D&D 4E Rules in Review: Is it my turn yet?

So here we are again, talking about those wacky 4e rules. This time, I'm going to go over rules that confuse even veteran gamers, 'readying an action' and 'delaying'.

So what's the problem?

D&D is not a very accurate simulation of real life. If, for example, a massive brawl breaks out in real life, you don't have people standing around, patiently waiting to take their turn in battle. It's every man for himself (and women...and warforged. And shardminds!), acting all at once in a big confusing mess.

D&D wants to attempt to give you the feel of a big, chaotic combat scene, while still making it easy to figure out who's doing what, and when. So we have the nice orderly combat sequence. The guy with the highest initiative goes first, and we take it from there.

Thanks to immediate actions, immediate interrupts, and opportunity actions, you can also act during someone else's turn, which further helps immerse yourself in the combat experience. So far, so good.

Inevitably, however, someone will want to wait for an opportune moment to act. I remember way back in the day (2e), the Blink spell would cause the caster to randomly phase in and out of the material world, making them hard to attack. A canny player would ask if they could just wait for the Wizard to materialize before smiting him on his pointy hat.

Regardless of how the rules worked, the player would insist on being allowed to do just that, simply because you can do it in real life. Never mind that casting spells or swinging swords the size of Rhode Island aren't possible in real life!

So rules were written to allow this sort of thing to happen, to try and not deprive players of actions they could reasonably take. The theory is sound, really. A player with higher initiative has a choice. Act now, before anyone can react, or set yourself up to react to the tactics of those who aren't quite as quick on the uptake. In practice, things get a little screwy.

Readying an Action

You hear this one a lot. “I want to shoot at the first enemy I see when the door is opened!” It sound reasonable enough, doesn't it? Rather than attack now, you want to attack at an opportune moment. So let's go over the rules in more detail.

Readying is a Standard Action. Sort of. Actually, you're setting aside your Standard Action to use later on in the turn. Of course, it doesn't need to be a Standard Action- Move and Minor Actions are also fair game. When you Ready, you select the type of action you want to use, and the intended target, if any.

Next, you select a trigger for when the Readied action will occur. When the trigger occurs, your action occurs, as if it were an Immediate Reaction (and thus using up your Immediate Action for the round). If it doesn't occur, or you elect not to use it for some reason, you simply take your next turn as normal.

Some DM's may wish you to be very specific with your triggers, in order to prevent abuse. Here are some examples:

“The first enemy that comes within range, I'll blast with Magic Missile!”

“When a kobold moves adjacent to me, I want to Bull Rush it!”

“If Hugo, the brigand leader, attacks Tusk, our Warden, I'll use Healing Word on Tusk.”

It's important for your DM to be both fair and consistent with how permissive he is on setting Readied Action triggers. If he's too strict, then this action will be primarily reserved for corner cases, and not used often- which may suit him (or her) just fine! On the other hand, if too permissive, everyone will ready actions all the time, making a shambles of turn sequence.

Just remember, however, that the monsters can Ready actions as well, and it may be to their benefit to do so! So the same rules will apply and be (ab)used equally.

If you use your Readied Action, your Initiative is reset so that now you act just before the creature or event that triggered it. So, for example, if your Initiative is 20, and you use your Readied Action during another creature's turn (let's say, a Hobgoblin who has a 14 Initiative), next turn you won't act until just before the Hobgoblin's turn.

Now things get a little more complicated.

Opportunity Attacks

Let's say that you want to Ready a ranged attack. Ranged attacks normally provoke Opportunity Attacks. There's an enemy standing next to you, so you don't want to attack on your turn. You might think that Readying with a trigger of “as soon as the enemy is no longer adjacent to me” might be a good idea.

Sadly, you'd be wrong! Readying an Action that provokes is the same as making the action. So our hapless archer would be struck immediately. Oops!

In addition, performing a Readied Action that provokes also provokes. This may sound a bit unfair, but there is some logic behind it. Even if an Action provokes, you cannot make Opportunity Actions on your own turn. Since a Readied Action usually occurs on someone else's turn, they might not be allowed to react to it the way they normally would. Many enemies have triggered abilities they can employ when attacked, so while Readying is a good tactic to use against them, it's not without it's weaknesses.

