D&D 5E Can you use misty step to arrest a fall?

[Lyxen]

You make it really hard not to laugh at your posts. At this point I'm backing out of the conversation.

Then laugh if you want, it's just one more point showing that your vision of the RAW is extremely personal, has not much to do with what is actually written and would lead to an unplayable game anyway.

 

[Lyxen]

Deflect Missile is not Ready an Action. Deflect Missile is a specific ability that can negate an attack roll. It tells us nothing about how a completely different ability works.

There is nothing different, they are reactions, as clearly indicated in both cases:

• "you can use your reaction to deflect"
• "When the trigger occurs, you can either take your reaction"

This in turn allows one to to interrupt whatever is happening during someone else's turn.

Ready an Action does not have the ability to negate an attack.

Prove it. Where is it written in the rules ?

It might negate the ability to attack, by creating a situation where there is no valid target within reach, but the attack itself is not negated.

Again, prove it.

Even if there is no valid target, the attacker could use their action to do something else, such as take a dodge action, since they have not used their action to attack.

They have wasted their attack exactly the same way that if the opponent had used a shield or deflect missiles. They have declared an attack, they have target an individual, they might even have rolled a hit. But once again, RAW, nothing prevents someone to use all these as perceivable circumstances that allow one to finish casting a readied spell.

5e is very flexible, I'm just using the very standard rules and wording in there.

 

[Jfdlsjfd]

It might also be worth pointing out that teleport doesn't just match your velocity to the destination, it also matches your orientation. Since teleporting to the other side of the planet does not land you standing on your head.

The Arcanix University has a monument dedicated to the 876 dead professors of Teleportation who pionnereed the discipline and were named Dean for approximatively 10 minutes each as they tried to figure out what was wrong with the spell.

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

If we take the falling aspect of the question away and imagine the scenario these ways:

A caster on a moving lightning train using misty step to the ground outside the train.
A caster on the back of a fast flying griffon using misty step to get adjacent to a target on top of a tower the griffon flew by.
A caster on a runaway wagon going downhill using misty step to get off and on the ground.

The question about getting off a bonus action spell, though, and insta-falls is different though.

 

[Dausuul]

A readied action happens "right after the trigger finishes." That's a direct quote from the Ready Action rules. Other reactions (the shield spell, Deflect Missiles, etc.) can interrupt the triggering event. But they specifically say so, while Ready Action specifically says the opposite.

Obviously, that leaves open the question of exactly what constitutes a trigger. If you name "the monster attacks me" as your trigger, then the reaction happens right after the attack finishes, but can you name "the monster starts swinging its claws at me?"

My ruling would be that Ready Action does not allow you to pull gotchas on your enemies. You can't wait for them to start doing X and then yank the rug out before X completes; nor can you use a readied action to suss out the enemy's intentions. When a creature commits to doing X, that is a single discrete "trigger," and any readied actions based on that commitment will take place after X is done.

Thus, for instance, you could ready an action to teleport away as soon as the monster moves next to you. This will forestall any melee attacks from that monster; but it also means the monster won't have used its action, and it can do something else. Furthermore, if the monster has an aura that zaps you whenever it gets within 5 feet, you will get zapped before you teleport. On the other hand, if you ready your teleport for when the monster attacks you, you must eat the first attack before teleporting.

However: When it comes to falling, we are talking about a form of movement. (This comes up in passing in the rules for opportunity attacks: Falling past an enemy is called out as a form of movement that doesn't trigger OAs.) And I do think movement is an allowable trigger. So you should be able to ready for when you fall past a certain point.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

@Dausuul , @Paul Farquhar What about an insight check on the trigger of the readied action to determine whether it is an attack and Misty Step or not?

 

[Dausuul]

@Dausuul , @Paul Farquhar What about an insight check on the trigger of the readied action to determine whether it is an attack and Misty Step or not?

(Let's set aside for now that you can't ready a bonus action. I'll assume we've house-ruled that to be legal, or the spell is dimension door instead.)

I follow a general principle that you can attempt skill checks to "go beyond" the rules, but you must pay to play. Success means you get more than the rules would give you; failure means you lose something the rules would otherwise let you have.

In this case, what the rules would normally give you is, "The monster gets one crack at you and then you teleport in response." So what I'd probably say is: If you succeed on the Insight check, you can deny it that attack. But if you fail, you don't get to teleport at all. You got blindsided, lost your focus, and now you have to wait for your turn to do anything.

In other words, you are betting your readied action against the monster's attack. If you win the bet, it loses its attack. If you lose, you lose your action.

 

[UngainlyTitan]

(Let's set aside for now that you can't ready a bonus action. I'll assume we've house-ruled that to be legal, or the spell is dimension door instead.)

