Readying actions, breaking charges.

[Lost in books]

Playground, help!

1. Can a charge be interrupted?
2. What happens if it is? Does the charger loose the attack or changes the target?
3. Can you hold an action in preparation for an encounter? i.e. before initiative is rolled.

The scenario is as follows:

The group is crossing an open plain. The tall grass could hide an ambush of any type. The tank protecting the wizard readies (or holds, or delay?) an action to interpose himself between a possible charge attack against the wizard and take his attack of oportunity. How would you resolve this?

Second. Same scenario but with readying a counterspell/dispel?

[Diarmuid]

You can only ready a standard, Move, or Free action per the SRD. I would likely update that to include a Swift if you so wanted.

If you have not already moved, you can include a 5' step as part of your readied action.

Depending on the layout of the battlefield, the Fighter could certainly ready to step in front of the wizard and intercept a charge.

What he cant do, is have that as his "standing action" before Initiative is rolled. When not in Initiative, you cannot take special intiative actions. If your group is surprised, the ambushers will get their surprise round and then intiative will move along as normal.

[Lost in books]

ok, so only after initiative is rolled can anyone use their readied actions, and if they go after enemy they can't use it, correct?

So let's say the tank does beat the charger on initiative, does his movement in front of the charger stops the charger?

Does the charge gets ruined (charger looses the benefit of the charge?) since he can't reach the intended target? or the Tank becomes the new target and the charger can attack the new target with all bonuses?

[Diarmuid]

It depends how strict you want to get with your reading of the Charge rules.

Reading it as strictly as is possible, you have to define the target for your charge when you begin the action. If, at any point in your charge, you no longer have a clear path to the nearest square from which you could attack your target from, you can no longer charge.

If your battlefield started out like this:

_ _ _ F _ _
X _ _ _ W _
_ _ _ _ _ _

And the fighter (F) beat X in initiative and readied the action to block his path if charged the wizard, when X tried to charge the battlefield would end up looking like this:

_ _ _ _ _ _
X _ _ F W _
_ _ _ _ _ _

And X's charge would be foiled. Charging is a special full round action, so by the strictest reading of the rule, X would be done with his turn at this point (still using a Swift or Free if he had one to use).

F would be placed just before X in the initative order and would be able to take an attack on X after his 5' step.

A bit looser reading would allow X to change his target and attack F using the charge bonuses based on the new positioning on the battlefield.

Edit - If the ambushers gained a surprise round on the group (being hidden, or other various ways), then they would get a Surprise round where they could take a move or a standard action only before the normal Initiative order is sorted out.

[Lost in books]

This is exactly what I am looking for in the sense of "interruption" versus "innability" to even start the charge. You see when we ready an action we say, "when someone starts casting a spell" (which means a listen check to see if we hear and then spellcraft to even know if they are casting something) So the action has to start and it just gets interrupted. So In the example of charge I think it will look like this instead:
starts
_ _ _ _ _F
X_ _ _ _ W
_ _ _ _ _ _

ends
_ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ X F W
_ _ _ _ _ _

Because in order to stop the charge you need to know someone is charging. Just like in football the momentum carries you. And the fighter could not know who is charging until they commited to the attack. "Oh look that minotaur... running.. nope.. definetly charging the wizard... Look out!!!"

So I don't know how the DM will rule this yet but if the combatants ended this way is there any rule anywhere that says the charger just got intercepted and looses the atack action? or at least the attack bonus?

This also applies to a leap attacker since the tank protecting the wizard can jump up "kind of a martial movie, or the scene in the matrix Neo vs Agent" and the leap attacker can't go back to original square after jumping. Makes more sense they clash in midair and land in the square that the fighter tang intercepted the charger.

My reasoning behind this is that if any creature is in (or in this case gets in the way) the line of charge, you can't charge.

What is the most common sense? if there are no rules precedent?

[Diarmuid]

I think the rules are pretty clear. Strict reading would say that you no longer have "clear path" to your target, but that you have declared your action and have commited the "special full round action" to what you were doing.

Your charge is foiled and you are now done. As I said, a generous DM would allow the charger to attack the fighter with the charging bonuses, but the rules do not account for that in any way.

For Leap attack, I have no idea. The fighter is now standing where the leaper would have landed, but you're not allowed to move into/through occupied squares. Again, a strict reading would probably have the leaper bounce off the fighter's square and end up with the fighter between him and the wizard.

