I have a question regarding the weapon feature "Brace".
Some weapons have the special weapon feature "Brace", for example a simple spear
How to use it (how I understand it)
On your turn, you take the standard action "Ready".
To do so, specify the action you will take and the conditions under which you will take it.
You specify the action (I will ready my spear) and the condition (I am attacked by a Charge).
Then, you wait until the condition happens and take your action (before the triggering action is resolved).
You can now attack a charging enemy with a standard action (so no multiple attacks, if you are able to do so), but deal double damage. If you manage to kill the charging enemy, it does not get to do damage against you (because you interrupted its action). If not, you still deal double damage but receive the charge /the melee attack normally.
Questions
- Do I understand readying and charging correctly?
- Main Question: Isn't it a bit awkward playing out in a real-life (haha) fight situation? The player has to assume that he is being charged in this round, otherwise she would have wasted their turn. The GM, playing the monsters, has to decide wether she let's her monster run into the brace or not. Does it boil down to the monster strategy "During combat" as written in the monster description? Is there a check a monster can do or fail to notice, wether a PC has braced a weapon against a charge? (And vice versa?)
Thank you all!
Best Answer
Yes, your understanding of Charge and Brace is correct
Your PC has to anticipate the charge and set their weapon against it.
It is usable in many common scenarios (especially at low levels)
While 'bracing' won't be useful in every situation, there are plenty of common situations where it is. In practice you need 2 things.
2 is easy to satisfy. If you're fighting anything with pounce, or just anything that lacks ranged attacks and is more than 1 move away, you can realistically expect the monster to charge. This includes most low level non-humanoid monsters (especially the various beasts).
1 is harder to make happen, but is achievable in hallways, caves, alleyways, mountain passes, any place where you can be out in front of the party with no easy way around you.
Even if it's not awkward to use, it isn't very rewarding
The main problem is that you are giving up the guarantee of an action for the chance of a single stronger attack. Obviously this means that the effectiveness is dependent on the damage you output and the probability that the monster will charge you (which can be manipulated using the above), but there are some broad trends we can call out. If you have more than 1 attack, bracing probably isn't worth it, same for if you can cast spells (unless you are out of slots). These, combined with the tendency for high level monsters to get spells and ranged attacks, means bracing will most often be available to use at low levels.
I personally have only used the Brace action once, on a mid-level cleric, and even then because both the situation was perfect for it and I had carried this trident with me all game and I was going to use it, dangit! I was in a hallway with the rest of the party behind me, the monster was clearly going to charge (only had melee attacks, was more than 40ft away, was a rage monster so it wouldn't think to try something else), and (due to the unique situation not allowing me to regain spellslots on a rest) I wanted to conserve my spells. It worked perfectly, but even then I probably would have been better off using my ranged weapon or a spell. But was it cool? Yes, yes it was.