D&D 5E Take the Ready action.

[Charlaquin]

Here's the problem. Notice that 0 ft + 30 ft = 30 ft. So if nothing happens, where'd that 30 ft come from? If nothing happened and you got no movement off your turn, it would be 0 ft + 30 ft = 0 ft. Your conclusion doesn't account for that.

No, 0 ft + 30 ft = 30 ft, but having 30 ft of movement doesn’t help you if you don’t have a way to spend it. Movement is a resource you can spend on your turn to change your position.

Nor does it account for the question that I pointed out that you left off - where Jeremy confirms that Readying a Dash action is like Readying a move. If nothing happened, that wouldn't be true.
So if you're not omitting those things to "fool" me, why are they omitted from your conclusion?

I believe you are misunderstanding the tweets, because from my reading he does the opposite of confirm that it’s like readying to move.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Thank you for an actual example!

However I'm still skeptical this would be a "smart thing to do", which is why I am pretty interested in this. In many cases throwing away your Action in order to blow your Reaction in a very specific way might sound good, but actually doesn't make any sense if thought about a bit harder. If you're going to Ready, you're throwing an Action on the floor. Why not simply Ready to attack the guy when he attacks, or Ready to grapple him when he attacks or something? It really only makes sense if you, personally, have multiple attacks AND you personally, intend to attack the guy. If you're not going to do that, it doesn't make much sense. It also becomes questionable if there are visible, attack-able enemies around.

I get that you're saying it's corner-case - but it's really goddamn corner-case lol.

[/QUOTE]
I think that's a benefit though! If Readying was a clear-cut advantageous strategy, then it would be more useful than just taking your action. And it shouldn't be! Its use comes out of those weird edge cases when you want something out of the narrative but the timing is off.

I'm saying that's a perk, not a trap.

With respect, I'm skeptical about this, unless it's solely because you're DMing and are superb at explaining both. If it's not that, I strongly suspect you're just forgetting that it's happened, because I've seen a very consistent issue with both across multiple groups with different players, and it's absolutely reflected very clearly by the number of questions about both on the internet, and the amount of difficulty people have explaining/understanding both (particularly Surprise). That reddit thread was absolutely chock-full of people sure they understood Surprise perfectly, who gave explanations severely at odds with the RAW.

I mean, I can only tell you what is true at my table.

Illusion spells have caused debates. Portents have caused debates. Hiding has caused debates.

Readying is cut and dry.

Surprise is cut and dry.

I am honestly surprised they are areas of debate at all!

 

[mrpopstar]

RAW hide means unseen and unheard, it does not mean they don't know where you are. It is reasonable to believe they know where you are if they assume that you have not moved (a reasonable assumption). This is really no different than if you duck behind a curtain and take the hide action. Most people are going to assume you are behind the curtain. If you don't take the hide action they know you are behind the curtain.

If they decide to shoot an arrow - if you are unseen but not hidden they shoot it at YOU with disadvantage. If you are hidden they shoot it at the area they think you are and that is with disadvantageif you are there (which you are). So it is the same from that point of view.

There are two differences - first if you did not take the hide action they would know (as a point of fact) that you were there because you are not hidden (presumably they can hear your breathing). Not much mechanical difference there. The second is unless they use the search action you will start your turn hidden and this is a big deal as you can generally move without making another stealth check (as long as you remain obscured) and can use that action for something else. So doing it as a reaction puts you ahead in terms of action economy instead of waiting tohide on your turn.

To borrow from a scenario previously presented in this thread, let's say you anticipate an ally will cast darkness and you will be in the spell's area of effect. If you take the Ready action to Hide when the magical darkness spreads, you're stuck standing in place when you take your reaction. What's the benefit this round and how does it differ from simply being unseen?

 

[Plaguescarred]

You can't move, you know that right? So you could likely only search squares next to you with Investigation, unless the DM was feeling pretty generous. So that massively limits the application. Perception-based uses might be broader but you still need to provide mechanical explanations, not just vague scenarios.

Search is not limited to squares adjacent to you, nor it is limited to Investivation. Wisdom (Perception) is even specified in the Search action,which is the attribute contested against Stealth

 

[Charlaquin]

My experience also.

5E Surprise is pretty confusing, and even a lot of people who are quite sure they know how it works are running it at least a little "off" from the actual RAW or even RAI in some cases. With Ready at least it make sense that they needed to nerf stuff. With Surprise it's kind of the inverse - they nerfed it... a bit... but in a way that made it more complicated and confusing to run, and it's not much of a nerf. With Ready I can see the gain to gameplay. With Surprise I think overall it's a loss to gameplay, all things considered. It comes up more often than Ready and it confuses even more people. There's a reason there was a thousand-post thread on the 5E reddit with people trying to explain Surprise to each other. That's not something any other rules have generated.

