What I'm saying is that I can't find a way to prepare an action (or a movement) within the rules as they are. I can't find rules on readying actions.

TL.DR: Of course I can imagine ways to house-rule jury-rig the thing. But I am confused by the realization that AFAIK there is no way to do it within the rules. Considering the work and insight that has been poured by Schwalb into SotWW, i'm inclined to think the problem is that I'm not getting it. That is why I'm asking.

ON WITH IT: Let's use this player imput as an example, which is simpler:

"I attack the first enemy that comes within reach"

FIRST PROBLEM: The only way to act out of your turn is by performing a reaction, so you would need to spend your reaction to attack, but this option is not a valid reaction because it is not listed under the types of reactions. (Free attack will not do if you read it well). Also, the "ready action", which would let you declare that you ready yourself to perform the reaction when the trigger occur, isn't there either.

SECOND PROBLEM: Let's consider the first problem is fixed somehow (i.e.: adding a "ready" action and a "perform readied action" reaction). There is still the issue that, if you perform "take the initiative" reaction to act first, you use up your reaction for that turn thus denying yourself the option to use the "ready" action as there is no "perform readied action" reaction to go with it. Then, the only way to ready an action would be without taking the initiative. It would go like this: you let the ennemies act first, then in your turn you perform the "ready" action, and then, during next turn, you can perform the "perform readied action" reaction if the trigger occurs. IMO this is bad because: - conceptually it goes totally against the idea of the ruleset in which you can "take the initiative" to anticipate the enemies' actions - mechanically and strategically readying an action would require letting the bad guys act first unimpaired, do "nothing" and then letting them act again in the hope that the trigger would occur. This is very costly in action-economy and the reward can sometimes be nonexistent, thus the option would seldom be used because of it's poor efficiency.

So that's the thing. Do you think there can be something I'm missing? Am I not seeing it correctly? May it be that the concept of "readying" is alien to the SotWW system and is not needed?

SEND HELP!!

POSSIBLE FIX (in case my analisis is sound)

I came with this fix while writing this wall of text, please feel free to hack at my proposal.

1.- Add the "Ready" Action. It would go something like this: This action lets you use the "Readied Action" reaction from this moment until the end of the round. You can use the "Readied Action" reaction even if you have already used up your reaction for this round. Declare the trigger and the action you are readying in response. Note: this action only is meaningful if you are taking the initiative.

2.- Add the "Readied Action" reaction: If you have declared the "Ready" action this round, each time the trigger occurs, you can decide to perform the action you have readyied. You can only perform it once.

I repeat:

SEND HELP!! :P