D&D 5E Has the old "ready to cast silence upon spellcasting" trick finally been stopped?

[Particle_Man]

On the other hand, it makes grapple way more important. Fighter readies a grapple, Caster readies a Silence, and together they can shut down the bad guy caster.

 

[Umbran]

If you ready the silence spell, then wait and concentrate, then, when the enemy is trying to cast the spell "I kill you dead!" on you, you activate the silence spell and ruin the enemy's chance to kill you dead, and cause them to lose their spell slot to boot!

I have seen spellcasters pair off trying this - everyone waiting to silence everyone else, so no spells get cast for several rounds. Kinda hilarious.

 

[Particle_Man]

So as long as each side has a caster with Silence, then fighters suddenly are very useful in combat, as each caster stops the other caster?

 

[Umbran]

So as long as each side has a caster with Silence, then fighters suddenly are very useful in combat, as each caster stops the other caster?

Unless the fighters follow the same logic, and ready actions in case the other guy decides to try to attack....

And everyone just *stares* at each other for a few rounds.

 

[Particle_Man]

Well if it goes on for too long, Basic has rules for exhaustion due to not eating, drinking water, or resting.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Unless the fighters follow the same logic, and ready actions in case the other guy decides to try to attack....

And everyone just *stares* at each other for a few rounds.

Then someone flinches, and combat resolves in a single simultaneous orgy of swords and spells.

 

[Stalker0]

Another note, 5e rules mentions that your readied action occurs AFTER the triggered action.

So if my readied action is "when he casts a spell"....it seems that the spell would go off before the silence takes effect.

 

[Psikerlord#]

Stalker has it- ready action has your action happen immediately after the triggering event, so the target will get their spell off, then be in the silence, at which point they will presumably move out of the area, unless somehow restrained by a friendly. silence will still be a killer against casters who get grappled.

 

[jadrax]

Another note, 5e rules mentions that your readied action occurs AFTER the triggered action.

So if my readied action is "when he casts a spell"....it seems that the spell would go off before the silence takes effect.

Unless I am misreading it, it does not say the trigger has to be an action?

I am used to people declaring the Trigger as 'soandso starts to cast a spell', rather than 'soandso casts a spell'.

That said, I think you would well be in your rights as a GM to rule you can't do that, as it takes to long to cast your spell it cant go off before the other caster has finished his.

 

[Essenti]

That said, I think you would well be in your rights as a GM to rule you can't do that, as it takes to long to cast your spell it cant go off before the other caster has finished his.

If you have readied your spell, it means you have already done the funky chicken dance to cast it, and you are simply using concentration to hold the spell in check. So far as I can tell, you are operating at the speed of thought when deciding to let the spell go ahead. This *should* be faster than the other guy can finish chanting, waving about, and rubbing suflur into a ball of guano...



Edit: I really like that readied spells are cast ahead of time, thus using up their spell slot, and require concentration to keep them at the ready. The drawback for using a readied spell is built in. If anything causes you to lose your concentration or you need to cast another spell that uses concentration, it whiffles into nothingness, and the spell slot was wasted...[FONT=Verdana, Arial, Tahoma, Calibri, Geneva, sans-serif]
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