Readied actions and 5ft steps

[OldTrees1]

With the Longbow, you use Rapid Shot to give yourself 2 attacks per turn. With the Longsword, you use Two-Weapon Fighting to give yourself 2 attacks per turn. Either way, the Commoner is likely dead.

Those do work, but does reliance on those to avoid this problem make those feats be feat taxes for any Fighter under 6th level?

[Troacctid]

It's not "midway through the action" when the action hasn't been finalized. They've moved. If they moved in a straight line toward a valid target, it might have been movement compatible with a Charge, but that's never guaranteed.

A bit of unnoticed muddy ground along the way will make a Charge impossible; that's way more likely than an intended target teleporting away. The game doesn't rewind to undo the movement when the character encounters some mud. A desired Charge isn't an actual Charge until all the requirements for that action, in both movement and attack, have been met.

So Alice charges 30 feet towards Bob, moving exactly her speed and triggering Bob's readied action to teleport away if Alice comes within 5 feet of him. You propose that the teleport happens before Alice can make her melee attack, and the charge retroactively becomes a move action. Okay, fine, except in that scenario, the readied action happened after the action that triggered it, which is explicitly contrary to the rules.

[Curmudgeon]

So Alice charges 30 feet towards Bob, moving exactly her speed and triggering Bob's readied action to teleport away if Alice comes within 5 feet of him. You propose that the teleport happens before Alice can make her melee attack ...

I believe the source of the confusion is this single highlighted word:

The action occurs just before the action that triggers it.

Prior to this sentence the Ready trigger is referred to as a condition, not an action. If the trigger condition is established just as Alice finishes her move action, then having Bob's readied action occur before Alice's move action means that Alice didn't move and thus didn't trigger anything.

Of course, that's nonsensical.

The alternative is that the word "action" is (necessarily) being used in two ways. From the point of view of the player using Ready, Bob's readied action is from the D&D set {standard, move, free}. However, this player has no insight into the game table actions chosen to move Alice; they don't know if it's a move action, multiple move actions, a swift action with Travel Devotion, a Charge, or something else. While their PC's (Bob's) actions are known and codified in D&D terms, Alice's D&D actions are not known to Bob's player. Accordingly, Alice's "action" that triggers Bob's readied action cannot be described in D&D terms and thus it has its usual meaning ("something done or performed; act; deed").

Bob's readied action is triggered by Alice moving within 5' of him. The readied action occurs just before the trigger condition. Alice's player continues her turn afterward.

[Anlashok]

You are a fighter with a Longbow, a Longsword, and a bag of Flour. You have BAB +5 (ranged attacks with BAB +6 can land the 2nd arrow as I said)

Give me a turn that lands a blow against "5ft step out of reach when my square or I am attacked".

You attack with the longbow. The commoner moves 5 feet. You finish your attack with the longbow (as the ready action specifies that the action continues as normal if the character is still capable of doing so and the commoner has not moved out of the longbow's range). The commoner dies.

Or you move adjacent to the target, attack, the commoner moves and you kill the commoner with an AoO because the commoner is now moving out of a square you threaten. The commoner dies.

Seems... pretty easy actually.

[OldTrees1]

You attack with the longbow. The commoner moves 5 feet. You finish your attack with the longbow (as the ready action specifies that the action continues as normal if the character is still capable of doing so and the commoner has not moved out of the longbow's range). The commoner dies.

Or you move adjacent to the target, attack, the commoner moves and you kill the commoner with an AoO because the commoner is now moving out of a square you threaten. The commoner dies.

Seems... pretty easy actually.

1) The action that continues as normal has a different target (commoner in square A) than the action you are equating it to(commoner in square B or the equally invalid target of the fly still in square A). Continuing as normal would be firing at the prior target(the now vacant square). But that cannot be completed as normal any more due to a lack of a commoner, right?
(The question I posed initially was to the precommit side of the argument, if you are on the time travel side of the argument, then the question is trivially solved by your answer)

2) I believe you forgot how 5ft steps work. The commoner is never at risk of an AoO.

Both RAW positions in this argument have serious flaws, in my humble opinion, so I urge you to evaluate this issue with caution.

