The Readied Spell Abyss

[5ekyu]

No one's arguing that everything in the combat chapter is relegated to combat: Just the actions listed under "Actions in Combat," and only those (like Dodge) that aren't mentioned in any other context.

So the organizational parsing gets even more selective.

By "any other context" you seem to be meaning "referenced in another chapter" of sub-section, is that right? Or is the requirement that you have to have an explicit statement of "it can be done outside of combat" elsewhere if it is listed in the "actions in combat" "vault of not doing"?

is there anything in the rules that says this is how they did their organization - throwing a whole bunch of things under a section and only meaning for two of them to be considered "locked in combat only" and you are to divine this by reading thru the rest of the book to search for a reference elsewhere and only using "i didn't find other references" as the tell for "this one bit here is combat only"?

from any RAW, RAI or narrative sense - what is gained by imagining the proper reply to "my character rolls and dodges" should be "you cannot do that because you are not in combat. your character cannot roll around and duck and weave without first someone there being hostile and wanting to hit you or some of your allies or you wanting to hit them."???

Last time i looked, there was not an explicit "spells can be cast out of combat" reference in the spell casting section. is the fact that they chose to organize spellcasting in its own chapter to be taken as "that means its out of combat too."???

What if the character carried a bag of rats and declared he was going to fight the rats... is that a combat and so he can now dodge or ready an action or cast a spell or draw a sword even if it is not against the rats per se?

 

[5ekyu]

There is a difference though. Drawing your sword doesn't actually do anything, mechanically. And, while it is mentioned in the combat section, under "use an item", there are several exceptions specifically listed, including the fact that drawing your weapon can be part of the attack.

Readying and Action, as an Action is a specific game artifact governed by several fairly concrete rules.

Casting a spell during a play, as the example above, isn't a "Readying an Action" action. It's a surprise action, presuming no one is expecting you to do so during the middle of a play. Readying an Action, as the game artifact, presumes you are already in combat and you are trading your action for a reaction. As another example, using the play, if my fighter jumped on stage and attacked, he'd get surprise, and thus his full suite of attacks, rather than a single Readied Action attack.

Now, sure, you could cast and hold a spell outside of combat. I don't see why not. It's no different than holding your sword. Although, to be fair, it would be kinda wonky to keep concentration up that long, and I don't see it as being unreasonable that you would lose the spell eventually.

The reason for this is to stop casters from double tapping spells in the first round of combat. Ready a spell, roll initiative, fire off the readied spell and then cast your next spell on your turn seems awfully powerful.

Fortunately, I think most DM's would simply say, "no, you can't do that, stop being a twerp".

i was wondering how long before we got to this - outside of combat you can do everything that ready action does - cast a spell at a point reacting to an event as well as cast and hold for release a spell - but if you call it a ready action that is against this invible non-RAW organizational verbotten selective thing.

great, got it.

now, can that out of combat "held" but "not READY" no sirree bob not READY cuz READY would be bad bad bad bad wrong fun - be seen as a visibly held energy, can it be dispelled or can it be counterspelled? (tho not sure if any of those things can be done outside of combat?)

So, for the rest of the discussion, lets call "dodging" outside of combat as "evading" and lets call "readying a spell" outside of combat "spell squeezing" and lets call "drawing a sword outside of combat" as "tugging your weapon" so we can get back to the actual questioning which was what are the in-game particulars of that "cast but held" spell as far as its exposure to the rest of the world.

 

[Shiroiken]

"...which lets you act using your reaction before the start of your next turn." is at the beginning of readied action and seems to apply to even the spell section. So the idea that for a readied spell you could keep it going turn after turn until the trigger seems very off by that initial definition of ready action and what it does.

I read that part as well, but that doesn't imply, to me at least, that the spell is lost at that point in time. As I said, I can understand the logic, but the wording is inexact.

this is actually more explicitly confirmed in the current Sage Advice Compendium which says that "A readied spell's slot is lost if you don't release the spell with your reaction before the start of your next turn."

Not everyone considers SA to be rules but as far as this goes, it is really not changing and just confirming the basic definition in ready action.

Designer intent, especially clarifications, is the point of SA, but it isn't errata. I'm willing to agree with it here because the initial situation isn't clear in the text, but does not appear to be done deliberately (as in the case of stealth and hiding).

 

[Prakriti]

So the organizational parsing gets even more selective.

