we can thus interpret that it doesn't cause disadvantage to making a grapple attempt.
Cool - I like learning new things. Thank you. :)
There's a long section on this article from WotC that may have some further information in.
Pun-loving nerd | Faith Elisabeth Lilley | She/Her/Hers | Profile art by Becca Golins
If you need help with homebrew, please post on the homebrew forums, where multiple staff and moderators can read your post and help you!
"We got this, no problem! I'll take the twenty on the left - you guys handle the one on the right!"🔊
I agree with everything you mentioned in your reflections. I like learning new things too, which is why I really enjoy this Rules & Game Mechanics forum ^^
Getting back to the meat of the argument, my tendency is to say that getting knocked unconscious, even if you were subsequently revived, would break your focus enough that you wouldn't have the presence of mind to carry out your held action. I'd like to qualify that by saying it's just my take and others may well disagree.
"Not all those who wander are lost"
I don't think you can Ready an action.
Incapacitated stays you can't take an Action or Reaction. On your turn your unable to take an Action, so you can't prepare the Readied Action.
TexasDevin: I agree with your thoughts on the (lack of) effect of unconsciousness. Also, if a character loses concentration when falling unconscious, I think there is an argument to be made that you also lose your focus and presence of mind to keep an action ready within the 6 second timespan. But as it is, concentration is not required to hold a readied action according to RAW, so I guess the argument can also be made that it should have no bearing on the issue, though unconsciousness is arguably not simply losing ones concentration.
FullMetalBunny: The crux of the situation is that you take the "Ready action" on your turn, and both fall unconscious and get healed before your next turn. As such you are not taking a new action (as it hasn't been your turn yet). I agree with your reasoning, but according to RAW there are no rules saying you lose your Ready action after getting back from unconsciousness, nor losing your reaction.
This is an instance which the RAW doesn't explicitly cover, however, while it is not explicitly stated, you could argue that: since, on being Incapacitated you can't take Actions or Reactions, you can't take one until the start of your next turn. This would negate the Readied action.
Of course, the actual wording from the Order of Combat section says, "... When you take a reaction, you can't take another one until the start of your next turn. ..." While the two points are not exactly the same, a reasonable DM could equate the two.
Now being incapacitated is not the same as being Unconscious, in fact being incapacitated is a bullet point listed under unconscious. So if your DM were to adopt this ruling it should apply to other incapacitating effects such as being Paralyzed, (Hold Person), Stunned, and Banishment. None of those possibilities seem overly harsh to me, though it does mean, if someone is banished, when they return one minute later, if a party is Ready to Smite them on returning, the target won't be able to, for example, Shield or Counterspell.
https://www.dndbeyond.com/compendium/rules/basic-rules/combat#TheOrderofCombat
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BDaddLy: If I understand you correctly you are saying that it seems to be a reasonable interpretation of RAW to have the incapacitated condition take away a creature's reaction for the round, despite the creature no longer being under the influence of the condition?
Personally I think it is neither RAW nor RAI, but if I were the rules designer of WOTC I would implement the ruling into the game as an effect of the unconscious condition. I will definitely use this in my own games, as it actually adds a penalty to reaching 0 HP that doesn't seem too severe.
That'd be unreasonable. The fighter didn't take a reaction so the quoted text doesn't apply. As soon as they stop being incapacitated, their reaction becomes available again.
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