[Anlashok]

1) The action that continues as normal has a different target (commoner in square A) than the action you are equating it to(commoner in square B or the equally invalid target of the fly still in square A). Continuing as normal would be firing at the prior target(the now vacant square). But that cannot be completed as normal any more due to a lack of a commoner, right?
(The question I posed initially was to the precommit side of the argument, if you are on the time travel side of the argument, then the question is trivially solved by your answer)

The action is a ranged attack against the commoner. At the end of the readied action (5 feet of movement) the commoner is still a valid target for the ranged attack, so the attack finishes. Ditto if the commoner is moving away from a melee attack and still ends up within the enemy's reach at the end of the movement.

2) I believe you forgot how 5ft steps work. The commoner is never at risk of an AoO.

This would be a problem if the commoner was making a 5 foot step. However, you can't actually ready a 5 foot step, only a standard action, move action or free action. As per the PHB (and SRD) a 5 foot step is none of those things, so the commoner is readying a move action to move 5 feet and is therefore provoking AoOs normally.

[OldTrees1]

The action is a ranged attack against the commoner. At the end of the readied action (5 feet of movement) the commoner is still a valid target for the ranged attack, so the attack finishes. Ditto if the commoner is moving away from a melee attack and still ends up within the enemy's reach at the end of the movement.


This would be a problem if the commoner was making a 5 foot step. However, you can't actually ready a 5 foot step, only a standard action, move action or free action. As per the PHB (and SRD) a 5 foot step is none of those things, so the commoner is readying a move action to move 5 feet and is therefore provoking AoOs normally.

1) Interesting, so you are taking the position to allow the Fighter to rewind time to change the direction of their shot, but are stopping short of allowing them to rewind time to change their Standard Action or even their Target/Weapon of Choice?
That's a bold move Cotton. Sounds like it has some doublethink in it but it results in a better solution than the main 2 arguments fighting in this thread. Good Luck.

2)from SRD but also true in Pathfinder

You can take a 5-foot step as part of your readied action, but only if you don’t otherwise move any distance during the round.

[The Random NPC]

Those do work, but does reliance on those to avoid this problem make those feats be feat taxes for any Fighter under 6th level?

Nah, it's such a rare occurrence that it wouldn't be a Feat tax. Besides, you can Two-Weapon Fight without the feats.

[OldTrees1]

Nah, it's such a rare occurrence that it wouldn't be a Feat tax. Besides, you can Two-Weapon Fight without the feats.

Well, under the ruling that makes it troublesome (rulings that result in finding solutions like yours) it would be a stronger and thus more frequent NPC strategy. However the untrained TWF case would be viable vs weaker enemies. The case of using untrained TWF against the situation in the OP sounds less likely but potentially viable as part of a party.

[AzraelX]

Assuming the super buffed up fighter doesn't change tactics or have reach, a ranged attack on any other number of abilities that would foil this master strategy.

This is the definition of "absurd". A high-leveled fighter with 120-foot movement speed and a sword should be able to kill an untrained unarmed defenseless commoner child. Requiring the fighter to switch to a different weapon in that scenario just to get the chance to land a hit is absurd.

The idea is bad in both theory and execution. It's made even worse by the fact anyone can do it, and "you can technically beat it if you have the right stuff and only play in one specific way and don't play your class the way it was intended" does not make it better.

I ready an action to dimension door when an opponent attacks me with a charge. I what, teleport before he moves? After the move but before the attack?

That's what I'd ask you as DM, because your stated condition is needlessly ambiguous. Let's assume your character in-game can differentiate charges from normal movement. Are you readying the action to Dimension Door when the opponent charges, or when he attacks you at the end of a charge? You can't have it both ways.

You could even specify a condition like "an opponent 15 feet away is charging towards me", which would let you react to someone who charges towards you while they are mid-charge. A charge is a movement, after all, and is meant to be treated as one (triggers AOO, etc).

This is more about defining good conditions for your readied actions.

I ready an action to pull a cord when a monster steps into a certain square dropping a piano on his head. So the monster arrives in the square, triggers my attack, but my piano drops before he does anything so he doesn't actually enter the square and my trap does nothing.

This is just a poorly worded action. You write your own readied action, so you can easily specify the timing you desire.

I ready an action to brace my spear on a charge, and am charged. However since my action occurs before the charge by your interpretation, my opponent isn't actually charging (since I can't apparently inturrupt actions only turns) and so it's impossible to deal brace damage against a charge except by making an opportunity attack while readied against a charge.