Interrupting

A Readied Action is an Immediate Reaction, which means it occurs after it's trigger. This may make it seem impossible to attack before your enemy does when your Action triggers. However, you can set your trigger to be dependent on an enemy's movement. For example:

“If the Orc swings his axe at the Wizard, I'll shoot him with my bow!”

“If the Orc moves adjacent to the Wizard, I'll shoot him with my bow!”

This just goes to show it pays to think about what will trigger your Action!

Another thing that often comes up with Readied Actions is when “beginning” and “ending” of turn effects occur. The answer, actually, is when they normally do! You make a Readied Action during your turn, but your turn doesn't stop there. So if you are suffering from Ongoing 5 damage, you take it, you Ready, you make whatever other actions you like, then you save.

If your trigger goes off, your Initiative changes, but you will take the damage again at the beginning of your next turn as normal. Some canny players will think to use a Readied Action to change their Initiative order to go after an ally who can grant them a saving throw or heal them. It's perfectly legal to do so, although your DM may quirk an eyebrow in your direction at such tactics.

Just remember, however, that this works both ways. For example, if you are “vulnerable 5 to all damage (save ends)”, changing your Initiative could give monsters more opportunities to take advantage of you than they would have ordinarily! Alternately, your DM may look at the rules for Delaying, which are very clear for how Start and End of Turn effects are applied.

Delay

As a free action, you may wish to wait to take your turn until later in the combat round. There are several reasons to do this. For example, Striker classes often have excellent Initiative, and Defender classes often...don't. If you are a melee Striker, you might not want to run into combat before your Defender, so Delay becomes a good option for you.

Leader classes are also often “initiative-deprived”. This normally works to their advantage, as their powers are often reactive in nature. A Leader who gets a good Initiative roll, however, may want to Delay until an ally is wounded, or the battle shifts.

Once you Delay, you can return to the Initiative order after any turn has been completed. Your Initiative changes to this new position in the order.

If you don't take your Delayed turn, for some reason, when your original Initiative comes back up in the order, you lose the Delayed turn and take your turn then.

Start and End of Turn

Effects that are triggered by your turn starting happen when you opt to Delay- you can't Delay to avoid ongoing damage, for example. Any effect you are sustaining ends, and effects that last until the end of your turn now end if they are beneficial to you and your allies! This prevents you from extending the duration of a beneficial effect.

After you take your Delayed turn, you make the saving throws you normally do at the end of your turn, and the durations of baneful effects that expire at the end of your turn now do so.

Since you can lose a Delayed turn if you do not take it, if you are suffering from a baneful effect, such as ongoing damage, be careful with this option!

With as much confusion as these rules tend to cause at gaming tables, you'd expect them to be more complicated than this, but it really boils down to the fact that, most of the time, you don't have much reason to Ready or Delay. Properly used, these tactics can make your character very effective. Improperly used, and you're literally wasting time.

DM's need to be careful as well. While it may seem like a good idea to use Ready and Delay to foil your player's tactics, doing so will no doubt frustrate and annoy them needlessly. For example, let's say you know that the party Leader can grant saving throws.

You have an enemy who can place “stupidly annoying effect (save ends)” on players. Delaying your enemy's turn until after the Leader's will ensure a whole round of bad stuff...and make the Leader less effective. Until the Leader starts Delaying. Which could end with both your enemy and the Leader simply losing turns!

Since you probably don't want each encounter turning into a glorified game of 'chicken', it's best to use such tactics sparingly. Let the players open the door when it comes to more advanced options; if they want to use the rules to their advantage, that's fine- show them that it works both ways!

You just don't want to force your players into having to master areas of the rules they aren't comfortable with yet.

With all that in mind, I hope this article has given you new insight into how to make the rules work for you, instead of against you!

Related articles

• Total Insanity- D&D 4E Rules in Review (weebeegamers.com)
• Running the Combat Part of Combat Blisteringly Fast from Dungeon's Master (dungeonsmaster.com)
• Understanding the Economy of Actions from Sly Flourish (slyflourish.com)