If looking to make that a little more interesting/cinematic, you could have either or both make some combinations of modified Reflex/Balance checks to determine who stays on their feet and/or takes some amount of damage.

[ericgrau]

1. Sure, anything can.
2. The rules aren't clear. Either you let anyone with a readied action get invincibility against all charges in general or you let the charger change his future actions in response. It gets worse because next people can ready actions against attacks to act and 5 foot away to safety; making anyone with a readied action invincible to melee attacks from one person. IMO that doesn't make any sense and the charger or attacker should be allowed to change his remaining actions in response. There is a similar situation with overrun where the overruner is expressly allowed to change his remaining actions if the foe lets him by and prevents the overrun that way. I'd chalk this situation up to the readied action rules not covering everything, leading to silliness if you get too strict about them.
3. You could ready your action for a trigger, such as the enemy opening a door, before the fight starts. It would resolve before round 1, more or less creating the same thing as a surprise round for everybody with readied actions. Held actions do not have triggers and can't interrupt so at minimum 1 foe would get to act before you. If you ruled it that way then someone with a held action would always go second. But IMO holding an action should have no effect and you should roll and act on initiative normally.

Readying an action to counterspell or to counterspell with a dispel is a specific written use of a readied action, so it's certainly allowed and the caster can't do anything about it by RAW. It involves a spellcraft check which implies the action occurs after the caster starts to perform the spell gestures but before the spell resolves. Which gives a good reason why the caster can't simply stop and do something else.

[Lost in books]

HMMMMM... I never thought of it that way. I know we where not looking for cheese or doing something like that. That is why the warrior wanted to get in the way and hopefully survive the charge or disrupt it to protect the wizard. But I never thought of the wizard readying an action to step away from the charger. When you put it that way it really opens up to abuse.

So no readied actions before initiative is rolled seems the most common sense way to do it. After initiative is rolled if the warrior beats the charger he can intercept or get in the way foiling the charge and saving the wizard. And the wizard can ready an action as well, if he beats the charger's initiative.

But reading the rules of charging, it now opened up some cheese... it made me laugh at the picture in my head. The rules say if a creature occupies any space in the line of the charge you can't charge. So the wizard could command his familiar to perch at the end of his staff in effect being on the next 5' space as he keeps the staff pointed at any warrior/barbarian/ looking types!

"Try to charge me fools!!! Toady is in the way and will lick your eyeballs!"

Or what about a ranger with a bag of rats throwing them as a ready action to foil any charge.
"Frenzied berserk leap attack? no problem, smash into this rat and you just looked like a ballerina!"

Or what if the Wizard never bathes building a cloud of flies surrounding him, such a bad cloud that there is bound to be at least one fly 360 degrees at all times!

Oh my this is ridiculous! But funny, in a sick way... because it looks like some of these by RAW could work!

[Curmudgeon]

I think the rules are pretty clear. Strict reading would say that you no longer have "clear path" to your target, but that you have declared your action and have commited the "special full round action" to what you were doing.

Your charge is foiled and you are now done.
I think the rules are pretty clear, too, but you're using a house rule here instead of the RAW, because there are no declared actions in most of D&D. (Exceptions where the rules do stipulate declared actions include Stunning Fist and Power Attack feats.) A player starting to do something which could be multiple D&D actions is only required to disambiguate and pin things down to specific actions when it would make a difference under the rules. A 5' step and moving 5' as a move action are both possibilities when the player moves their miniature one square. That ambiguity could continue after attacking an enemy once, too; that one is explicit in the rules.
Deciding between an Attack or a Full Attack

After your first attack, you can decide to take a move action instead of making your remaining attacks, depending on how the first attack turns out. After attacking the enemy once, what the PC does next may pin down the specific actions they've used. If they swing again it had to be a 5' step and the start of a full attack action. If they move again it most likely was a (split) move action with the Spring Attack feat.

In the case of an intended charge that ends up being thwarted, the action obviously can't be the Charge special full-round action if that is impossible under the rules. But equally obviously the (intended) charger has indeed moved, so they don't get to go back and restart their turn. Instead, their movement (which isn't part of a charge) has to be one of the D&D actions which are actually allowed under the circumstances: probably a single or double move. After the interruption they can continue their turn. Their options would be considerably diminished at that point, but they do have freedom to choose anything that's legally possible for the rest of their turn.

