Quickstepper: An abuse of RAW and common RAI

[Kennisiou]

So there's an infamous RAW abuse with White Raven Tactics from ToB. Basically, by RAW you are your own ally, so when White Raven Tactics gives an ally a turn immediately after your current one as a swift action, you can by RAW use it on yourself. This is, still by RAW, stopped from going infinite by the fact that you may only recover maneuvers once per round. Period. So you WRT, recover it as a Warblade, take your second turn, WRT again, take a third turn, and your combo is over with WRT not available until you recover it. I figured that given the power level of a game I'm currently running (got a support artificer going kinda nuts, factotum breaking action economy already, and a sorceror doing some really strong stuff) it's probably not going to hurt things for me to allow a newbie friend who's playing a warblade to be able to WRT himself to get more damage output. For that to be the strongest thing anyone in the party is doing our artificer and sorceror would have to be stuck in an AMF with no way out or something.

So I got to thinking "what is the strongest thing that could happen as a result of my ruling with RAW here?" And the answer involves how I interpreted a feat where RAW is vague. Enter: adaptive style.

So by RAW adaptive style causes you to switch out maneuvers as a full round action. It doesn't say that maneuvers spent are recovered or that they're unavailable. It's a common ruling that adaptive style causes the maneuvers you swap in to be immediately available -- this makes sense because otherwise you'd spend a full round action getting a new set of maneuvers only to have to recover a bunch of them anyways. In the past I had a Swordsage in our group who used adaptive style multiple times in a round (I forget how he was taking multiple turns) and I ruled that the maneuvers being reprepared does not count as recovery. Neither of these rulings are against RAW, but they are a place where RAW is silent so DMs could rule differently.

So under this ruling you can swift action WRT yourself, Adaptive Style to full round action it back, and then take another turn where you do it all again. What good is this, right? Infinite delay of game until the DM smacks you with a book? Well if you've read the title you probably figured it out, but there's another action type you can take every round once a round: a 5-foot step.

So, anyone have huge gaping holes they can poke in these rulings that prevent infinite 5-foot steps (RAW holes, not "no sane DM would allow that" holes). Also, anyone have anything they can do to turn infinite 5-foot steps into something nuts? Best I've come up with is that a level 15 sword sage could spend martial study feats to get WRT, take Balance on the Sky stance, and would have essentially instant mobility to anywhere he can physically reach by airwalking without tiring since tiring is based on time spent travelling and not distance travelled and it all happens in six seconds. Seems like it's probably fine power-level wise for a game involving t1-t2 classes by that point. Anyone able to think of anything else absurd to do with infinite 5-foot steps?

[TrueJordan]

In what way are you your own ally?
The dictionary defines ally, the noun, as:
1. One united to another by treaty or league; — usually applied to sovereigns or states; a confederate.
2.Anything associated with another as a helper
3-5. other uses that don't apply here (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ally#Noun)

Note the use of the word 'another' in those definitions.

[Kennisiou]

In what way are you your own ally?
The dictionary defines ally, the noun, as:
1. One united to another by treaty or league; — usually applied to sovereigns or states; a confederate.
2.Anything associated with another as a helper
3-5. other uses that don't apply here (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ally#Noun)

Note the use of the word 'another' in those definitions.

By RAW you are your own ally. Allies are yourself and anyone whose attitude towards you is friendly or better. It's things like this that allow bardic music to work on the bard playing the music, as well as a number of other spells or class features that would otherwise only apply to people nearby.

[NoACWarrior]

It depends on how RAW you go. If you go as far RAW as saying that the "ally" can act again on their new initiative count, but since WRT doesn't explicitly say that the ally gets another turn, that ally can do things like take free actions, or take unused actions left over from their turn (or take their turn if they haven't already). If I was going for PURE RAW that's what I would rule.

The RAI is that the ally gets ANOTHER turn if already taken a turn, or gets to take their turn immediately after your turn.

With my above RAW reading, there can be no infinite 5 ft steps or additional uses of WRT since no additional actions are granted other than the ability to act again as if your round didn't end.

[The Grue]

By RAW you are your own ally. Allies are yourself and anyone whose attitude towards you is friendly or better.

Please provide a rules citation in support of this.

[Darrin]

In what way are you your own ally?


PHB p. 304, Glossary entry for "ally".



The dictionary defines ally


PHB has primacy in this case.

The best way to abuse WRT is with Ruby Knight Vindicator's Divine Recovery/Divine Impetus. It's not infinite, since you will eventually run out of Turn Undead, but a large number of Nightsticks gets close enough to infinite for most purposes.

Unfortunately, there's some RAW issues with RKV: (Su) abilities default to a standard action.

[Necroticplague]

Please provide a rules citation in support of this.

From the PHB:

A creature friendly to you. In most cases, references to "allies" include yourself.

[The Grue]

PHB p. 304, Glossary entry for "ally".


ally: A creature friendly to you. In most cases, references to “allies” include yourself.

Most cases. Not all cases.

"Most" in that second clause means the only consistent definition is "A creature friendly to you." The second clause indicates that this can include yourself, but it does not necessarily have to.