You brace your weapon for the charge. "Brace" is a mechanic that works a specific way, so there's no room for ambiguity, no matter how badly someone words their readied action. The braced weapon hits the charging character.

I ready an action to duck behind a barrier when I'm shot at. With your interpretation I ready my action, duck behind a barrier when I'm fired at, I go first so I'm not actually fired at and my opponent then gets his whole round to just walk around the barrier and shoot me.

Yeah, that's correct. You saw he was about to shoot at you, and moved out of the way. If you want to wait until the arrow is in mid-flight, then you need to use your AC to avoid it. That's what AC is for, after all.

I could say I attack a guy when he triggers a glyph of warding. He opens the chest triggering the glyph which triggers my attack. My attack kills him outright

Distinct events need to be considered separately from one another (e.g., a "charge" is not an instantaneous teleport, it's a movement across a series of squares). In this case, "opening the chest" was not your triggering action, "triggering a glyph of warding" was. The act of "opening the chest" was one distinct action, and it completed. That triggers the glyph of warding; assuming it has a visible effect or your character otherwise knows a glyph of warding was triggered, they would then attack the guy and kill him. Then the effect of the glyph of warding would complete.

If your character was aware that opening the chest would trigger the glyph of warding, you could make a case that "opening the chest" should count, but that's just another example of writing readied actions in a needlessly ambiguous way.

"Assuming he is still capable of doing so, he continues his actions once you complete your readied action."

Yeah; this can also be read as "You acted on his turn, but his turn doesn't end". Nothing suggests he should ignore your action as if it didn't just happen. It did.

But this means interrupting them midway through the action. If the readied action always occurs before the triggering action, you shouldn't be able to do that. You'd take the readied action at the start of their movement, not partway through it.

"An opponent 10 feet away moves towards me."

Looked at the text again on d20srd an have to revoke my disagreement. The RAW is as Curmugden is laying it out. Time loops, clunky causality and all, but that's what the rules are.

I wish I had read this far before replying to all the previous stuff Hopefully what I wrote already will help with the causality stuff though.

This would be a problem if the commoner was making a 5 foot step. However, you can't actually ready a 5 foot step

Except for the part where it explicitly states that you can ready a 5-foot step, and can even ready it alongside any other action.

[Curmudgeon]

Except for the part where it explicitly states that you can ready a 5-foot step, and can even ready it alongside any other action.

You've got that backward, I'm afraid. You cannot ready a 5' step. You can ready one from the {standard, move, free} action set and add a 5' step, but you can't ready (only) a 5' step.

[Boci]

This is the definition of "absurd". A high-leveled fighter with 120-foot movement speed and a sword should be able to kill an untrained unarmed defenseless commoner child.

What's absurd is that you are insisting that the already unlikely scenario of a high level fighter vs. an unarmed commoner child be played with full rules, initiative rolled and proper action sequences. Dunno about, but in my games the rules would be skipped over the rule for such a scenario.

Once again: don't like this use of readied actions, don't use the house rule. Just stop telling people they are doing it wrong if they think it could be neat to include.

[AzraelX]

You cannot ready a 5' step.

Sure you can (although I get what you mean, that the ready action doesn't explicitly include it, which is true).

The normal RAW reasoning is that the handful of free actions listed in the rulebook are stated to be "some common free actions", which means the list is not exhaustive nor is it intended to be. This is also demonstrated by the fact that many other examples of free actions are given elsewhere in the text (making an opposed grapple check, releasing a pinned opponent, guiding a mount, handling your animal companion, etc). While each DM can decide what actions are simple enough to qualify as a free action, and they are likely to make different determinations, the "not an action" actions are specifically stated to be less demanding than a free action (for the benefit of the player), and would necessarily qualify as actions which can be taken as a free action (which you could do regardless, such as by sighing while you 5-foot step, or licking your lips, or taking any other trivial action that qualifies as free).

