D&D 5E I am not ready to ready the ready action...

[Li Shenron]

If they provoke an AoO, then by readying you will be able to use abilities like Extra Attack, or melee spells. Its only straight better to take your turn if you have a viable action to take before the flyer is in range.

Unfortunately, readying a spell is a terrible tactic, because of two reasons:

1) If the trigger doesn't occur before your next turn, or if you give up the readied action to do something else (i.e. use your reaction for OA or else) you lose the spell slot anyway. An intelligent enemy could very much decide to not attack you, if he sees you readying a spell (which is actually quite visible, since you cast the spell on your turn and only release it on your reaction), to make you waste your spell.

2) Between the casting and the releasing of the spell, you are concentrating, even if the spell itself doesn't require concentration, so you are even more vulnerable to losing the readied spell.

By the way, you always have a viable action to take: dodge.

 

[jaelis]

My group very rarely uses the ready action, but I think it is a good thing to have. (I could say the same about the help and dodge actions too.)

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

You can't ready extra attack. You can however ready a grab. Or a shove. That will stop the flyer and net you advantage soon enough. A dex fighter can use a bow instead.

Good catch. I forgot about the extra attack only working on your turn.

Unfortunately, readying a spell is a terrible tactic, because of two reasons:

1) If the trigger doesn't occur before your next turn, or if you give up the readied action to do something else (i.e. use your reaction for OA or else) you lose the spell slot anyway. An intelligent enemy could very much decide to not attack you, if he sees you readying a spell (which is actually quite visible, since you cast the spell on your turn and only release it on your reaction), to make you waste your spell.

2) Between the casting and the releasing of the spell, you are concentrating, even if the spell itself doesn't require concentration, so you are even more vulnerable to losing the readied spell.

By the way, you always have a viable action to take: dodge.

In the case of a flying opponent buzzing you, Booming Blade is generally going to be the go-to melee spell worth using, but spells like Flame Blade are also worth mentioning.
Of course if you have Warcaster, you could cast Booming Blade as an AoO if the opponent doesn't have Flyby.

 

[Li Shenron]

Of course if you have Warcaster, you could cast Booming Blade as an AoO if the opponent doesn't have Flyby.

Yeah, but you see where this is going? A specific feat + a non-core cantrip + a condition on the enemy (well an easy one TBH) = corner case.

 

[DEFCON 1]

Uses of the Ready action at our table are more often than not things that I as the DM do-- I have monsters Ready their actions to fire on the Rogue when he pops out from being Hidden.

If the Rogue is Hiding, he will pop up and fire his ranged weapon with Advantage, then pop back down again and use his Bonus action to Hide. As his Dex (Stealth) is usually high enough to surpass most of my monster's Passive Perceptions... the only way I can target the Rogue is either to be able to move a monster around the intervening cover to gain Line of Sight... or to Ready an action to fire on the Rogue when he appears. He will still get to get his attack off with Advantage as usual... but it means the monsters do get a set of return attacks on him before he can Move and Hide again.

 

[Cap'n Kobold]

Yeah, but you see where this is going? A specific feat + a non-core cantrip + a condition on the enemy (well an easy one TBH) = corner case.

Warcaster is what you would need to be able to do that without using the Ready Action.
I was making the point that it would be technically possible to achieve in some situations without using Ready.

 

[Raunalyn]

I will ready an action to counter your readied action whenever you're ready to ready your readied action...

 

[iserith]

A rogue readying to attack after an ally moves adjacent to the enemy is fairly common as is readying a grapple for a skirmisher. I sometimes see a PC ready a shove (to knock prone) after someone else gets the grapple. That occurs because of the initiative order messing with the SOP of my current group of thugs who love to grapple, knock prone, then kick things till they're dead. They call it "Puttin' the boot to 'em."

 

[Nevvur]

I haven't had any players new to 5e at my table for a couple years now, but when I was teaching them, I would give a quick run down of all the main combat actions, including ready. I didn't really encourage its use after that initial primer, and most of them seemed to forget it existed til they got more experience under their belts.

I don't think you gain anything by not mentioning it. One more niche combat option shouldn't overwhelm new players, and some might even surprise you with how readily they grasp complex combat mechanics.

That said, I will occasionally give remedial advice to new players. "You don't want to do anything this round? Ooookay... how about taking the dodge action? Oh, you forgot what that is? Let me explain..." But I probably wouldn't bother reminding about the ready action, with the singular exception of a rogue for sneak attack purposes. The class can feel underpowered if it's not getting consistent sneak attack damage, and I want my players to feel satisfied with their character choices.

 

[BluejayJunior]

We mostly use it for readying attacks or grapples once the enemy gets in range. Things like that. Used it frequently when we were ambushed by goblins that were darting in and out of heavy brush and hiding in order to hit them when they peaked out. I've also seen it used for combining actions with other characters to interact with the environment during combat. So Player 1 readies action to push statue over when Player 2 also starts to push the statue over. Things like that.