A DM, for example, might rule that the use of WRT is one of the cases where "ally" does not include yourself. Such a ruling would be RAW, as would an opposite ruling.

[TuggyNE]

Most cases. Not all cases.

"Most" in that second clause means the only consistent definition is "A creature friendly to you." The second clause indicates that this can include yourself, but it does not necessarily have to.

A DM, for example, might rule that the use of WRT is one of the cases where "ally" does not include yourself. Such a ruling would be RAW, as would an opposite ruling.

If WRT had some sort of explicit exception to this it'd be fine, or even if there was some compelling reason why, logically, you could not be your own ally for this purpose (such as with that one spell that teleport-swaps you and an ally, or whatever). But there is no particular reason to suppose you aren't your own ally here, except that such a thing would (or might) be imbalanced. And that's not something that factors into RAW, so a DM ruling this way would be houseruling for balance reasons, not giving a correct reading of ambiguous RAW; RAW is not, in fact, ambiguous here.

[The Grue]

If WRT had some sort of explicit exception to this it'd be fine, or even if there was some compelling reason why, logically, you could not be your own ally for this purpose (such as with that one spell that teleport-swaps you and an ally, or whatever). But there is no particular reason to suppose you aren't your own ally here, except that such a thing would (or might) be imbalanced. And that's not something that factors into RAW, so a DM ruling this way would be houseruling for balance reasons, not giving a correct reading of ambiguous RAW; RAW is not, in fact, ambiguous here.

In fact, RAW is ambiguous here. If you'll refer to the quoted passage from the PHB glossary, the definition of "ally" explicitly states that there are cases in which you are considered your own ally, and cases in which you are not considered your own ally. The text does not offer any ways to tell either case from the other, leaving it entirely up to the GM to rule on a case-by-case basis.

[NoACWarrior]

I think too many people are getting hung up on the "ally" portion, when we really need to be talking about the act again portion.

With the idea that no additional turns are granted in a single round, and that acting again simply lets the person use the rest of their turn or any free actions, abuse of WRT is totally moot. AFAIK act does not mean you get additional actions, you simply get your turn for the round you are in, and to act again means you get a continuation of said turn...

[Darrin]

In fact, RAW is ambiguous here. If you'll refer to the quoted passage from the PHB glossary, the definition of "ally" explicitly states that there are cases in which you are considered your own ally, and cases in which you are not considered your own ally. The text does not offer any ways to tell either case from the other, leaving it entirely up to the GM to rule on a case-by-case basis.

In this context, "most" means "in all cases except where specific exceptions exist." WRT does not mention an exception, so it's included under "most".

DMs creating new exceptions under Rule Zero is outside the scope of a RAW discussion (Oberoni Fallacy).

[toapat]

the Dysfunction of WRT is not "Gives target Ally (self) an additional turn", Its that WRT causes a glitch in the rules involving Initiative that is completely unaddressed

basically, lets show it this way:

Initiative Count (IC) example:

20: Pownwizard x20 (Intensified Twin Timestop)
19:
18: White Raven Warblade
17:
16: Roguebuddy the interupting

WRW uses WRT on Self: their Initiative goes to 17. The problem here is, Changing Initiative is shown to say that a player who has used their turn goes again, but it doesnt explain what happens when that player is taking their current turn and remains the active participant in the initiative order when the order of actions is unaffected. Does changing your IC change the one that the current turn is being taken at? or do you actually gain a second turn in the round?

in most typical situations that matter, Initiative is Sufficiently defined to cover 99.9% of all instances that the IC will ever pop up.
In those .1%, which consist of exclusively the White Raven Tactics Manuever, the examples and explaination we have is entirely insufficient because it covers a change in your initiative off turn, or of the change of another entities' turn.

Granted, this entire topic doesnt change the fact that the fastest Fix is to replace Target: One Ally with Target: One Other Ally

[Abithrios]

Even if it works as planned, it would only be infinite if you are already last in initiative. If others are after you, your initiative would go down by one each iteration until you are after the next person or group. After you get to the end, you could go down indefinitely into the negatives. Also, you could abuse infinite free actions, such as talking. By RAW, I believe that a character is limited to a reasonable number of free actions per round, even if that number is not explicitly enumerated (for non-deities*), but with infinite turns, you could have actually infinite free actions, not just a large, but vaguely defined, number of them. By this method, you could reach Order of the Stick levels of in-combat verbosity.

This still relies on certain nontrivial rulings, however.


*Deities have certain extra options they can use as free actions to a (divine rank-dependent) number of times per round. They can still use free actions the same way as everyone else in addition to that.

[da_chicken]

In this context, "most" means "in all cases except where specific exceptions exist."

I think that's a pretty loose interpretation without any specific backup, especially because there are abilities that use the wording "you and your allies," which would be redundant if WotC meant to require explicit exceptions. Failing a definition for "most" in D&D somewhere, I think we have to use the plain meaning (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/most?s=t) of the word, which leaves the ability ambiguous.

In any case, White Raven Tactics has been covered before (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?74560-Ally-you) and as they mentioned then there's an official response that White Raven Tactics doesn't work on the initiator (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20070731a).