That's quite a bit different from being stuck trying to follow a previously declared action using your house rule.

[Firechanter]

There are about a dozen ways to ruin a charge, and some time ago I collected a good deal of them here:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showpost.php?p=10475251&postcount=71

Enjoy!

[Lost in books]

Thank you all. It makes sense. But... what do you think about a paranoid squishy wizard with a ten foot pole and some small animal or familiar at the other end as he brandishes in front of him? LOL

[TuggyNE]

Thank you all. It makes sense. But... what do you think about a paranoid squishy wizard with a ten foot pole and some small animal or familiar at the other end as he brandishes in front of him? LOL

I would tell him to drop the XP bomb (aka familiar) and grab Abrupt Jaunt, which has the happy feature of requiring specialization in Conjuration. (In particular, a 10' pole plus small animal does nothing to help against a Large foe with a reach weapon.)

[Diarmuid]

I think the rules are pretty clear, too, but you're using a house rule here instead of the RAW, because there are no declared actions in most of D&D. (Exceptions where the rules do stipulate declared actions include Stunning Fist and Power Attack feats.) A player starting to do something which could be multiple D&D actions is only required to disambiguate and pin things down to specific actions when it would make a difference under the rules. A 5' step and moving 5' as a move action are both possibilities when the player moves their miniature one square. That ambiguity could continue after attacking an enemy once, too; that one is explicit in the rules. After attacking the enemy once, what the PC does next may pin down the specific actions they've used. If they swing again it had to be a 5' step and the start of a full attack action. If they move again it most likely was a (split) move action with the Spring Attack feat.

In the case of an intended charge that ends up being thwarted, the action obviously can't be the Charge special full-round action if that is impossible under the rules. But equally obviously the (intended) charger has indeed moved, so they don't get to go back and restart their turn. Instead, their movement (which isn't part of a charge) has to be one of the D&D actions which are actually allowed under the circumstances: probably a single or double move. After the interruption they can continue their turn. Their options would be considerably diminished at that point, but they do have freedom to choose anything that's legally possible for the rest of their turn.

That's quite a bit different from being stuck trying to follow a previously declared action using your house rule.

So you're saying if you start a Charge and dont get to finish your Charge that you never actually Charged to begin with? That just doesnt make any sense to me. That'd be like saying you cast a spell, someone attacks to interrupt and you get to now do something different instead.

Charging is a special full round action. On your initiative you dont simply say you move your speed, move your speed again, and then get to make an attack with +2 bonus while taking a -2 to your AC. You would say "I charge X", now you check if you have a "Clear Path" to X and you could move in a straight line up to double your speed (minimum 10 feet) and make a single attack with +2 to hit.

If your path becomes not clear at any point in your movement, your action has been interrupted and you've already spent a full rounds worth of actions.

I'm not sure what you are considering a house rule there. Your interpretation of giving actions back or changing them mid-action seems much more "house-ruley" to me.

@Ericgrau - Readying making you able to foil Charges doesnt seem like the worst thing on the planet. You're basically trading your action for theirs, and it's only available if you can get out of their Charge range or behind come kind of cover/barrier with your Readied action.

[Curmudgeon]

So you're saying if you start a Charge and dont get to finish your Charge that you never actually Charged to begin with?
You didn't execute a Charge; you only intended to do so.

If your path becomes not clear at any point in your movement, your action has been interrupted and you've already spent a full rounds worth of actions.
You've executed the Charge special full-round action if you've moved in a straight path to the nearest space from which you could reach your opponent, and made a single melee attack against them. If you haven't done that then you have not performed a Charge. You think that if you move 5' and discover that the next square has some difficult terrain that you didn't see previously, then your turn is over? You'd need to show us that in the rules, because I don't know of any part of the RAW which says such a thing.

Your interpretation of giving actions back or changing them mid-action seems much more "house-ruley" to me.
Because the game rarely uses declared actions, there is nothing to "give back". The rules do not require you to commit to a course of action; instead, you can do whatever you like during your turn, as long as it's legal under the rules. It's useful to remember the basic rules of the game, like this from page 5 of Player's Handbook:
WHAT CHARACTERS CAN DO

A character can try to do anything you can imagine, just as long as it fits the scene the DM describes. If a Charge turns out to be illegal (i.e., does not fit within the rules in the scene the DM describes) then you cannot take the Charge special full-round action, but you can take some other action(s) instead to try to accomplish your goal for the character.