By "any other context" you seem to be meaning "referenced in another chapter" of sub-section, is that right? Or is the requirement that you have to have an explicit statement of "it can be done outside of combat" elsewhere if it is listed in the "actions in combat" "vault of not doing"?

is there anything in the rules that says this is how they did their organization - throwing a whole bunch of things under a section and only meaning for two of them to be considered "locked in combat only" and you are to divine this by reading thru the rest of the book to search for a reference elsewhere and only using "i didn't find other references" as the tell for "this one bit here is combat only"?

from any RAW, RAI or narrative sense - what is gained by imagining the proper reply to "my character rolls and dodges" should be "you cannot do that because you are not in combat. your character cannot roll around and duck and weave without first someone there being hostile and wanting to hit you or some of your allies or you wanting to hit them."???

Last time i looked, there was not an explicit "spells can be cast out of combat" reference in the spell casting section. is the fact that they chose to organize spellcasting in its own chapter to be taken as "that means its out of combat too."???

What if the character carried a bag of rats and declared he was going to fight the rats... is that a combat and so he can now dodge or ready an action or cast a spell or draw a sword even if it is not against the rats per se?

I think you're making this way too complicated for yourself. What it comes down to is this: The existing rules allow you to adjudicate any imaginable combat situation just fine. Just determine if anyone is surprised, then roll initiative. It's that simple. "Readiness" never comes into it, because "Readiness" is already taken into account in the Surprise and Initiative mechanics.

Of course, as the DM, you are welcome to change the rules and allow your players to Ready actions outside of combat if you want, but as I think you've seen, this change can cause needless complications to the game.

 

[5ekyu]

I think you're making this way too complicated for yourself. What it comes down to is this: The existing rules allow you to adjudicate any imaginable combat situation just fine. Just determine if anyone is surprised, then roll initiative. It's that simple. "Readiness" never comes into it, because "Readiness" is already taken into account in the Surprise and Initiative mechanics.

Of course, as the DM, you are welcome to change the rules and allow your players to Ready actions outside of combat if you want, but as I think you've seen, this change can cause needless complications to the game.

First i think you are getting things way overcomplicated.

Seer, i was asking a question about the in-between status of ready-spell-held and how it interacts with perception and recognition and counter spell and dispel.

suddenly because some folks have this imagined format ruling that gets smaller and smaller and more and mores selective with each "but that means..." that they need to account/counter - it turns into a discussion about how you are forbidden to dodge outside of combat situations.

For me, it is rather uncomplicated - i do not have to laugh myself silly when i try and explain to my playe4rs that they cannot dodge unless they first attack a sack of rats because some of the elements listed under "combat" are teased out to imagine a restriction that is not stated anywhere at all.

Waiting for the laughter to die down is far more complicated than most other things.

meanwhile, i continue to work with the idea of what that in-between status for readied spells is and how it interacts with the world at large - even for combat situations.

but y'all have fun now.

 

[5ekyu]

FYI someone else retweeted this to me - no response from sage yet from earlier questions posed to JC that seems to answer some of it... with even the "duck behind cover, ready then out and release to avoid countespell

JC responded about whether counterspell vs ready etc...
When you use the Ready action to cast a spell, you cast the spell when you take that action and can be counterspelled then. #DnD

here is the link so you can also see other comments.


obviously this exchange there did not address the other questions about dispel magic, seeing, identifying etc. but at least there is FWIW or FWIM a response to the counterspell part.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JeremyECrawford/status/893277112911646723

 

[Hussar]

First i think you are getting things way overcomplicated.

Seer, i was asking a question about the in-between status of ready-spell-held and how it interacts with perception and recognition and counter spell and dispel.

suddenly because some folks have this imagined format ruling that gets smaller and smaller and more and mores selective with each "but that means..." that they need to account/counter - it turns into a discussion about how you are forbidden to dodge outside of combat situations.

For me, it is rather uncomplicated - i do not have to laugh myself silly when i try and explain to my playe4rs that they cannot dodge unless they first attack a sack of rats because some of the elements listed under "combat" are teased out to imagine a restriction that is not stated anywhere at all.

Waiting for the laughter to die down is far more complicated than most other things.

meanwhile, i continue to work with the idea of what that in-between status for readied spells is and how it interacts with the world at large - even for combat situations.

but y'all have fun now.

So, the first attack against all PC's and NPC's in every combat automatically has disadvantage? Since, well, we can use the dodge action out of combat, and ready it, so, barring surprise, everything out there should be dodging in the first round, no? Why can't my character be ready to dodge all the time, since, well, I can take combat specific actions out of combat?

Now, let's get off the silly stuff no? To Ready an Action with a spell, you MUST specify a trigger. If that trigger does not occur, your readied action does not go off. Now, what you can specify as a trigger is a bit nebulous but, it is supposed to be pretty specific. "I ready ((this spell)) to fire at the first enemy I see" is fine when there are obvious enemies in the near future. But, that same statement made first thing in the morning doesn't make much sense when the first enemy you come across is four hours later.