In the case of surprise, I get the distinct impression that they wanted to eliminate the surprise round. For much of the playtest, literally all that being surprised did was give the surprised creature -10 initiative. I remember a lot of folks found this unsatisfactory, wanting to get more benefit for sneaking up on enemies, so the version we ended up with kind of replaces the function of a surprise round - giving the unsurprised party a full turn of action economy more than the surprised party - without having the mechanical conceit of a special extra round. I don’t know why they wanted to eliminate that mechanical conceit, but it’s clear that was a specific goal of theirs

 

[ECMO3]

Correct.

You have 30 movement, but no rule is allowing you to spend that movement to change your position, since it is not your turn and you did not ready an action to let you move up to your speed.

There is nothing in the rules about "spending" movement. Dash gives you movement on the current turn, that can be someone else's turn, just like some feats, abilities, legendary actions and maneuvers give movement on someone else's turn. You have that movement available on the turn that the dash action happens, whenever that is. It can be your turn even if it triggers on your turn (in which case it is the same as just taking dash).

 

[mrpopstar]

@Ruin Explorer : Ready is tailor-made for edge cases, so I doubt you're going to find something here that is a "regular use" outside of readying an attack for when an enemy is within range.

But for fun, here's a scenario where Ready a Search would apply:

Let's say the DM throws at you an enemy that can Hide as a Bonus Action. This enemy keeps striking with advantage, then hiding at the end of its turn.

You could say, "I'd like to Ready a Search for when the enemy hides."

The enemy takes its turn, attacks, and hides. This triggers your Perception check. Let's say you succeed.

Your next turn comes up, and now you know where the enemy is, and can attack it. Or you can shout out to your companions where it is. Or whatever.

That's not going to come up a lot! But it's there because sometimes you want to be able to trigger a normal action in weird circumstances. The Ready action is the cost you pay to do something out of order.

I'm with @Ruin Explorer , thank you for the example!

Thank you for an actual example!

However I'm still skeptical this would be a "smart thing to do", which is why I am pretty interested in this. In many cases throwing away your Action in order to blow your Reaction in a very specific way might sound good, but actually doesn't make any sense if thought about a bit harder. If you're going to Ready, you're throwing an Action on the floor. Why not simply Ready to attack the guy when he attacks, or Ready to grapple him when he attacks or something? It really only makes sense if you, personally, have multiple attacks AND you personally, intend to attack the guy. If you're not going to do that, it doesn't make much sense. It also becomes questionable if there are visible, attack-able enemies around.

I get that you're saying it's corner-case - but it's really goddamn corner-case lol.

With respect, I'm skeptical about this, unless it's solely because you're DMing and are superb at explaining both. If it's not that, I strongly suspect you're just forgetting that it's happened, because I've seen a very consistent issue with both across multiple groups with different players, and it's absolutely reflected very clearly by the number of questions about both on the internet, and the amount of difficulty people have explaining/understanding both (particularly Surprise). That reddit thread was absolutely chock-full of people sure they understood Surprise perfectly, who gave explanations severely at odds with the RAW.

I immediately thought "just take the Ready action to Attack when the enemy reveals himself to attack" as well, but it's possible your attacks are less effective than the pile-on you can make possible by taking the Ready action to Search so as to reveal his location to the rest of the party when you take your reaction.

 

[ECMO3]

You have 30 movement, but no rule is allowing you to spend that movement to change your position, since it is not your turn and you did not ready an action to let you move up to your speed.

You have 30 movement that turn. Movement changes turn to turn, speed does not and there are no conditions required for "spending" movement that I am aware of.

If you have movement on a turn you can move on that turn. That is how I interpret the rules and the sage advice.

 

[Plaguescarred]

You have 30 movement that turn. Movement changes turn to turn, speed does not and there are no conditions required for "spending" movement that I am aware of.

If you have movement on a turn you can move on that turn. That is how I interpret the rules and the sage advice.

Your speed can change. For exemple, the Sentinel feat;

"Whenever you hit a creature with an opportunity attack, its speed drops to 0 for the rest of the turn."

 

[mrpopstar]

You have 30 movement that turn. Movement changes turn to turn, speed does not and there are no conditions required for "spending" movement that I am aware of.

If you have movement on a turn you can move on that turn. That is how I interpret the rules and the sage advice.

Did you read through all ten pages of Sage Advice covering the Dash action before forming your opinion?