[toapat]

In any case, White Raven Tactics has been covered before (http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?74560-Ally-you) and as they mentioned then there's an official response that White Raven Tactics doesn't work on the initiator (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/ask/20070731a).

So either changing one's initiative when it is your turn doesnt work, or its a massive missprint they should have Errata'd to be Target: One Other Ally

because of course actually explaining why is too good for the Q&A

[Kennisiou]

Even if it works as planned, it would only be infinite if you are already last in initiative. If others are after you, your initiative would go down by one each iteration until you are after the next person or group. After you get to the end, you could go down indefinitely into the negatives. Also, you could abuse infinite free actions, such as talking. By RAW, I believe that a character is limited to a reasonable number of free actions per round, even if that number is not explicitly enumerated (for non-deities*), but with infinite turns, you could have actually infinite free actions, not just a large, but vaguely defined, number of them. By this method, you could reach Order of the Stick levels of in-combat verbosity.

This still relies on certain nontrivial rulings, however.


*Deities have certain extra options they can use as free actions to a (divine rank-dependent) number of times per round. They can still use free actions the same way as everyone else in addition to that.

Worth noting that by RAW your free actions should limited by turn, not by round. I feel like the rules weren't really there to account for the infinite turn-taking or even multiple turn taking.

[The Grue]

In this context, "most" means "in all cases except where specific exceptions exist."

Rules citation for that, please.

[TuggyNE]

I think that's a pretty loose interpretation without any specific backup, especially because there are abilities that use the wording "you and your allies," which would be redundant if WotC meant to require explicit exceptions.

That's irrelevant for two reasons: first, those cases all clearly have an implicit exception to the general rule by virtue of making a distinction at all; second, Wizards is really really good at providing redundant restatements of general rules for things in about half the cases they show up, usually the least ambiguous half.

The existence of specific exceptions does not indicate that a lack of exception means an exception; the existence of redundancy does not indicate that the lack of redundancy means an exception. Those are both common fallacies in RAW discussions.


Failing a definition for "most" in D&D somewhere, I think we have to use the plain meaning (http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/most?s=t) of the word, which leaves the ability ambiguous.

Except it still is not ambiguous, because that is in fact the definition I was going with in my previous post. To justify an exception to the "most" rule, there has to be either a) a good specific reason why you can't logically serve as your own ally or b) a specific rule that says you can't. WRT has neither. What it does have is a metagame idea that application of WRT on yourself is unbalanced (which may or may not be subjectively valid, and has no possible objective validity at all), which, as previously noted, is not useful for determining RAW, since balance is useful only to evaluate the results of a RAW determination.

[Zetapup]

Also, anyone have anything they can do to turn infinite 5-foot steps into something nuts? Best I've come up with is that a level 15 sword sage could spend martial study feats to get WRT, take Balance on the Sky stance, and would have essentially instant mobility to anywhere he can physically reach by airwalking without tiring since tiring is based on time spent travelling and not distance travelled and it all happens in six seconds. Seems like it's probably fine power-level wise for a game involving t1-t2 classes by that point. Anyone able to think of anything else absurd to do with infinite 5-foot steps?

Ooh, I just remembered something that uses free actions 1/round: the Entomanothrope (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/re/20040621a) Argent Spider (http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/psb/20030725a). Basically a 30ft teleport 1/round as a free action. Argent Spider might be 3.0 though, so that might not fly.

[The Grue]

That's irrelevant for two reasons: first, those cases all clearly have an implicit exception to the general rule by virtue of making a distinction at all; second, Wizards is really really good at providing redundant restatements of general rules for things in about half the cases they show up, usually the least ambiguous half.

"Those cases" with an implicit exception being the ones in the section of the post you're responding to, yes? In other words "you and your allies" cases are exceptions to the general rule?

[Rebel7284]

Sidestepping the "use on yourself" debate for a moment.

The most powerful use for White Raven Tactics would almost certainly be targeting the Artificer or Sorcerer.

Getting that out of the way, let's use a less debatable example of TWO initiators targeting each other and moving down the initiative ladder together.

I believe that RAW this works for infinite movement. HOWEVER, I heard that most DMs that encounter this, cap how far into the negatives initiative order can go before it wraps back to the top. -20 is a common number.

[Abithrios]

HOWEVER, I heard that most DMs that encounter this, cap how far into the negatives initiative order can go before it wraps back to the top. -20 is a common number.

A more natural (and more restrictive) set of boundaries would be minimum initiative=1+lowest modifier present. If you go strictly below that, it might wrap around to the maximum value of 20+highest modifier present. Those, of course, represent the lowest and highest values that the participants in the fight can possibly roll. Temporary modifiers (such as nerveskitter) only apply if actually used to affect modifiers in this encounter.

Naturally, I am just making those numbers up, but they seem to make some sense.

[TuggyNE]

"Those cases" with an implicit exception being the ones in the section of the post you're responding to, yes? In other words "you and your allies" cases are exceptions to the general rule?

Aye. To the extent that "you and your allies" makes a meaningful distinction between the two, to that extent it's an explicit exception to the general rule, and thus there is no possible net argument to be made from those cases for any "default" (implicit) exceptions to that general rule.