Official D&D Sage Advice Compendium Updated

Markh3rd · Feb 14, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
But, "and" means both conditions have to apply. You must take the attack action. When you take the attack action, you must make an attack with a light weapon. Both have to happen for twf. The attack is an additional requirement to the attack action, not an independent trigger. Shield master has the same timing (take an attack action) but doesn't have any restrictions on what has to happen in the attack action.

"You can interrupt a multiple-attack action with a bonus action/reaction only if the trigger of the bonus action/reaction is an attack, rather than the action."

I read that as "specified an attack, rather than the attack action" which twf does and shield master doesn't.

If that is also wrong and you can't do anything with your cool fighting toys, then this game just got far more nit picky than it needs to be and on a personal note, I have not seen enforced by any official AL game or AL convention including special event games. But that's anecdotal admittedly.

Yunru · Feb 14, 2019

Markh3rd said:
I read that as "specified an attack, rather than the attack action" which twf does and shield master doesn't.

It doesn't though. It specifies the Attack action and an attack with a light weapon.

Maxperson · Feb 14, 2019

5ekyu said:
I mean without a specific reference inside that phantom rule addressing non-actions or specific call-outs in those non-actions that are stronger than "You choose when to take a bonus action during your turn, " then why aren't they also prevented by the indivisible phantom rule?

Here's the problem, though. You also get to choose when you take your actions during your turn. By arguing that actions are naturally divisible, you are arguing that a fighter can run up, swing his sword for his first attack, move 5 feet, action surge, take an entirely different action, continue moving 10 more feet and finish his second attack. You are also arguing that a fighter/wizard can move 10 feet, cast Scorching Ray that has a duration of instantaneous, divide that action up and action surge after the first ray, swing his sword at an enemy, move 20 feet(despite being unable to move in-between spell attacks by RAW, because now we are in an entirely different action and you can move in-between weapon attacks), finish up his scorching ray strikes, and then swing a second time.

There's a reason why you have to have an exception to the "phantom rule" in order to do something else during an action.

Markh3rd · Feb 14, 2019

The end result is the same. Moves 30 feet....check. Made a spell attack with 3 rays.....check......action surged......check.....made two attacks.....check.

Did it break the game completely? Nope.
Was it fun for the players? Yep.

Now if I saw someone trying to game the system every turn? Nope, RAW says....
But just some casual player trying to be thematically cool? Go for it. If anything Acquisition Inc. leans heavily on rule of cool, and many newer players having seen it want to emulate that fun. But that's another discussion for another thread.

As for me, I see your RAW and acknowledge it's validation. But I'm just going to continue allowing fun at the table instead of ruling my players out of their fun. Abuses notwithstanding of course.

Maxperson · Feb 14, 2019

Markh3rd said:
The end result is the same. Moves 30 feet....check. Made a spell attack with 3 rays.....check......action surged......check.....made two attacks.....check.

Did it break the game completely? Nope.
Was it fun for the players? Yep.

How exactly do you hold an instantaneous spell up while all that happens?

Edit: Or to put it another way, if you can hold up the instant rays while you surge and attack, you can hold up a fireball explosion while you surge and attack, finishing the explosion after the attacks. The duration of them is the same, so those two spell actions would be equally divisible.

As for me, I see your RAW and acknowledge it's validation. But I'm just going to continue allowing fun at the table instead of ruling my players out of their fun. Abuses notwithstanding of course.

And that's perfectly valid. The rule of cool works well for people who like to play that way. My point is that actions are not naturally divisible. They need a specific exception to allow them to be divided, and there are plenty of such exceptions in the rules.

Asgorath · Feb 14, 2019

ad_hoc said:
He specifically talked about the Attack Action and Extra Attack and stated that you cannot do an action within an action. Being able to move is a special property that applies to the Attack Action. It doesn't allow for doing anything and everything.

You can't splice actions in the middle of other actions.

You're not taking an action in the middle of another action, you're taking a bonus action. Those are two very different things. The bonus action rule very clearly says that you get to decide when to take the bonus action on your turn, unless there are timing requirements in the bonus action itself.

Asgorath · Feb 14, 2019

Maxperson said:
Here's the problem, though. You also get to choose when you take your actions during your turn. By arguing that actions are naturally divisible, you are arguing that a fighter can run up, swing his sword for his first attack, move 5 feet, action surge, take an entirely different action, continue moving 10 more feet and finish his second attack. You are also arguing that a fighter/wizard can move 10 feet, cast Scorching Ray that has a duration of instantaneous, divide that action up and action surge after the first ray, swing his sword at an enemy, move 20 feet(despite being unable to move in-between spell attacks by RAW, because now we are in an entirely different action and you can move in-between weapon attacks), finish up his scorching ray strikes, and then swing a second time.

There's a reason why you have to have an exception to the "phantom rule" in order to do something else during an action.

There's a rule that says you can move in between attacks in an Attack action. Action Surge says:

Action Surge
Starting at 2nd level, you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action.

I don't see any language about allowing that one additional action to take place in between attacks in an Attack action, and therefore, it isn't allowed by the RAW. Right?