Placing a reasonable limit on concentration (say about 10 minutes or until you start doing something else) seems a pretty decent restriction to me.

Now, can you counter spell the readied spell? Well, I'd say it could only be counter spelled in the case that the trigger action has occurred. At that point, the spell is completed and cast and thus, can be countered. Would dispel magic work before the trigger action? Probably. Seems reasonable to me. It's a magical effect, so, why not? Then again, this is such a bizarre corner case, that I don't really care.

Personally, I'd rather keep it a lot more simple. Readied an Action is an action IN COMBAT. Outside of combat, it's freeform, and you can do pretty much whatever you want. The surprise rules would seem to be more applicable, AFAIC, than the Ready and Action and don't actually need any adjudication. Heck, you cannot even counter spell in that case since you can't take reactions when you are surprised.

 

[5ekyu]

So, the first attack against all PC's and NPC's in every combat automatically has disadvantage? Since, well, we can use the dodge action out of combat, and ready it, so, barring surprise, everything out there should be dodging in the first round, no? Why can't my character be ready to dodge all the time, since, well, I can take combat specific actions out of combat?

Now, let's get off the silly stuff no? To Ready an Action with a spell, you MUST specify a trigger. If that trigger does not occur, your readied action does not go off. Now, what you can specify as a trigger is a bit nebulous but, it is supposed to be pretty specific. "I ready ((this spell)) to fire at the first enemy I see" is fine when there are obvious enemies in the near future. But, that same statement made first thing in the morning doesn't make much sense when the first enemy you come across is four hours later.

Placing a reasonable limit on concentration (say about 10 minutes or until you start doing something else) seems a pretty decent restriction to me.

Now, can you counter spell the readied spell? Well, I'd say it could only be counter spelled in the case that the trigger action has occurred. At that point, the spell is completed and cast and thus, can be countered. Would dispel magic work before the trigger action? Probably. Seems reasonable to me. It's a magical effect, so, why not? Then again, this is such a bizarre corner case, that I don't really care.

Personally, I'd rather keep it a lot more simple. Readied an Action is an action IN COMBAT. Outside of combat, it's freeform, and you can do pretty much whatever you want. The surprise rules would seem to be more applicable, AFAIC, than the Ready and Action and don't actually need any adjudication. Heck, you cannot even counter spell in that case since you can't take reactions when you are surprised.

thank you for your feedback especially the discussion about ready vs doing whatever you want and surprise all of which were at the core of the original thread and obviously need to have most of the time spent on them.

 

[5ekyu]

Now, can you counter spell the readied spell? Well, I'd say it could only be counter spelled in the case that the trigger action has occurred. At that point, the spell is completed and cast and thus, can be countered. Would dispel magic work before the trigger action? Probably. Seems reasonable to me. It's a magical effect, so, why not? Then again, this is such a bizarre corner case, that I don't really care.

thanks... this is quite on point.

Now, apparently the Sage has ruled differently - that the counter spell would need to be done at the casting - that the casting occurs when the ready action is taken - not later when the energy is released. Another developer of 5e based material also ruled that way separate of sage for his product. That also matches the wording in the ready - which says the spell is cast as *when8 you ready the spell "When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs."

But i can certainly understand the desire to have counterspell be applicable at relase - otherwise the "duck behind corner, ready cast, step out and release is a very easy way to get counter-spell proof spells off if there is even moderate terrain to use for blocking line of sight and according to many counterspell is an extremely common and effective tactical choice at higher levels. But, that case was even mentioned in the tweets thread overall of the counter-at-cast-ready ruling.

Still no clear ruling on dispel vs ready-energy-held - tho the "other developer" did say what i had originally worried - that dispel needs the spell to already be in effect and so that "held-energy" stage is post-counter-spell and pre-dispel and so basically in a limbo protected state it seems.

And the perception of "held energy" still no real semi-official or official responses. For that, i will likely keep to my original idea that *if* the final effect is perceivable then the held energy is perceivable and not create even more of a "limbo" state between "visible casting and visible effect" of "invisible held energy."

then again, maybe more official answers would be coming? Doubt it, so far i have zero tweet response directly.

thanks again.

 

[Blue]

As for Dispel vs Counter - I rule it can be Dispelled while in a ready state but not counterspelled - because it specifically states casting has been done.

Dispel I would allow, but with it's target of "a magical effect", not targeting a creature (the caster) since it's not targeting anything yet. There's a level of DM ruling in there, I'm not trying to convince you, just mentioning what I would do.

The other point is that it can be interrupted as with damage forcing a Concentration check as well. (PHB pg 193)