Stopping infinite action loops with off-turn actions

[Elves]

If someone is in the middle of performing an infinite action loop, what are the best ways to shut them down?

The most straightforward way seems to be with immediate and off-turn actions. We have celerity, eternal blade's island in time, and...what else? Maybe certain contingencies, and of course the abomination that is Craft Contingent Spell.

[Rebel7284]

Spell Stowaway keyed to whatever effect is giving infinite actions is a classic.

[Crake]

Out of character actions can be performed at any time.

[Biffoniacus_Furiou]

Any type of immediate action that can stop it. Divine Defiance is good as it can often stop those shenanigans dead in their tracks.

Anticipatory Strike in Complete Psionic, preferably with a Sudden Stunning (DMG2) weapon.

Psionic Contingency can trigger an augmented Synchronicity which allows you to take any standard action you want.

[Darg]

What about off turn free actions? Speaking is a free action that doesn't need to be done on your turn

[Elves]

Out of character actions can be performed at any time.
I guess VTT must be a blessing to certain optimizers with traumatic head scars.

[Calthropstu]

Out of character actions can be performed at any time.

Hmmm, Which is more optimized. Throwing expensive books or cheap dice?

[Crake]

Hmmm, Which is more optimized. Throwing expensive books or cheap dice?

Depends on your budget and what you're optimizing for :smalltongue:

[Sneak Dog]

The GM proclaiming they run out of (free) actions because it's no longer reasonable, as per the free action rules.

Woe befall you if it is the GM going infinite though.

[Xervous]

The GM proclaiming they run out of (free) actions because it's no longer reasonable, as per the free action rules.

Woe befall you if it is the GM going infinite though.

”Thought you’d stop my monologue this time Mr Anderson? Perhaps you would have. But you stand no chance against chained body outside body OMNILOGUE.”

[Feldar]

If someone is in the middle of performing an infinite action loop, what are the best ways to shut them down?

The most straightforward way seems to be with immediate and off-turn actions. We have celerity, eternal blade's island in time, and...what else? Maybe certain contingencies, and of course the abomination that is Craft Contingent Spell.

It says right in my home rules, "If somehow you create an infinite loop allowing you to create infinite damage that the gods smite you with continuous infinite damage for taking a power reserved for themselves. Before doing so, the gods mercifully grant you infinite life so that you can fully understand what pain is."

Loop stopped. Problem solved.

[Gusmo]

I'd say this is a hard question to answer without knowing the specific infinite action loop. If you can't neutralize the ability on an ongoing basis, they may just be able to go right back into their infinite twinned celerity loop or whatever. Especially at high levels where they might plausibly have multiple standard actions natively. Each native standard action allows someone to get back into an infinite action loop with twinned celerity, for instance. The twinned celerity example assumes someone has a source to power a large or infinite number of uses.

For the uninitiated, here's the twinned celerity loop:
1. Standard action, ready action [any sort of immediate trigger] to cast twinned celerity.
2. Celerity1 action1, ready action [any sort of immediate trigger] to cast twinned celerity.
3. Celerity1 action2, anything
4. Celerity2 action1, ready action [any sort of immediate trigger] to cast twinned celerity.
5. Celerity2 action2, anything
...and so on.

Edit: expanding on this example, depending on your interpretation of the read action rules, it may be necessary to increase the casting time of celerity to a standard action. Uncanny forethought is one such way, which obviously does have limited uses. But multi action spellcasters don't need a lot of uses of such abilities to be devastating.

Edit2: if you can't end that round of combat, you also risk these sort of chronomancers using an item like the amulet of second chances (MIC) to just start the whole process over, but now they know your trick to stop them.