Sage Advice Compendium Update 1/30/2019

[5ekyu]

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.



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.

I am not sure what you are meaning by "hold up" with fireball.

Action Surge does not "hold up" anything. It gives you an extra action when you take it.

Fireball and Scorching Ray are both instantaneous durations but the former has one event - one resolution - it goes off. The other has sequential resolution - several different things happen in order and its permitted to make the choices, resolve one, see what happens then make the choices and resolve the next.

The rules already allow for say reactions to change things between shots of the scorching ray that could not cause the same issues for fireball. A Hellish Rebuke might drop me after one scorching ray shot, before the second shot was even declared - end done. The same rebuke from bring fireballed does not stop the res of the fireball victims from being hurt by it.

Instantaneous duration foes not mean simultaneous resolution or evdnts/effects - which is why magic missile and its explicit simultaneous internal to the spell gets singled out.

But if you want to give more clarity in what "hold up" for fireball means, go ahead.

 

[Yunru]

I think people are seeing the reinforcement that actions are divisible as an implicit "actions aren't divisible in other situations."

 

[5ekyu]

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.

The answer to your first question would have to be yes or maybe or no but it depends on the wording of the phantom indivisible rule to see if it applies to action surge or not.

It does seem that to some using action surge between attacks is wrong.

So another example...

I shoot one attack with my bow.
I use my non-action to drop my bow.
I use action surge to don my shield.
I move 15'.
The AO has to deal with my shield AC.
I use my interaction to draw my shortsword while I attack with it.

It would seem to some maybe the "you can push yourself beyond your normal limits for a moment. On your turn, you can take one additional action." collides with the phantom indivisible in some wsy becsuse... reasons?

 

[5ekyu]

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.

Yeah, not having phantom unwritten rules has helped keep our play moving.

 

[Asgorath]

I am not sure what you are meaning by "hold up" with fireball.

Action Surge does not "hold up" anything. It gives you an extra action when you take it.

Fireball and Scorching Ray are both instantaneous durations but the former has one event - one resolution - it goes off. The other has sequential resolution - several different things happen in order and its permitted to make the choices, resolve one, see what happens then make the choices and resolve the next.

The rules already allow for say reactions to change things between shots of the scorching ray that could not cause the same issues for fireball. A Hellish Rebuke might drop me after one scorching ray shot, before the second shot was even declared - end done. The same rebuke from bring fireballed does not stop the res of the fireball victims from being hurt by it.

Instantaneous duration foes not mean simultaneous resolution or evdnts/effects - which is why magic missile and its explicit simultaneous internal to the spell gets singled out.

But if you want to give more clarity in what "hold up" for fireball means, go ahead.

Similarly, someone talked about "interrupting" the Dodge action, which makes no sense to me. My reading of Dodge (and other similar actions) is that it's an instantaneous action that gives you an effect for the duration.

When you take the Dodge action, you focus entirely on avoiding attacks. Until the start of your next turn, any attack roll made against you has disadvantage if you can see the attacker, and you make Dexterity saving throws with advantage.

So, there's nothing to interrupt -- you take the Dodge action, it instantly resolves and attackers now have disadvantage to attack you. You are then free to move, take bonus actions, Action Surges or whatever else you want.

 

[5ekyu]

Similarly, someone talked about "interrupting" the Dodge action, which makes no sense to me. My reading of Dodge (and other similar actions) is that it's an instantaneous action that gives you an effect for the duration.



So, there's nothing to interrupt -- you take the Dodge action, it instantly resolves and attackers now have disadvantage to attack you. You are then free to move, take bonus actions, Action Surges or whatever else you want.

Probably means the phantom discrete indivisible rule has specific language calling out dodge, or dodge from bonus actions or dodge on Thursdays before CritRole... Which we would both know if we saw that rule. I think it may be right above the TWF exclusion but before the non-action one.

 

[Hussar]

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.

And, that would be the point though. We're arguing RAW, not what we'd do at our tables.

 

[Hussar]

Similarly, someone talked about "interrupting" the Dodge action, which makes no sense to me. My reading of Dodge (and other similar actions) is that it's an instantaneous action that gives you an effect for the duration.



So, there's nothing to interrupt -- you take the Dodge action, it instantly resolves and attackers now have disadvantage to attack you. You are then free to move, take bonus actions, Action Surges or whatever else you want.

And there's no difference with any other Action. The only reason that you think that you can interrupt an Attack Action is because we resolve them sequentially. Mostly because there's no other way to resolve them at the table. But, that's the thing. They don't actually resolve sequentially. They occur, more or less, at the same time. There's nothing to interrupt. It's an Action and Actions can't be interrupted except in specific circumstances.

Barring a rule that states that you can take a Bonus Action in the middle of an Action, you can't. That's not a phantom rule, that's just the way rules work. There's no rule that states I can't declare that I have a fly movement, but, barring exceptions like a Fly spell, I cannot do that. There's no rule stating that I don't crit on a 15 to 20. After all, I do crit on a 20, so, why not on a 19 or an 18? But, again, I don't because the rules don't say that I do. Barring the specific exception of higher level champion fighters.

On and on. That's how it works. If it doesn't say that you can, then you can't. That's how RAW is interpreted. Has zero to do with what I'd actually do at my table, but, that's how you interpret RAW.

 

[Asgorath]

And there's no difference with any other Action. The only reason that you think that you can interrupt an Attack Action is because we resolve them sequentially. Mostly because there's no other way to resolve them at the table. But, that's the thing. They don't actually resolve sequentially. They occur, more or less, at the same time. There's nothing to interrupt. It's an Action and Actions can't be interrupted except in specific circumstances.

Barring a rule that states that you can take a Bonus Action in the middle of an Action, you can't. That's not a phantom rule, that's just the way rules work. There's no rule that states I can't declare that I have a fly movement, but, barring exceptions like a Fly spell, I cannot do that. There's no rule stating that I don't crit on a 15 to 20. After all, I do crit on a 20, so, why not on a 19 or an 18? But, again, I don't because the rules don't say that I do. Barring the specific exception of higher level champion fighters.

On and on. That's how it works. If it doesn't say that you can, then you can't. That's how RAW is interpreted. Has zero to do with what I'd actually do at my table, but, that's how you interpret RAW.

Again, I'm not following your logic. There is a rule that addresses this for bonus actions:

You choose when to take a bonus action during your turn, unless the bonus action's timing is specified, and anything that deprives you of your ability to take actions also prevents you from taking a bonus action.

That's a specific rule that lets you take your bonus action whenever you want. I don't think this could be any simpler or clearer.

Based on this rule, if I have multiple attacks from Extra Attack and take the Attack action, then I could choose to take my bonus action to do a Misty Step between attacks because the bonus action rule says I get to decide when to do it. The only complexity comes from the "if X then Y" triggers that grant you the bonus action in the first place, such as Shield Master, TWF and so on. There are plenty of bonus actions that don't have any timing restrictions, and thus you can pick any time during your turn to take those bonus actions. JEC even confirmed this in the most recent Sage Advice video:

https://youtu.be/ew1dc6VBHhA?t=304

 

[Lord Twig]

This is like saying to your friend, "Stop by anytime!" and he shows up at 2am saying, "Dude, you said 'anytime'!"

There is really no point arguing at this point. The rules say what they say and people are reading them differently. I don't know if there is really a way to overcome that.