D&D 5E Ready action confusion - can it cause a PC to get 2 attacks in 1 round?

[bedir than]

No. Ready action on page 193 phb specifies that a spell that you ready must have a casting time of 1 action. Ritualising a spell increases casting time by 10 minutes.

As a sidenote it turns into a concentration as well.

Thanks. I may have to house rule it, due to other house rules. But at least I'll know why I need to do it.

 

[PnPgamer]

Thanks. I may have to house rule it, due to other house rules. But at least I'll know why I need to do it.

You're welcome. Here to help and show off with my nerdy knowledge!

 

[Li Shenron]

A "round" isn't really a thing. It might sometimes be a useful idea, when you're talking about things like a surprise round, but generally speaking it doesn't do anything. Once you've established the order that characters act in, there's no reason to demarcate the transition from the bottom of the order to the top of the order - it's just a continuous progression of turns. In your example, the concept of round two is meaningless, since the characters have all already acted and the (infinitely repeating) order has been established.

Yes but the problem is that Ready can cause a round to "stretch" or "shrink". It might depend on DM's interpretation, so maybe you can't exploit Ready to make a beneficial effect last longer or to delay the start of a negative effect, but you can try to use it to get 2 consecutive turns. And even if it costs doing nothing in the previous round, in the hands of a clever player it could be too good e.g. with the right spell combo.

 

[S'mon]

This is why in 5e I like to roll only once for init per side (then add on individual DEX bonuses) - it runs much quicker and prevents much weirdness. Very rarely will the orcs' turn come in between that of the two PCs; only if the PCs have say DEX +3 and +1 and roll a 10 > 13 & 11, then the orcs roll a 12.

 

[Jester David]

They're taking two attacks in a round but it still cost them two actions. It's advantageous but not broken. If their trigger was not met (say the orcs just moved into line of sight and used javelins) then they would have wasted an attack that could have been used for a bow attack.

 

[styxnstones]

"7 Sworddude: I ready action too, same trigger, but I'm taunting them with insults in Orcish: "Your mother was an elf! etc etc"."

The way we play it is that a use of a social skill to like accomplish somethin (like taunt or intimidate) is usually in itself an action. So at our table you can't ready an attack and then taunt someone to jump into it at the same time.

Though it doesn't seem unfair how you've done it.

If they just traded blows, it'd be

Axe attacks
Orcs attack
Axe + Sword attack
Orcs attack
Axe + Sword attack

But due to Axechick's first action, the orcs hesitated and effectively dropped themselves under Sworddude's initiative (which I guess is how he feels he got an extra action 'cause he got to attack before they did)

Axe + Sword attack
Orcs attack
Axe + Sword attack
Orcs attack
Axe + Sword attack

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Yes but the problem is that Ready can cause a round to "stretch" or "shrink". It might depend on DM's interpretation, so maybe you can't exploit Ready to make a beneficial effect last longer or to delay the start of a negative effect, but you can try to use it to get 2 consecutive turns. And even if it costs doing nothing in the previous round, in the hands of a clever player it could be too good e.g. with the right spell combo.

I'm not sure how a Ready action can change the length of a round. If something last until your next turn, and you take the Ready action, then that effect ends when you take that action - taking a Ready action is no different than taking an Attack or Spell action, in that regard.

In previous editions, they needed to state that delaying or readying would cause effects to end when you declare that, because those actions changed your initiative. It might seem weird that 5E doesn't say the effect ends when you perform the Ready action, and some people might take the absence of that statement to mean that the effect continues until your Readied action is triggered, when actually it should be obvious that the effect ends when you declare the Ready action since doing so does not change your initiative in this edition.