D&D 5E Double Dash

doctorbadwolf · Jul 20, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
Sorry, but when did I say anything about how the chase rules work? I apologize if I've mistaken given you that impression.

But...that is the rule set for chases.

It’s also strongly implied in the rules that exceeding your walking speed would be a function of a strength athletics check, which a strength fighter will be better at it unless the rogue is an expert, in the high case they should be better than the non expert. This only leaves normal combat movement speed dominated by rogues.

Which doesn’t seem weird at all, to me.

Ovinomancer · Jul 20, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
But...that is the rule set for chases.

Okay... yes? I feel you're trying to say something but it's just not quite complete...

It’s also strongly implied in the rules that exceeding your walking speed would be a function of a strength athletics check, which a strength fighter will be better at it unless the rogue is an expert, in the high case they should be better than the non expert. This only leaves normal combat movement speed dominated by rogues.

Which doesn’t seem weird at all, to me.

Huh, I've completely missed that rule, and have also completely missed all the threads talking about how that works. Where is this strongly implied? Is there a thread talking about reasonable DCs to set for, say, doubling your speed? Also, where is your move speed called your walking speed, as I seem to have missed that as well?

doctorbadwolf · Jul 20, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
Okay... yes? I feel you're trying to say something but it's just not quite complete...

You referenced out of combat speed as a problem. There are rules that cover most instances of out of combat running. It's...quite relevant.

Huh, I've completely missed that rule, and have also completely missed all the threads talking about how that works. Where is this strongly implied? Is there a thread talking about reasonable DCs to set for, say, doubling your speed? Also, where is your move speed called your walking speed, as I seem to have missed that as well?

I'm not ever going to care, even a tiny little bit, about this sort of nit picking. You know what walking speed is. Pedantry is entirely useless.

Esker · Jul 20, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
It's a mechanical artifact because "Expert Sprinter" isn't a rogue fluff bit -- it's not mentioned anywhere. Hence, the effect of the rogue being an expert sprinter is a mechanical artifact -- it comes from interaction of the mechanics. The rogue as the maneuverable guy is maintained fully even if you drop double-dashing -- they're still the only class that can, without resource expenditure, do something as an action and then dash, disengage, or hide.

As for why you might want to do it -- I had a fighter/rogue in Curse of Strahd. I had that one weapon thingy. I could force that one bad guy to use all of his legendary actions to avoid said weapon thingy every round because he just couldn't run far enough away without them. I effectively neutralized this guy because I ran fast -- (move, dash or disengage as needed to close, use action to ready dash to follow if moved away).

I'm pretty sure RAW you can't ready a dash -- or rather you can, I suppose, but it does nothing since you can't move when you do it (the effect of a dash action is to add your speed to your movement pool for the turn). So dash as action + dash as bonus action (outside something like Haste or in the case of multiclassing, action surge) means you can do nothing else but move that round unless something gives you a reaction (like maybe an AoO), and I guess an object interaction.

In other words, if you found in that situation that double dashing broke something, it's because you weren't playing by the rules when you did what you did.

Ovinomancer · Jul 20, 2019

doctorbadwolf said:
You referenced out of combat speed as a problem. There are rules that cover most instances of out of combat running. It's...quite relevant.

Sigh. Already had this conversation. I didn't bring up out of combat movement, that was others. So, no.

I'm not ever going to care, even a tiny little bit, about this sort of nit picking. You know what walking speed is. Pedantry is entirely useless.

I don't, actually. Calling it a walking speed comes with a host of assumptions, like "what's your running speed?" that are entirely unwarranted and not intended by the rules of the game.

I also note that you didn't provide the reference to Athletics increasing your speed.

Ovinomancer · Jul 20, 2019

Esker said:
I'm pretty sure RAW you can't ready a dash -- or rather you can, I suppose, but it does nothing since you can't move when you do it (the effect of a dash action is to add your speed to your movement pool for the turn). So dash as action + dash as bonus action (outside something like Haste or in the case of multiclassing, action surge) means you can do nothing else but move that round unless something gives you a reaction (like maybe an AoO), and I guess an object interaction.

In other words, if you found in that situation that double dashing broke something, it's because you weren't playing by the rules when you did what you did.

There's a thread on this that didn't resolve the situation, either, so you're telling me your ruling as if it's rules. Also, for what it's worth, Crawford says you can ready a dash -- it gives you your speed in movement.

Esker · Jul 20, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
There's a thread on this that didn't resolve the situation, either, so you're telling me your ruling as if it's rules. Also, for what it's worth, Crawford says you can ready a dash -- it gives you your speed in movement.

I thought it was rules, but if Crawford says otherwise then I'm just wrong. I can't find that particular sage advice, but looking back at the rules about readied actions, they do clearly say you can take an action or move up to your speed in response to the trigger (which I guess is functionally like taking the dash action to take your movement from zero to 1x your speed on the turn when the trigger happens). So mea culpa there.

So... you can ready 1x your movement, which may or may not be considered taking the dash action in response to the trigger... but in either case saying that you can't dash twice in a turn doesn't address that case, since your turn would consist of the bonus action to dash and the regular action to take the ready action. Much like if you're Hasted, then your extra action allows you to make an attack, but not to take the ready action to make an attack. Readying is its own thing.

Ovinomancer · Jul 20, 2019

Esker said:
I thought it was rules, but if Crawford says otherwise then I'm just wrong. I can't find that particular sage advice, but looking back at the rules about readied actions, they do clearly say you can take an action or move up to your speed in response to the trigger (which I guess is functionally like taking the dash action to take your movement from zero to 1x your speed on the turn when the trigger happens). So mea culpa there.

So... you can ready 1x your movement, which may or may not be considered taking the dash action in response to the trigger... but in either case saying that you can't dash twice in a turn doesn't address that case, since your turn would consist of the bonus action to dash and the regular action to take the ready action. Much like if you're Hasted, then your extra action allows you to make an attack, but not to take the ready action to make an attack. Readying is its own thing.

Attacking was not the goal.

Esker · Jul 21, 2019

Ovinomancer said:
Attacking was not the goal.

I never suggested it was. I was simply noting that the example you gave for why dashing twice could be an advantageous thing to do repeatedly in combat, while rules legal (despite my initial mistaken impression) isn't really an example of dashing twice at all, since it involves one dash action and one ready action on your turn, followed by carrying out readied movement during your reaction. Yes you've moved a total of 3x your speed during the round, but split between two turns. So if that's the case you want to forbid, saying you can't dash twice in a turn doesn't do it.

Ovinomancer · Jul 21, 2019

Esker said:
I never suggested it was. I was simply noting that the example you gave for why dashing twice could be an advantageous thing to do repeatedly in combat, while rules legal (despite my initial mistaken impression) isn't really an example of dashing twice at all, since it involves one dash action and one ready action on your turn, followed by carrying out readied movement during your reaction. Yes you've moved a total of 3x your speed during the round, but split between two turns. So if that's the case you want to forbid, saying you can't dash twice in a turn doesn't do it.

I Readied a 2nd Dash on my turn. Being unable to Dash twice would have prevented this, as you cannot Ready an action you don't have available (a Champion Fighter, frex, cannot Ready a Meteor Storm just because it doesn't hapoen on his turn).