Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 MightyGeckoe Aug 20, 2014 17:53:23	From the rule for Ready under Actions in Combat, it states: "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 so that you can act later in the round."   The way the players in my group read it is similar to the old rule (Pathfinder/3.5) that we can ready an action before combat to prepare for an event. i.e to set an ambush. Our DM refuses to allow that ruling stating that it states "ON YOUR TURN" and "act later in the ROUND" as the key points of that ruling.   A situation occurred where we heard the enemies coming to the door we were behind. He did not allow us to prepare for them, only allowing the first person to call an attack to go. Basically our wizard attacked when the door opened, then we rolled initiative and the DM won. The 3 enemies who opened the door obliterated our wizard, then we continued combat following initiative.   If you cannot ready an action before combat, how do you ever ambush an enemy who comes unsuspectingly to you?
#2 Yunru Aug 20, 2014 17:54:57	By getting a DM that's not a dick. RAW that's the only way afaik.
#3 2Chlorobutanal Aug 20, 2014 17:59:49	In this case, a DM could use the surprise rules, because the PCs are obviously aware of the enemies, but the enemies theoretically did not know the PCs were behind the door ("unsuspecting").   This would elegantly solve the problem of an ambush.   Instead of using Ready an action, the PCs would cause the enemies to be "surprised."   The enemies would still have won initiative in this case, but because of the "surprised" condition, they would skip their first turns.  This would allow all the PCs to act for one turn before the monsters could react.  Note that if the PCs had won initiative, due to the "surprised" status, the PCs would have been able to act twice before the enemies took their first turn.   I would agree with the DM in this case and save "Ready" for in-combat (after initiative), but I would definitely also use the "surprise" rules to allow for ambushes.
(Reply to #3) MightyGeckoe	2Chlorobutanal wrote:
#5 Yunru Aug 20, 2014 18:11:00	MightyGeckoe wrote:
(Reply to #5) MightyGeckoe	Yunru wrote:
(Reply to #4) 2Chlorobutanal	MightyGeckoe wrote:
(Reply to #7) MightyGeckoe	2Chlorobutanal wrote:
#9 Psikerlord Aug 20, 2014 19:21:02	2Chlorobutanal wrote: