D&D 5E (2024) Using Action Surge to cast spells in 2024

[Charlaquin]

Its not THAT distinct though. After all, if I cast a spell with it....I still have to reference the Magic Action to know how to actually do it. I am still ultimately taking the action in question.

If I can't hide in open sight, doesn't mean I can ready a hide action and suddenly get to hide in plain sight.

Just as if you Ready a spell, you can’t suddenly cast the spell without a slot or the necessary components for it. But in both cases, the action you’ve taken is Ready, not Hide or Magic.

 

[Charlaquin]

People. All the Ready Action does is allow you to use another action which you choose(attack, cast, move, etc.) to happen later. EXCEPT for the Magic Action. That one you specifically have to start on your turn by casting the spell as normal for the Magic Action and then the Magic Action completes when the trigger happens. When the trigger happens you are not using the Ready Action, you are using the main action you picked earlier.

I agree. Which means, you aren’t using the Magic action with the second action Action Surge gives you. You’re using it with the Reaction the Ready action gives you.

 

[Mort]

Just as if you Ready a spell, you can suddenly cast the spell without a slot or the necessary components for it. But in both cases, the action you’ve taken is Ready, not Hide or Magic.

But as you, yourself said, that's just a game construct.

Forgetting everything else, it seems really odd to just ignore the limitation because you put a different label on it. At least that's my take.

 

[Charlaquin]

how so, Ready delays all actions, that is not specific to spells / the Magic action

Ready doesn’t delay any action. It allows you to take another action as a Reaction in response to a later trigger.

that is semantics, Ready delays your actual action until it becomes a reaction, it is not an action in and of itself.

It’s literally an Action in and of itself. It’s listed as a discrete Action in the Actions section, and the rules treat it as such.

 

[Charlaquin]

it's there because it has no good other place to be. The Ready action would not do anything if it would not piggy-back on another action which actually does something. The only thing Ready does is delay the actual action so it gets triggered by something rather than used immediately on your turn

If it wasn’t meant to be a discrete Action, but a special way you could perform an action, it could have been written just after the Actions as a special way to use them instead of among them, as a discrete item in the list.

 

[Charlaquin]

But as you, yourself said, that's just a game construct.

Forgetting everything else, it seems really odd to just ignore the limitation because you put a different label on it. At least that's my take.

Again, it isn’t just a different label. It’s a completely separate entry in the list of Actions with completely different rules for how to resolve it.

 

[Maxperson]

I agree. Which means, you aren’t using the Magic action with the second action Action Surge gives you. You’re using it with the Reaction the Ready action gives you.

It specifically says you cast the spell as normal during your turn. The only normal it can be referring to is the Magic Action. Then it goes on to specifically say that all you do with your reaction is release the energy. You literally can't take the Magic Action as your reaction since you are not casting any spell and the Magic Action requires spellcasting. You can only release the energy from the Magic Action you took on your turn.

 

[Mort]

Again, it isn’t just a different label. It’s a completely separate entry in the list of actions with completely different rules for how to resolve it.

That says you cast the (1 action only) spell as normal. Normal casting is as a magic action. So it seems quite off (to me) to so easily skirt the restriction imposed on magic actions. But we've been there and in guess no need to keep going around.

 

[ECMO3]

People. All the Ready Action does is allow you to use another action which you choose(attack, cast, move, etc.) to happen later. EXCEPT for the Magic Action. That one you specifically have to start on your turn by casting the spell as normal for the Magic Action and then the Magic Action completes when the trigger happens. When the trigger happens you are not using the Ready Action, you are using the main action you picked earlier.

This is not true. You absolutely can take the Magic Action as a readied action when the trigger happens off turn.

Here is the text from actions:

Prepare to take an action in response to a trigger you define.

Here is the text from the rules glossary:

You take the Ready action to wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you take this action on your turn, which lets you act by taking a Reaction before the start of your next turn.

Nothing in either place states that the Magic Action is different or exempt or that you can't use the Ready Action to prepare a Magic Action in response to a trigger. What it says is you can't cast a spell in this way, but casting a spell is not all that you can do with the Magic Action.

This is part why I am so hard over on this. The rules for casting spells with a ready action are specifically different than using a ready action for doing any other actions, including the Magic Action.

 

[ECMO3]

I accept what you’re saying up to a point. Whether it’s a delay to the end of a six second window though It’s still a delay. Speed of casting is still dependent on initiative and spells have to be cast in some form of order right. Otherwise you’d never have reaction spells. The structure of a game has to fit in there somewhere and then commons sense applies.

It is a specific triggering event, not a delay. If it was a delay it would always happen, as a Ready Action it only happens if the trigger happens. This is fundamentally different than delaying an action.