The hyper-pedantic RAW reasoning is that "readying a 5-foot step" is equivalent to "readying a ready action, which is readied to speak under the condition that I am unconscious, and taking a 5-foot step before the readied ready action". There are infinitely trivial ways to make an equivalent statement. If someone ever says they're readying a 5-foot step, and your DM is truly too hyper-pedantic to stomach it, then he can substitute it with a longer equivalent statement that has an identical meaning; although it makes no sense to only ready a 5-foot step, since there should always be something you could be doing alongside your 5-foot step that's to your strategic advantage (attack, total defense, get an item, etc). Still, it's perfectly within the capabilities of the player to only take a 5-foot step with their readied action if they really want to throw away their standard action, even by the most hyper-pedantic RAW reading.

The common sense reasoning is that if you can use a free action to "take a 5-foot step while speaking a silent vowel sound", then you can also "take a 5-foot step" with that same action.

The approach you take really just comes down to how much of a complete jackass the DM wants to be, but no matter what, it's perfectly within the rules to only take a 5-foot step (as a free action, or alongside a standard action which does nothing) with your readied action (regardless of it being a poor decision for your character in most circumstances).

the already unlikely scenario of a high level fighter vs. an unarmed commoner child

Yes, commoners are never killed by higher level PCs or NPCs. It's very rare for towns to be raided or villagers killed, and the BBEG certainly never mistreats people without class levels. What you're saying isn't absurd at all.

played with full rules

This isn't the homebrew forum. "Full rules" is called "RAW", and it's what people primarily discuss in this forum.

in my games the rules would be skipped over

That's interesting. You can skip all the rules, really; no one can stop you. It's highly unrelated to this thread though.

don't use the house rule

Of course not. It's absurd

[Curmudgeon]

... it's perfectly within the rules to only take a 5-foot step with your readied action (regardless of it being a poor decision for your character in most circumstances).

Still not right. If your opponent has some ability which triggers on any enemy action, then a 5' step (officially not an action) would not trigger it. The action (free or otherwise) you're required to use with Ready in order to take that 5' step would trigger the opponent's ability.

These details matter, in a game as full of details as D&D.

[AzraelX]

True enough, thanks for pointing that out. I worded that statement poorly. It's been corrected now

[Boci]

It's very rare for towns to be raided or villagers killed, and the BBEG certainly never mistreats people without class levels.

Since those things typically don't take place on screen,

This isn't the homebrew forum. "Full rules" is called "RAW", and it's what people primarily discuss in this forum.

There is an impressive amount of wrong in so few words:

1. There is a fair bit of leeway between "Homebrew" and "Full rules". A DM making a call like here for example, belongs in this forum, not homebrew, which is for more substantial creations.
2. Yes, primarily. As in, not exclusively.
3. Very few people play full RAW. Sooner or later, most groups encounter something which they would like to tweak or change, and this forum is perfectly capable of handling such a premise.

That's interesting. You can skip all the rules, really; no one can stop you. It's highly unrelated to this thread though.

Its highly related, because you are highlighting a problem that won't matter under my handling of a PC decided to chop up a commoner, and whilst I cannot speak for DMs as a whole, I can say I am not unique in this approach.

But even if you want initiative and proper actions for a PC vs. a commoner, you can just decide the commoner doesn't use this tactic. Why not? Same reason they aren't proficient with any martial weapons. They have no training, would want to risk a maneuver which requires such precise timing.

Really your problems with this rule speak more to your inability to handle it than any absurdity with the rule itself.

Of course not. It's absurd

Well done, I guess?

[AzraelX]

Its highly related, because you are highlighting a problem that won't matter under my handling of a PC decided to chop up a commoner

It's highly unrelated, because that was merely one example which demonstrates that what you're advocating is bad game design: You have to hand-wave encounters where one side should certainly win, because otherwise they couldn't.

The fact is that you continue to focus on the specific example of "a high-level fighter versus a commoner", even though that example was used to demonstrate how extremely broken it is. Every less-extreme example is also applicable.

Hint: If the defenseless commoner can use this tactic against your fighter to prevent him from ever landing a hit, then so can every other enemy in the game, because they are even better than a defenseless commoner.

So while you may claim to ignore the rules and encounters themselves whenever there's a difference of at least a few levels, the problem becomes worse—not better—when the enemies doing it are a higher level than you instead of being weak and defenseless.

I'm under the impression you're just theory crafting here, and haven't actually playtested it; or you "use it" but never actually use readied actions, so it never comes up, and thus you don't really use it (judging by "you can just decide the commoner doesn't use this tactic", lol). Anyone with any experience with readied actions would know that the game is neither designed nor balanced to function the way you've described, and what you're suggesting offers to add nothing to the game.

