DM Academy

My ruling is the condition can be as complex as the player wants, but they are still only allowed to ready a single action. So yeah they can build an "if/elseif" clause into their condition, but the action they take has to be the same regardless of which condition ends up getting triggered.

So they could say "if an enemy comes around that corner OR enters another party member's melee range, I will shoot my bow at them" (since it's the same action being taken regardless of which condition is met)

but they can't say "if an enemy comes around that corner I will throw my dagger at them, but if an enemy enters my melee range I will stab them with my rapier" (because attacking with a rapier is a different action than throwing a dagger)

RAW it’s supposed to be a single action with single trigger, and that’s how I enforce it. I do allow vague triggers (“If anyone does anything that looks threatening,”) but not if-then clauses.

One of my players is very risk averse and will often spend undue time agonizing over a simple combat decision. I fear that giving them the ability to set up if-then clauses for every contingency with a single Ready action would spell doom for our entire table.

Hm I like that, though I would add that IF the enemy closing in scenario happens then the other cannot happen. Its pedantic but if you don't define that barrier your players can argue etc. If you trust your players wouldn't argue then that's good!

At my table I'm very set that my players need to be as specific as possible in the trigger to their action. I'm lenient on if they want to say, any enemy that comes into melee range, they don't need to specify to me on their left, right, etc side. So far my players are not thinking 3 steps ahead yet though, theyve been very basic in their combat strategies lol.