D&D 5E Initiative and Saves

[Tormyr]

5E Readying costs you a reaction, which was not the case in 3E, but it doesn't cause a permanent initiative hit. As long as you're confident of not having your concentration disrupted, you can take advantage of this to double-tap a foe; for example, Otto's irresistible dance to impose disadvantage on Dex saves, followed by disintegrate before the target has a chance to break the effect.

As in every edition, mastery of the initiative rules is a powerful thing.

Not to be a buzzkill but Ready is an action. The wizard cannot Cast a Spell and also take the Ready action in the same turn.

 

[Dausuul]

Not to be a buzzkill but Ready is an action. The wizard cannot Cast a Spell and also take the Ready action in the same turn.

You don't have to.

Ready is an action that lets you perform another action (in this case, Cast a Spell) as a reaction later. The rules specifically allow this--with the caveat that when you Ready a spell, you must maintain concentration from the moment you Ready until the trigger occurs and you cast the spell.

Wizard's turn: Wizard readies to cast Otto's irresistible dance on Big Bad, triggering after the end of Big Bad's turn*.
Big Bad's turn: Big Bad does stuff and ends its turn.
Trigger occurs: Wizard casts Otto's irresistible dance as a reaction.
Wizard's turn: Wizard casts disintegrate normally. By readying during the previous turn, Wizard can cast two spells in a row without Big Bad getting a turn in between. (The tradeoff is that Big Bad gets to act before the first spell is cast, and if Big Bad hits Wizard on its turn, the readied spell could be disrupted and lost.)

[SIZE=-2]*The simplest way to do this is to declare, "I'm Readying for the start of the next turn after Big Bad's turn is over." If the DM doesn't allow that on the grounds of being too metagame, then pick an event that you expect to happen after Big Bad ends its turn, such as Fighter making an attack.[/SIZE]

 

[Tormyr]

You don't have to.

Ready is an action that lets you perform another action (in this case, Cast a Spell) as a reaction later. The rules specifically allow this--with the caveat that when you Ready a spell, you must maintain concentration from the moment you Ready until the trigger occurs and you cast the spell.

Wizard's turn: Wizard readies to cast Otto's irresistible dance on Big Bad, triggering after the end of Big Bad's turn*.
Big Bad's turn: Big Bad does stuff and ends its turn.
Trigger occurs: Wizard casts Otto's irresistible dance as a reaction.
Wizard's turn: Wizard casts disintegrate normally. By readying during the previous turn, Wizard can cast two spells in a row without Big Bad getting a turn in between. (The tradeoff is that Big Bad gets to act before the first spell is cast, and if Big Bad hits Wizard on its turn, the readied spell could be disrupted and lost.)

[SIZE=-2]*The simplest way to do this is to declare, "I'm Readying for the start of the next turn after Big Bad's turn is over." If the DM doesn't allow that on the grounds of being too metagame, then pick an event that you expect to happen after Big Bad ends its turn, such as Fighter making an attack.[/SIZE]

Ah. I was thinking about it the other way around. where the reaction was the second spell. Very nice.

 

[fba827]

( only skimmed the thread, apologies if I'm missing a point)
My group has a house rule... When rolling initiative you can at that moment decide what initiative up to your init roll you go on.

In this way, the Wizards in the party often put thier initiative for after the bbeg and the rogue puts himself after the fighter to get some advantage, and so on. We don't allow delay during actual battle, so just a house rule for the moment initiative is rolled. It's worked fine for us so far.

 

[KidSnide]

Fighter: Readies action to attacks the orc after the wizard casts.
Rogue: Readies action to attacks the orc after the wizard casts.
Wizard: Casts hold person. Orc fails its first save and is paralyzed.
Fighter: Readied action to attack the orc with advantage for an automatic crit.
Rogue: Readied action to attack the orc with advantage for an automatic crit, including double Sneak Attack damage.
Orc: Loses its action, makes its second save. Orc is no longer paralyzed.
Fighter: [combat continues]

The problem with this approach is that if the Orc makes his first save, then the Readied actions of multiple PCs could be totally disrupted. Much better to possibly disrupte the single Readied action of the caster than it is to disrupt multiple PC actions. A simple way to do this if the fighter and rogue are in melee with the Orc is for the Orc to disengage. PCs lost three actions, NPCs lost one action. The overall result of this particular PC tactic is to get an action economy loss. Sounds like a subpar tactic.

The likelihood of disruption is pretty low. If the Orc makes his first save, then the Fighter and the Rogue still attack during the Wizard's turn (without advantage) and do the same damage they would have done if they had just attacked initially. Likewise, the Orc won't have an opportunity to disengage until after the Fighter and Rogue have made their attacks.

The only situation where this becomes an issue is if the Orc gets moved out of the kill zone (by some other enemy) between when the Rogue and Fighter readied their actions and the Wizard casts his spell. To me, that vulnerability to that kind of disruption is a feature.

-KS

 

[KarinsDad]

The likelihood of disruption is pretty low. If the Orc makes his first save, then the Fighter and the Rogue still attack during the Wizard's turn (without advantage) and do the same damage they would have done if they had just attacked initially. Likewise, the Orc won't have an opportunity to disengage until after the Fighter and Rogue have made their attacks.

The only situation where this becomes an issue is if the Orc gets moved out of the kill zone (by some other enemy) between when the Rogue and Fighter readied their actions and the Wizard casts his spell. To me, that vulnerability to that kind of disruption is a feature.

-KS

Yes, I guess they would be readying the action for after the spell is cast, not after it takes effect. I did a late 12 hour shift last night and I can tell.

 

[Lanefan]

This type of discussion is exactly why I don't like turn-based cyclical initiative - it turns the fog of war into a chess game.

That, and spells should have a set duration anyway even if only a round or two; 5e blew a call here, I think. So your spell, if successful, should take out the foe for at least a full round (in 5e terms: its next save should come during *your* next turn, not its own)

Lanefan