I mean, unless you consider "hand-waving encounters that could have been fun" and "purposely handicapping enemies by not allowing them to use readied actions to perform legitimate tactics which you only restrict because your houserule breaks the game" and "gives PCs a way to be extraordinarily cheesy and unhittable in some situations even if they have no gear" to be worthwhile merits.

Really your problems with this rule speak more to your inability to handle it than any absurdity with the rule itself.

No, I already acknowledged that if you change all the rules and heavily restrict the gameplay possibilities and ban legitimate tactics normally allowed to characters, you can restore some semblance of balance. The question is: Why would you go out of your way to change this rule, and make all these other changes while scrambling to accommodate it, just to purposely detract from your campaign? A lot of negative aspects of this have been listed, even by yourself, but not a single benefit has been suggested.

The reason no one wants to "handle" your house rule is because it adds nothing to the game, and reduces the content which can be enjoyed by the players, both in tactics and the encounters themselves. Considering the importance placed on combat (most of the rulebook is dedicated to it, more than any other topic), making arbitrary changes just to reduce its depth is not desired by anyone.

I feel like you've taken it personally that multiple people have called your proposition "absurd". I hope you know that it isn't because you're collectively disliked, and isn't about you at all, so you shouldn't take it personally; it's merely the result of your proposed house rule being bad by any objective measure.

Basically, the only reason it's being called absurd by people is because it is absurd. Please try not to take such offense, as no personal offense was intended.

I guess I should just fallback to an earlier statement already made:

Just be acutely aware when you read this thread that some people will argue over something and try to convince you of it because it's "their position" and it's "the way they originally understood it", not because it's right. This problem tends to permeate internet forums especially.

Well done

Thanks! I appreciate the words of encouragement

[Boci]

It's highly unrelated, because that was merely one example which demonstrates that what you're advocating is bad game design: You have to hand-wave encounters where one side should certainly win, because otherwise they couldn't.

No, this comes back to you being unable to handle the rules. I already explained the other side could break it by readying their own action and forcing an initiative reset. Plus if that was too inelegant I also offered a compromise of a less than 100% but greater than 0% chance to avoid the attack.

The reason no one wants to "handle" your house rule is because it adds nothing to the game, and reduces the content which can be enjoyed by the players, both in tactics and the encounters themselves.

Okay thank you, this helps clarify things. I had been wondering about your position and where it comes from, and this helps clarify how it came about, you've been selectively reading this thread and ignoring the people who were open to a different take on readied actions like StreamOfTheSky and OldTrees1. You were arguing with charcoalninja about readied actions, implying the unit you claim above may not be a thing.

I'll say it again, although it didn't seem to work the first time, there's no right or wrong answer. Happy with readied actions as they are? Want to tweak them? Both are equally good. The problems is when you start trying to claim your opinion, whichever is it, is the only valid one. Which is what you are doing.

I hope you understand that me disagreeing with you about the way I play my game isn't personal, its just that I believe your opinions on the subject matter are pretty much irrelevant when compared to mine.

Now are you going to misquote any of this, or focus on the easy one?

Thanks! I appreciate the words of encouragement

Do you think doing this is clever?

Becomes "doing this is clever" very quickly.

[AzraelX]

No, this comes back to you being unable to handle the rules.

Already responded to:

No, I already acknowledged that if you change all the rules and heavily restrict the gameplay possibilities and ban legitimate tactics normally allowed to characters, you can restore some semblance of balance.

1) Note that this is just me repeating the ways you gave of "handling" the house rule, which boil down to "don't really use the house rule, because it doesn't work".

2) I can handle the rules, because luckily the rule-makers tried to create a semblance of balance in their game by excluding things that were too absurd

there's no right or wrong answer.

Yes, there is. Your original question:

can their opponent take a 5ft step after them, or do they need to finish their attack first?

This is not "what house rules do you use in this situation". It's clearly asking how it works by RAW.

Thus there is a right answer, and you've long-since been given it. Randomly bringing up house rules is, again, highly irrelevant to this thread.

The problems is when you start trying to claim your opinion, whichever is it, is the only valid one.

