D&D 5E Take the Ready action.

[mrpopstar]

You choose to act or move. Dash is an action. If you Dash, you can't also move.

EDIT: Discussing the Ready action here.

 

[mrpopstar]

Taking the Ready action to Dash has been covered in Sage Advice.

 

[Oofta]

You choose to act or move. Dash is an action. If you Dash, you can't also move.

Right, you could move during your turn and then ready to dash but that's it. You ready to either move or take an action.

 

[overgeeked]

You choose to act or move. Dash is an action. If you Dash, you can't also move.

That’s not right. You get these things in a round: action, move, bonus action, reaction. You can both move and act.

 

[mrpopstar]

That’s not right. You get these things in a round: action, move, bonus action, reaction. You can both move and act.

We were discussing the Ready action. I added an edit above to clarify.

EDIT: And it's no guarantee you get those things. On your turn, you can move a distance up to your speed and take one action. Bonus actions and reactions are additional actions that rely on class features, spells, other abilities and situations.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Taking the Ready action to Dash has been covered in Sage Advice.

As far as I can tell, and I'm pretty sure this is the case, the Ready action is the rare example of an intentionally designed "trap" option, or more generously, "intentionally suboptimal" option in 5E.

In general in 5E they work hard to try and make stuff equal, or where something isn't, they signpost it.

With Ready, for some reason they refused to signpost that it was a trap choice, and they made it really outstandingly bad.

I know why they did it, because previous versions of this sort of thing (in previous editions) were both drastically more powerful and made turns much more complicated than they had to be, but at the same time, I think it's one of the few bits of outright bad design in 5E, because they didn't like, explain to players that they should not be taking it (the wacky and slightly counter-intuitive design of surprise is another one).

It basically screws the players in absolutely every way possible. You only get a move OR an action, you only get ONE attack if you take the attack option (which is bullcrap given you can cast a spell like Eldritch Blast and will get all your attacks with that, or use another cantrip which gets full damage which is equivalent to multiple attacks).

My players played a lot of 4E and 3E, and they still keep thinking "Okay, I can be tactical and Ready an action!" and I have to keep explaining to them that nah, in 5E you can't do jack crap with Ready. You're just stuffing yourself in 99 cases out of 100 (given Counterspell is already a Reaction).

 

[Benjamin Olson]

Exactly. You don't actually move when you take the Dash action, you simply unlock extra movement that you can take during your current turn. Using Dash as a readied action does literally nothing - it doesn't even let you move your normal speed.

I guess that's how it works. I've got to confess I've always conceived as the Dash action as involving taking the movement, not just "unlocking" it; referred to readying an action to move as holding the Dash action; and taught other people the game based on such terminology and it has worked exactly the same as had I conceived of these things according to the official doctrine.

 

[mrpopstar]

As far as I can tell, and I'm pretty sure this is the case, the Ready action is the rare example of an intentionally designed "trap" option, or more generously, "intentionally suboptimal" option in 5E.

In general in 5E they work hard to try and make stuff equal, or where something isn't, they signpost it.

With Ready, for some reason they refused to signpost that it was a trap choice, and they made it really outstandingly bad.

I know why they did it, because previous versions of this sort of thing (in previous editions) were both drastically more powerful and made turns much more complicated than they had to be, but at the same time, I think it's one of the few bits of outright bad design in 5E, because they didn't like, explain to players that they should not be taking it (the wacky and slightly counter-intuitive design of surprise is another one).

It basically screws the players in absolutely every way possible. You only get a move OR an action, you only get ONE attack if you take the attack option (which is bullcrap given you can cast a spell like Eldritch Blast and will get all your attacks with that, or use another cantrip which gets full damage which is equivalent to multiple attacks).

My players played a lot of 4E and 3E, and they still keep thinking "Okay, I can be tactical and Ready an action!" and I have to keep explaining to them that nah, in 5E you can't do jack crap with Ready. You're just stuffing yourself in 99 cases out of 100 (given Counterspell is already a Reaction).

1. Great avatar! Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham is my spirit animal.
2. I don't know that I agree they intentionally designed the Ready action as a suboptimal option. I think they delivered on their intent to avoid the issue of delayed actions and the cascade of interrupts that plagued editions of yore, I just think there's a lot of the cross-referencing confusion that could've easily been avoided by including a bulleted list of explicit opportunities when you take your reaction. Right now it's just maddening.

 

[mrpopstar]

I guess that's how it works. I've got to confess I've always conceived as the Dash action as involving taking the movement, not just "unlocking" it; referred to readying an action to move as holding the Dash action; and taught other people the game based on such terminology and it has worked exactly the same as had I conceived of these things according to the official doctrine.

Don't stress it! It's a common confusion. I've seen it played that way many times.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

1. Great avatar! Violet Crawley, Dowager Countess of Grantham is my spirit animal.
2. I don't know that I agree they intentionally designed an suboptimal option. I think they delivered on their intent to avoid the issue of delayed actions and the cascade of interrupts that plagued editions of yore. Really, all of the cross-referencing confusion could be easily avoided by including a bulleted list of explicit opportunities when you take your reaction. Right now it's just maddening.

Thanks!
Re: 2, I don't see how that's different from what I said, sorry. It's an intentionally suboptimal option you generally shouldn't be using that's confusing given similar options in previous editions were solid. That should be highlighted. But I totally agree that it needs a explicit bullet-point list of things that you can/can't do.

I feel like it's one of the worse pieces of design in 5E for several reaons really:

1) Yeah no explicit list of how it works, just a sort of mumbly and confused three paragraphs.
2) Secretly limits you to one attack without explaining that - you have to infer it - most players, even smart ones, do not - many DMs do not.
3) Weird usage of Concentration that comes out of nowhere and is never used again, feels like it's from an earlier edition.
4) Doesn't explain that it's intentionally limited - the natural assumption is that you're not taking an action so you can take an action later, but it's a not true, you're not taking an action so that you can specify how you want to use your Reaction, in a really limited way that isn't properly explain.

Awful.

Re: Dash yeah it is confusing. It wasn't until I played BG3 that I realized how it was supposed to work - in practical terms it always worked fine without knowing that, though.