Ready Action - What is it?

[Kruxxor]

I've just levelled up on my Paladin and one of the feats I can choose is called "Ready or Not" which gives an advantage on a Ready Action.


I cannot find information on what a "Ready Action" is, could someone please explain it?

Thanks.

[xposethedarkside]

Ready action is when you delay your action until later in the turn.

As an example, let's say youre a fighter, and want to hold your position. Instead of advancing on the enemy, you could stay where you are and ready a melee attack. Later in the turn, when the enemy approaches you, your fighter will automatically take a swing on him.

With your feat, that swing will have advantage, which means your attack roll will be 2 d20's and the higher roll will be used. Good feat to have if you ready alot/fight defensively.

[DiceWrangler]

Ready or Not is an awesome feat for Rogues, btw, so they can get Sneak Attack even when not hidden and alone.

[Kruxxor]

I might give it a go, right now my team just attack on their turn and miss anyway. May as well attack on the enemy team with double the chance to miss.

[xposethedarkside]

Originally posted by Kruxxor:

I might give it a go, right now my team just attack on their turn and miss anyway. May as well attack on the enemy team with double the chance to miss.

It's not a bad strategy. I use ready action alot. It forces the enemy to come to me while allowing me to maintain formation in my choice of terrain, while also giving my range party members time to fire at the approaching enemy.

If you can set up choke point situations you can also put down things like wall of fire or spike growth in front of you, forcing the enemy to literally kill themselves trying to reach you.

[Kruxxor]

That sounds like a great strategy, if I had someone with those spells.

I have a monk who tickles the enemy when he doesn't miss.
A Paladin who never gets targeted.
A Warlock who spams eldritch blast that misses, even with malediction.
A rogue who runs away but still ends up in melee range of the enemy.


I'm not good at this game lol

[xposethedarkside]

Originally posted by Kruxxor:

That sounds like a great strategy, if I had someone with those spells.

I have a monk who tickles the enemy when he doesn't miss.
A Paladin who never gets targeted.
A Warlock who spams eldritch blast that misses, even with malediction.
A rogue who runs away but still ends up in melee range of the enemy.


I'm not good at this game lol

Neither was I when I first started playing. You will get better I promise. Just stick with it. There's a lot that goes into it, alot of which you might not know about yet. But you will put it all together in your own time, in your own way. Just keep chugging along.

[Sentient_Toaster]

To quote the Basic Rules re: Ready

Sometimes you want to get the jump on a foe or wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you can take the Ready action on your turn, which lets you act using your reaction before the start of your next turn.

First, you decide what perceivable circumstance will trigger your reaction. Then, you choose the action you will take in response to that trigger, or you choose to move up to your speed in response to it. Examples include "If the cultist steps on the trapdoor, I'll pull the lever that opens it," and "If the goblin steps next to me, I move away."

When the trigger occurs, you can either take your reaction right after the trigger finishes or ignore the trigger. Remember that you can take only one reaction per round.

When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell's magic requires concentration. If your concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking effect. For example, if you are concentrating on the web spell and ready magic missile, your web spell ends, and if you take damage before you release magic missile with your reaction, your concentration might be broken.

Note that "Ready" is the action, even if you're readying an attack. In addition, it normally triggers after your turn. This has implications for certain other things. For instance, an 11th level fighter has Extra Attack (x2), but it only interacts with the Attack action. If such a fighter were to Ready an attack, and it triggers, he would only get to make one attack with this reaction rather than three.


With respect to rogues in particular; their sneak attack can be triggered once per turn. In tabletop, a rogue that is under the effects of Haste can use the extra attack granted by Haste to make a sneak attack on his own turn, and then Ready an attack to make a sneak attack as a reaction so long as it will be triggered on somebody else's turn.

[Ommamar]

I generally only use range or cantrips on ready attack. Usually when I have a damage spell in place I want the enemy to come through. If the particular character can only attack with disadvantage (red circle with a - sign in it). This is often light related if they are placed in the battle order due to a high reaction roll I will often wait until I can light the place up using wall sconces or a spell like dazzling lights. This way there likely hood of hitting is much higher then if I take the disadvantage roll. It is possible to hit with disadvantage, it is much more likely you will miss though.

[Halfshell]

The wording on ready ranged/ cantrip attack is odd, it says something like "when the enemy comes into range". But it seems to just attack the first enemy that moves, thats also in range? Would be nice if I could use it as worded to ready an attack that could fire at someone that isn't in range yet (provided they come into range).

No hmm, actually it might just be that its "first enemy that moves and isn't at a disadvantage to attack"/ usually = moves onto a lit square. Would it trigger on them being entangled though? Or say if theres grease and its dark (canceling out) would the ready melee attack only trigger on the first enemy to slip?

Ready attacks might be actually OP.. provided they don't get interrupted somehow.

[Curath]

On tabletop, you can actually set up your Ready action trigger in a much more flexible manner: ”I want to attack the first character who comes through this door” or ”I want to shoot at whoever attacks OurMage” or whatever your DM deems reasonable.

It’s impossible to give that kind of flexibility in a computer game, but some more would be possible. We probably won’t get any changes, though.

[Halfshell]

Halfway through last post I kindve change intent in the 2nd paragraph. If it only triggers on non-disadvantageous attacks then can't you use ready attacks in a couple of ways to force a normal attack in an otherwise disadvantageous situation? And with the feat, that becomes an advantageous attack (since this uses custom rules).

Say if someones blinded - if they have the feat you could potentially use a ready attack to get an advantageous attack on the first person to slip on grease, for example. Though wait.. if they have the feat then any ready attack is advantageous so first trigger would trigger it no matter what so only a chance of an advantageous attack.

Edit: Well not "no matter what", ofc if theres two source of disadvantage then you need two sources of advantage for it to trigger in this.

Edit: And to be perfectly clear, I mean with the ready attack thats already in the game. No added conditions. Just wondering about situations where it would trigger.

[Ommamar]

Originally posted by Curath:

On tabletop, you can actually set up your Ready action trigger in a much more flexible manner: ”I want to attack the first character who comes through this door” or ”I want to shoot at whoever attacks OurMage” or whatever your DM deems reasonable.

It’s impossible to give that kind of flexibility in a computer game, but some more would be possible. We probably won’t get any changes, though.

One easy solution would to be the ability to select the target you want the ready action applied to. You can already do this with regular range attacks and spells so it wouldn't be that hard to adapt to the ready action.