The problem is when you erroneously believe that game balance is somehow a matter of opinion, which it isn't. A game can be tested and demonstrated to be objectively imbalanced, no opinions necessary. The fact that perfect play against a high-level fast-moving sword fighter results in him being unable to land a single hit, regardless of his proximity or advantage or your gear/level/ability in comparison, is objective proof of imbalance. Sorry, this is a "No Opinion Zone"; additionally, removing legitimate balanced tactics from the game without any benefit in exchange is both (1) indefensible, and (2) arbitrarily changing the balance of the game, which again, is a bad thing.

Here's a parallel example of game balance that perfectly mirrors this conversation, to help you understand how "opinions" don't factor into this discussion:

You: "I PLAY WITH A HOUSE RULE THAT SAYS - WHEN YOU TAKE A FULL-ATTACK ACTION, YOU JUST IGNORE YOUR BAB AND INSTEAD KEEP ROLLING ATTACKS UNTIL YOU MISS ONE - BUT IF YOU DONT MISS THEN YOU CAN KEEP ATTACKING FOREVER UNTIL THEY DIE!"

Me: "Well that's not balanced, and clearly isn't intended by the game mechanics. Among other things, this can result in instances where attacks keep happening forever because the opponent has some form of damage reduction that's not being overcome. Not to mention situations where any weak enemy (damage-wise) who can overcome your AC will potentially kill you without any chance of a response. This house rule puts an absurd level of importance on pumping AC, as meeting a single enemy who can overcome it by a decent margin is likely to kill you in the first round, regardless of your health or other usual mitigating factors that would balance these exchanges. This doesn't work in either direction, and any DM who does this is making their game unbalanced for no benefit whatsoever."

You: "THATS JUST YOUR OPINION SO ITS IRRELEVANT - AND ITS ONLY BECAUSE YOU CANT HANDLE THE AWESOMENESS OF MY RULES - MY RULE IS EQUALLY VALID AS RAW SO DONT DISS IT DUDE - I MEAN LIKE, ATTACKS WONT KEEP GOING UNTIL THEY KILL A PC CUZ ILL JUST MAKE A WEAK ENEMY STOP ATTACKING IF THE PLAYER IS GONNA DIE, OBVIOUSLY - LOL DUH, LEARN TO HANDLE THE RULE"

Me: "So your players are never in any danger, because all your enemies will randomly break-off their attacks if they're about to kill someone? That seems awfully arbitrar-"

You: "I SAID ITS CUZ YOU CANT HANDLE IT OKAY?? GET YOUR OPINIONS AWAY FROM ME"

Me: "But it's not an opinion, this is literally unbala-"

You: "NO ITS AN OPINION SHHHH"

Me: "...What about the specific examples, factual points, and clear reasoning that was already given to help you understand why this doesn't work in practi-"

You: "SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Game balance is not purely a matter of opinion, sorry. This is especially absurd in a thread about the RAW ruling.

A multitude of objective factual points have been made to explain to you some of the extreme faults in your "house rule", along with examples that illustrate why they do not work in theory or in practice. Again, there can be no way you actually "use" this ruling, because it simply doesn't work and diminishes the gameplay in the process (as multiple features and intended gameplay mechanics are excluded, by your own theory-crafting).

And again, while many many negative aspects have been listed by myself, others, and even by yourself (not least of which is the reduction to depth of combat which you yourself advocated), not a single positive aspect has been mentioned at anytime by anyone. I'm not sure why you keep glossing over this fact, aside from the fact you don't have an answer. You apparently have no reason to defend this flawed position except for the fact that it's "yours".

I believe your opinions on the subject matter are pretty much irrelevant when compared to mine.

Luckily, the RAW isn't my opinion, and neither is the fact that your incorrect ruling is absurd (if we're defining absurd as "does not comply to the rules of game balance").

Also, if you consider anything resembling a differing viewpoint to be "irrelevant" compared to your own, then a discussion forum probably isn't the best environment for you, especially not if you're going to simultaneously ask the community to explain the RAW to you out of the goodness of their hearts.

The only "opinion" involved here is whether or not you personally believe that there's nothing wrong with arbitrarily imbalancing the game. If you believe that, that's your opinion, so no one can tell you you're "wrong" (although they'll likely try to explain to you the benefits of maintaining some semblance of game balance). Whether or not your house rule is balanced (e.g., "as equally valid as RAW") is not an opinion, because balance is a fairly objective condition which can be easily disproved by counterexample.