I follow a general principle that you can attempt skill checks to "go beyond" the rules, but you must pay to play. Success means you get more than the rules would give you; failure means you lose something the rules would otherwise let you have.

In this case, what the rules would normally give you is, "The monster gets one crack at you and then you teleport in response." So what I'd probably say is: If you succeed on the Insight check, you can deny it that attack. But if you fail, you don't get to teleport at all. You got blindsided, lost your focus, and now you have to wait for your turn to do anything.

Thanks for the response. This is along the lines I was thinking though it has never come up for me. I would allow readying a bonus action spell if one foregoes their regular action.

 

[Lyxen]

A readied action happens "right after the trigger finishes." That's a direct quote from the Ready Action rules. Other reactions (the shield spell, Deflect Missiles, etc.) can interrupt the triggering event. But they specifically say so, while Ready Action specifically says the opposite.

It does not interrupt the triggering event (that is indeed a specificity of some reactions, but I must point out, NOT deflect missile, there is no such precision).

Obviously, that leaves open the question of exactly what constitutes a trigger. If you name "the monster attacks me" as your trigger, then the reaction happens right after the attack finishes, but can you name "the monster starts swinging its claws at me?"

That is certainly a perceivable circumstance, so by RAW it is a valid trigger.

My ruling would be that Ready Action does not allow you to pull gotchas on your enemies. You can't wait for them to start doing X and then yank the rug out before X completes; nor can you use a readied action to suss out the enemy's intentions. When a creature commits to doing X, that is a single discrete "trigger," and any readied actions based on that commitment will take place after X is done.

That is your ruling, and it's fine, but it's not what the RAW says. Furthermore, I would make the opposite ruling, as it's certainly a perceivable event and it mostly invalidates the importance of the ready action if you limit it to acting after complete sequence of events are complete.

Thus, for instance, you could ready an action to teleport away as soon as the monster moves next to you. This will forestall any melee attacks from that monster; but it also means the monster won't have used its action, and it can do something else. Furthermore, if the monster has an aura that zaps you whenever it gets within 5 feet, you will get zapped before you teleport. On the other hand, if you ready your teleport for when the monster attacks you, you must eat the first attack before teleporting.

Again, that is your ruling and it's in line with 4e, but it does not reflect the freedom that 5e gave, as for me absolutely rightly, to react to perceivable circumstances rather than actions.

And it's not a question of balance. You have spent your complete action on your turn in readying something that might or might not happen. So wasting potentially just one attack on an adversary is certainly not unfair in my book.

However: When it comes to falling, we are talking about a form of movement. (This comes up in passing in the rules for opportunity attacks: Falling past an enemy is called out as a form of movement that doesn't trigger OAs.) And I do think movement is an allowable trigger. So you should be able to ready for when you fall past a certain point.

There we agree.

 

[Lyxen]

(Let's set aside for now that you can't ready a bonus action. I'll assume we've house-ruled that to be legal, or the spell is dimension door instead.)

I agree.

I follow a general principle that you can attempt skill checks to "go beyond" the rules, but you must pay to play. Success means you get more than the rules would give you; failure means you lose something the rules would otherwise let you have.

Complete agreement with the "pay to play".

In this case, what the rules would normally give you is, "The monster gets one crack at you and then you teleport in response." So what I'd probably say is: If you succeed on the Insight check, you can deny it that attack. But if you fail, you don't get to teleport at all. You got blindsided, lost your focus, and now you have to wait for your turn to do anything.

And this is where we diverge. The basic stance of the game is that adventurers are aware while they are in combat, to the point that they can in general keep track of the location of invisible creatures that are not hidden (I don't play it fully that way, for me circumstances and local rulings are core in particular to the concept of stealth, but still the intent of awareness is there).

So requiring an insight check to do something that is allowed RAW by the rules is not fair to the defender.

On the other hand, if someone suspects that his target has readied something, I would certainly allow him an insight vs. deception check as a bonus action to see if something is prepared. I might even give him the advantage if it's a readied spell, since there was some casting that did not produce any effect.

Alternatively, if he suspects something and wants to feint, I would of course (probably again as a bonus action) allow him to feint an attack towards someone else, as a deception vs. insight of the defender, who would be tricked in using his reaction if the check is a success.

In other words, you are betting your readied action against the monster's attack. If you win the bet, it loses its attack. If you lose, you lose your action.

For me, this is way too strong and not supported by RAW. The caster has already bet that the assaillant would attack him and it has costed him his full action. Moreover, if he is hit before casting the spell, he will need to maintain his concentration to not even lose his readied action. It makes it totally worthless.