Immediate actions

[Red_Rob]

When can these be taken? The SRD states: "an immediate action can be performed at any time—even if it’s not your turn"

And thats it. This is seriously from the same company that made Magic, with its complicated, but ultimately logical and time saving timing rules? So, when can you take an immediate action? Are the following acceptable?

[*]Inbetween initiative passes, "After 13 but before 12 I use my immediate action!"
[*]After an action is declared but before it is taken. "I cast fireball." "Then I use my immediate action!"
[*]After part of an action is taken. "I move forward 30 feet" "after 10 feet I use my immediate action!"
[*]After a roll is made upon which other rolls are dependent. "I hit with my attack. Now for damage..." "I use my immediate action."

Are any or all of these acceptable? If any are not, why not? What about after a dice is rolled but before it stops rolling? Do you have to go round the table asking people if they have any immediate actions after you do anything?

[Smeelbo]

So far as I can recall, Immediate Actions are all triggered, unless (and I can't recall off the top of my head) prepared actions count (and I don't think they do).

So you only have the choice of making an Immediate Action whenever the trigger is satisfied.

So, for example, Combat Superiority.

Smeelbo

[Red_Rob]

Perhaps thats true in Core. In Tome, however, Immediate actions are given more leeway so its not that simple. For example:

Iaijutsu (Ex): When a 7th level Samurai has the Edge on an opponent, he may take an attack of opportunity against that opponent as an immediate action at any time.

Also, The Tome Barbarian Rage power was one that got me thinking about this:

When doing melee damage to a foe or being struck by a foe, a Barbarian may choose to enter a Rage as an immediate action.

We currently play this that the Rage triggers after the attack, so the DR isn't in place for the first attack. Are we playing this wrong?

[Kaelik]

[*]Inbetween initiative passes, "After 13 but before 12 I use my immediate action!"
[*]After an action is declared but before it is taken. "I cast fireball." "Then I use my immediate action!"
[*]After part of an action is taken. "I move forward 30 feet" "after 10 feet I use my immediate action!"
[*]After a roll is made upon which other rolls are dependent. "I hit with my attack. Now for damage..." "I use my immediate action."

Yes
Yes
Yes
No.

Once that attack roll is resolved, that attack has hit or miss, you are still hit.

Other than that go ahead.

[RandomCasualty2]

I generally play 3E immediates as interrupts, meaning they occur before the triggering action unless stated otherwise.

And yeah, as Kaelik said you can't use an immediate to reverse something that has already resolved. That is, you need to resolve the attack roll before you resolve the damage roll.

[Quantumboost]

Rather, you *can* take the immediate action then, but it doesn't actually cause the damage to not happen unless it's something like "I'm immune to that now".

[RandomCasualty2]

Rather, you *can* take the immediate action then, but it doesn't actually cause the damage to not happen unless it's something like "I'm immune to that now".

Yeah, if you had something that responded to taking damage, like giving you DR or something, that'd work, but giving yourself concealment or having the attacker reroll his attack wouldn't work after the attack roll has resolved.

[Calibron]

What if you had something like an immediate action ray of enfeeblement, and it lowered the attacker's strength enough to make the attack roll miss?

[souran]

What if you had something like an immediate action ray of enfeeblement, and it lowered the attacker's strength enough to make the attack roll miss?

You needed to declare the use of your immediate action before the attack roll was made. Then it would apply. You cannot take an immediate action during the middle of a multstage stage single action.

I.E. the attack roll and damage roll are "one thing". You can act before it or after it but it only has a "middle" stage in terms of resovling the action not in terms of how the action plays at in game.

[TheWorid]

You needed to declare the use of your immediate action before the attack roll was made. Then it would apply. You cannot take an immediate action during the middle of a multstage stage single action.

I.E. the attack roll and damage roll are "one thing". You can act before it or after it but it only has a "middle" stage in terms of resovling the action not in terms of how the action plays at in game.

Isn't moving 10 feet part of a multi-stage action if you intended to move 30 feet? So if someone declares that they are going to use a move action to walk 30 feet, I cannot declare an immediate action after 10 feet because that would be interrupting a multi-stage action?

[For Valor]

You needed to declare the use of your immediate action before the attack roll was made. Then it would apply. You cannot take an immediate action during the middle of a multstage stage single action.

I.E. the attack roll and damage roll are "one thing". You can act before it or after it but it only has a "middle" stage in terms of resovling the action not in terms of how the action plays at in game.

Isn't moving 10 feet part of a multi-stage action if you intended to move 30 feet? So if someone declares that they are going to use a move action to walk 30 feet, I cannot declare an immediate action after 10 feet because that would be interrupting a multi-stage action?

As a weapon strikes, it cuts into the skin, or smashes the bone or whatever. However, a movement can physically be broken up into chunks. It's like watching a DVD or something! You can pause whie a guy's walking, but you can't pause at the point between where someone punches another guy, but before the punch actually makes contact. Likewise, you should be able to interrupt a spell's casting, though you couldn't take an immediate action after a person made their reflex save for a fireball or something and was about to calculate damage, since the save and the damage come together in the same instant.

[RandomCasualty2]

What if you had something like an immediate action ray of enfeeblement, and it lowered the attacker's strength enough to make the attack roll miss?

You can do that, assuming you interrupted the attack itself.

I generally play it similar to Magic the gathering stack effects with instants.

[Username17]

4e kind of showed discipline in giving Immediate Actions explicit triggers instead of just doing them whenever you wanted. And then they made all triggered events into Immediate Actions. But then they made all Immediate Actions use the same resource and be limited to 1/round, which really screws with the way a number of things are supposed to work.

In 3.5, an Immediate Action is just your Swift Action upgraded to an off-turn instant effect.

-Username17