Bonus actions are not actions, and the bonus action rules clearly state you get to decide when to take the bonus action on your turn (unless there are timing requirements in the bonus action itself). To use your example, you could:

- Move
- Attack action, take first swing
- Move some more
- Take a bonus action without timing requirements, because this qualifies as "any time on your turn"
- Move a little more
- Take second swing, completing the Attack action
- Action Surge
- Move a little more
- Take a second action

Oofta · Feb 14, 2019

So according to one interpretation, I couldn't attack, action surge to kick down a door, move and attack?

That is the opposite of "simple and easy to understand" IMHO even though I agree that it is the most literal interpretation of the rules.

5ekyu · Feb 14, 2019

Maxperson said:
Here's the problem, though. You also get to choose when you take your actions during your turn. By arguing that actions are naturally divisible, you are arguing that a fighter can run up, swing his sword for his first attack, move 5 feet, action surge, take an entirely different action, continue moving 10 more feet and finish his second attack. You are also arguing that a fighter/wizard can move 10 feet, cast Scorching Ray that has a duration of instantaneous, divide that action up and action surge after the first ray, swing his sword at an enemy, move 20 feet(despite being unable to move in-between spell attacks by RAW, because now we are in an entirely different action and you can move in-between weapon attacks), finish up his scorching ray strikes, and then swing a second time.

There's a reason why you have to have an exception to the "phantom rule" in order to do something else during an action.

"Problem"?

I see "examples" but not "problems".

You describe move-attack-move-surge-attack as if its done obviously flawed thing. You just left out what the "problem" was.

You mention the scorching ray and not bring able to move between spell attacks by RAW and dont say how that is a problem.

"(despite being unable to move in-between spell attacks by RAW, because now we are in an entirely different action and you can move in-between weapon attacks), "

Now, let's deal with that one, ok?

You can move between spell attacks in RAW.
You can.
Really.
There is no rule stopping it.
Not one.

Now, what you cannot fo, by RAW, is use the Movement Between Attacks rule to split your normal movement in an action between attacks of a spell because ***that rule** requires weapon attacks specifically.

In your example *that rule* is not being used to move between spell attacks, right? The rule being used is the action surge giving you a new action and whatever that gives you.

See, that's the key, there is no general rule which forbids movement by any means between spell attacks. So, no rule is broken by action surging between spell attacks.

Let's give you an example.

We already know with scorching ray we can pick a target, fire, see results, pick target, fire, see results etc. Nothing RAW forces those "instantaneous" spells with multiple attacks to not be done sequentially (as confirmed by Sage whenever asked.)

So I move, fire, but if that shot triggers say a reaction like dissonant whispers I may be forced to spend my reaction and move away right then and there - but I still have the ability to choose my target and shoot from that new spot.

That did not violate the MBA rule because ts was these other game features that caused the movement, not the MBA.

Would you force that Scorching Ray player to forfeit his shots because DW made him react move away? Or would you rule that a reaction triggered by "hit by an attack" would have to wait not thru just one attack in a sequential set but all of them?

The reaction movement away did not violate RAW because I did not have to use "moving between attacks" rule to move. Just like if I action surge between scorching ray shots no rule was violated.

But the long and short of it is, the rule for MBA does not establish any global prohibition against movement between spell attacks.

Matter of fact, IIRC JEC answer to the question of moving between spell attacks was that there is no general rule allowing it... which obviously leaves open the cases where a specific rule can allow it.

Movement Between Attacks

"If you take an action that includes more than one weapon attack, you can break up your movement even further by moving between those attacks. "

So, again, we reach the key point to me in all this.

You listed two EXAMPLES that you described as problems that would occur if we did not imagine a phantom discrete indivisible action rule, but hey, guess what, we can actually look at honest to goodness real RAW written down rules to go thru and see "were any rules broken."

At no point is any phantom rule needed to resolve this.

That's because the rules being used - using bonus actions when you choose, MBA, sequential attacks - are actually printed rules we can read (and in some cases - printed clarifications)

But this amazingly finessed phantom indivisible discrete action rule whose text is somehow known to be so precise as to divide between "when you choose" and "any time" and between some bonus actions but not non-actions requires us to based rulings on that phantom rule we cannot see, cannot read and cannot examine the wording of.

YMMV.

But in my game, when you action surge, you get a new action, right then and there on your turn. No phantom indivisible need apply. In my game, you cannot use MBA to move between Scorching Ray shots cuz they are not weapon attacks, but there is no problem with movement between them as a result of other features, events and effects and if there are questions we check actual rules for guidance, not phantoms.

Asgorath · Feb 14, 2019

Oofta said:
So according to one interpretation, I couldn't attack, action surge to kick down a door, move and attack?

That is the opposite of "simple and easy to understand" IMHO even though I agree that it is the most literal interpretation of the rules.

That's well within the realm of reasonable in my opinion, and so if one of my players wanted to do that, then I would absolutely let them. I prefer to just keep the combat flowing and not get bogged down with arguing about whether or not you can take the remaining Extra Attacks after the Strength check to kick down the door.

Official D&D Sage Advice Compendium Updated

Markh3rd

Explorer

Yunru

Banned

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

Markh3rd

Explorer

Maxperson

Morkus from Orkus

Asgorath

Explorer

Asgorath

Explorer

Oofta

Legend

5ekyu

Hero

Asgorath

Explorer

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