Now are you going to misquote any of this

Nah, you give me enough absurd things to quote without me needing to take anything out of context Please don't be mad about the fact you said something sarcastic and rude, and I quoted it out of context to make it appear good-natured. That was my attempt at making you look better, not worse. You're certainly not making it an easy task though.

[Sacrieur]

AzraelX is right. This discussion is absurd.

The thread is full of useful information and helpful explanations about a mechanic that can be fairly confusing. By initiating and then perpetuating this pointless off-topic argument, you're making the thread content increasingly irrelevant. This makes it increasingly unhelpful to the vast majority of people. Most people don't want a homebrewed solution. They want to understand the rules.

Your thread could actually be a helpful resource for other confused players and DMs if you would just stop filling it with meaningless irrelevant arguing. Please think of the community.

[Boci]

Okay, at this point (or more likely several posts/pages ago) I don't feel that debating with AzraelX and Sacrieur any further will be productive. As I believe is in line with forum etiquette I will make some final points on the nation of such discussions, then you may have the last word if you wish.

I am going to test this houserule in my games, probably with the 50% mischance compromise I mentioned to OldTrees1. Worst case scenario, you are right, its absurd and terrible, and I'll stop using it. That doesn't seem like a terrible outcome to me.

Yes, there is. Your original question:

This is not "what house rules do you use in this situation". It's clearly asking how it works by RAW.

Thus there is a right answer, and you've long-since been given it. Randomly bringing up house rules is, again, highly irrelevant to this thread.

You right that this was initially a RAW question, but your belief that:

"Is this RAW? No? Okay. Would it be a valid houserule?"

isn't a valid direction for a thread to go is questionable at best and to me at least a little baffling.

Nah, you give me enough absurd things to quote without me needing to take anything out of context Please don't be mad about the fact you said something sarcastic and rude, and I quoted it out of context to make it appear good-natured.

Which would be a pretty good justification, had quoting "well done, I guess?" as "well done", been the first time you did this, but it wasn't. You fiddled "Once again: don't like this use of readied actions, don't use the house rule" which was neither sarcastic, nor rude, into "don't use this house rule". My follow was certainly sarcastic, mainly because I had no idea how to really respond, as I've never seen a poster do that before and was taken about as to whether this was a joke, a reference, or actually thought it was clever.

You: "I PLAY WITH A HOUSE RULE THAT SAYS - WHEN YOU TAKE A FULL-ATTACK ACTION, YOU JUST IGNORE YOUR BAB AND INSTEAD KEEP ROLLING ATTACKS UNTIL YOU MISS ONE - BUT IF YOU DONT MISS THEN YOU CAN KEEP ATTACKING FOREVER UNTIL THEY DIE!"

Me: "Well that's not balanced, and clearly isn't intended by the game mechanics. Among other things, this can result in instances where attacks keep happening forever because the opponent has some form of damage reduction that's not being overcome. Not to mention situations where any weak enemy (damage-wise) who can overcome your AC will potentially kill you without any chance of a response. This house rule puts an absurd level of importance on pumping AC, as meeting a single enemy who can overcome it by a decent margin is likely to kill you in the first round, regardless of your health or other usual mitigating factors that would balance these exchanges. This doesn't work in either direction, and any DM who does this is making their game unbalanced for no benefit whatsoever."

This to me shows that you do not understand the rules nearly as much as you think it does.
1. In a high powered game, this could be a good rule. Casters are still gona blow martial out of the water, and they tend to not care about modifications to the full attack mechanic.
2. Whilst the rule places more importance on AC, it also places an importance on miss chances, and other ways to negates attacks, likes wings of cover. Basically it turns the game into rocket tag (if the DM uses monsters that full attack, which they may not, in which case only martial is buffed, hardly a bad thing in a lot of game) which some groups like.
3. Objecting based on a scenario of damage reduction completely negating an attack is a little silly, as that's a very rare incident, and even if it did ever occur, just stop attacking, since you would have eventually missed anyway.
4. This also isn't always going to be a buff. Between haste/a speed weapon, two weapon fighting along with that elven dual scimitar PrC from Eberron, frenzy, other buffs, rapid shot, mongoose dance, time stands still and the other elven PrC from ToB, this may be a nerf to some high level melee builds, as they can skip out on 6+ attacks at full BAB if they roll poorly on their first.

So yeah, no, even when you construct an ideal example of the un-viable house rule, its potentially viable in the right game, or is problematic for reasons different to those you imagined.

The thread is full of useful information and helpful explanations about a mechanic that can be fairly confusing. By initiating and then perpetuating this pointless off-topic argument, you're making the thread content increasingly irrelevant. This makes it increasingly unhelpful to the vast majority of people. Most people don't want a homebrewed solution. They want to understand the rules.

Your thread could actually be a helpful resource for other confused players and DMs if you would just stop filling it with meaningless irrelevant arguing. Please think of the community.

I am thinking of the community. Specifically I am thinking they are smart enough to tell the difference between what has been RAW and what has been my houserule, since precisely 0 people by my count have so far confused the latter for the former.

[AzraelX]

Your thread could actually be a helpful resource for other confused players and DMs if you would just stop filling it with meaningless irrelevant arguing. Please think of the community.

Good point. I naturally have rebuttals for the points made in the previous post, but rather than continuing the argument by correcting false assumptions and faulty theory-crafting, I'm just going to leave it at that.

@OP, I hope your playtesting turns out well for you, as it seems you're already heavily invested in your idea. If your table likes pure roleplaying more than rules-based gameplay, I'm sure you can make it work. Good luck.

[Droopy McCool]

Spoiler

Show

Here's a parallel example of game balance that perfectly mirrors this conversation, to help you understand how "opinions" don't factor into this discussion:

You: "I PLAY WITH A HOUSE RULE THAT SAYS - WHEN YOU TAKE A FULL-ATTACK ACTION, YOU JUST IGNORE YOUR BAB AND INSTEAD KEEP ROLLING ATTACKS UNTIL YOU MISS ONE - BUT IF YOU DONT MISS THEN YOU CAN KEEP ATTACKING FOREVER UNTIL THEY DIE!"

Me: "Well that's not balanced, and clearly isn't intended by the game mechanics. Among other things, this can result in instances where attacks keep happening forever because the opponent has some form of damage reduction that's not being overcome. Not to mention situations where any weak enemy (damage-wise) who can overcome your AC will potentially kill you without any chance of a response. This house rule puts an absurd level of importance on pumping AC, as meeting a single enemy who can overcome it by a decent margin is likely to kill you in the first round, regardless of your health or other usual mitigating factors that would balance these exchanges. This doesn't work in either direction, and any DM who does this is making their game unbalanced for no benefit whatsoever."

You: "THATS JUST YOUR OPINION SO ITS IRRELEVANT - AND ITS ONLY BECAUSE YOU CANT HANDLE THE AWESOMENESS OF MY RULES - MY RULE IS EQUALLY VALID AS RAW SO DONT DISS IT DUDE - I MEAN LIKE, ATTACKS WONT KEEP GOING UNTIL THEY KILL A PC CUZ ILL JUST MAKE A WEAK ENEMY STOP ATTACKING IF THE PLAYER IS GONNA DIE, OBVIOUSLY - LOL DUH, LEARN TO HANDLE THE RULE"

Me: "So your players are never in any danger, because all your enemies will randomly break-off their attacks if they're about to kill someone? That seems awfully arbitrar-"

You: "I SAID ITS CUZ YOU CANT HANDLE IT OKAY?? GET YOUR OPINIONS AWAY FROM ME"

Me: "But it's not an opinion, this is literally unbala-"

You: "NO ITS AN OPINION SHHHH"

Me: "...What about the specific examples, factual points, and clear reasoning that was already given to help you understand why this doesn't work in practi-"

You: "SHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"

Game balance is not purely a matter of opinion, sorry. This is especially absurd in a thread about the RAW ruling.

I hope you don't mind, AzraelX, but I simply must sig this.

[AzraelX]

I hope you don't mind, AzraelX, but I simply must sig this.

Not at all And feel free to reduce it as you see fit.

[Droopy McCool]

Sigged.

McCool

[Boci]

Okay so seeing this thread on the front page made me interested in our final disagreement with AzraelX, because whilst he's not wrong about the sentiment, I do think his opinion on what would break the game is wrong, so I made this thread.

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showt...e-full-attacks