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

[Maxperson]

It can’t be the Magic Action because you’ve already used your Action to perform the Ready Action. “Cast as normal” therefore can only mean perform the spellcasting components and spend the spell slot (or magic item charge or species/class/feat feature usage).

The Ready Action is not a normal method of spellcasting. "Cast as normal" can only mean you cast it as if the Magic Action is being taken.

 

[James Gasik]

Gladly!

When you take the Magic action, you cast a spell that has a casting time of an action or use a feature or magic item that requires a Magic action to be activated.

If you cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 minute or longer, you must take the Magic action on each turn of that casting, and you must maintain Concentration while you do so. If your Concentration is broken, the spell fails, but you don’t expend a spell slot. See also “Concentration.”

I think another section needs to be bolded here. Specifically: "When you take the Magic action, you cast a spell that has a casting time of an action...".

Now bear with me, because I want to go over every point carefully.

Let's assume this is a valid reading of the rules: if the spell's casting time is other than "an action", it's not the Magic action. We see this with shield and counterspell, naturally, but also with Warcaster and the War Magic feature of the Eldritch Knight.

Logically, casting a spell using your reaction via the Ready Action would work the same way, ie, we're not using the Magic Action. But then we have this pesky "cast the spell as normal" rule which doesn't define what "as normal" means in this instance. Is it "as normal" by the spellcasting rules? "As normal" for the person casting the spell?

The argument in play is that Ready turns the Magic Action into a Reaction, despite the fact the rules don't explicitly say this (the assumption is that it is implicit by the "as normal" wording). The rules for Readying a spell are even more murky, as they state you begin casting the spell, but the spell doesn't go off until you use your Reaction, and if your concentration is interrupted. The spell slot and components are consumed when you Ready the spell.

All well and good, but the original question has to do not with casting a spell, but a magic item, and this is where things get sticky:

"Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item. The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell and caster level, doesn't expend any of the user's spell slots, and requires no components, unless the item's description says otherwise. The spell uses its normal casting time, range, and duration, and the user of the item must concentrate if the spell requires concentration."

The Wand of Magic Missile: "This wand has 7 charges. While holding it, you can use an action to expend 1 or more of its charges to cast the magic missile spell from it. For 1 charge, you cast the 1st-level version of the spell. You can increase the spell slot level by one for each additional charge you expend."

With this item, the user isn't really casting the spell. The Wand is casting the spell when the user uses an action to expend one of its charges. Ok, following me so far? Here's where it gets weird.

It's time for another confusing Dev Tweet!

Using a Wand does not use the spell rule in Ready!

So what on Earth does that mean, exactly? Let's look at the rule again:

"When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell's magic requires concentration."

So, in summary, readying to use a Wand or Staff does not require concentration, does not use a spell slot, is not "cast normally". So what does this mean?

Some possibilities: you can't Ready a Wand or Staff! Hardly likely, but I had to mention it.

Alternately, you can Quicken a Spell that uses a Spell Slot, casting it with a Bonus Action, and still use the Magic Action to use a Wand/Staff, since charges =/= spell slots.

Or maybe Jeremy doesn't know what he's talking about, and spell slots = charges.

And finally, it's possible that if Readying a Wand/Staff is not "casting a spell as normal", then you're not using the Magic Action at all, even when using the extra action of Action Surge to Ready it!

(Insert Jeremy doesn't know what he's talking about again).

TLDR: went over rules, found dev tweet, nothing is explained. We're back to square one, making a ruling on (presumed) designer intent when the designer intent is not made obvious.

 

[Charlaquin]

Thanks. That's not worded as to allow spellcasting or the use of an item to be an optional activity. You would have to start casting the spell or using the magic item in the moment of the trigger for your position to be correct, except it's done by RAW during the PC's turn. The only way to reconcile those two facts is for the Magic Action to be done on the PC's turn and only the release happens at the trigger.

There is another way to reconcile it, actually: specific beats general. You generally use the Magic Action to cast a spell or use a magic item or other feature that requires the use of the Magic Action. You also generally do so as an Action. The Ready Action gives you a more specific way to use the Magic Action, as a Reaction, to release a spell you cast (as normal) with the Ready Action.

You could also argue that the Ready Action constitutes “a (magic item or)feature that requires you to use the Magic Action,” if you prefer that explanation.

What you are proposing is that the Ready Action allows the spell to be fully cast or magic item to be used to fully cast a spell during the PC's turn,

Not only am I proposing it, it’s literally what the words describing how to resolve the Ready Action say.

and then when the Magic Action happens later, no spell is cast and no magic item is used.

Right, you are using the Magic Action to release the spell (or magic item effect) that the Ready Action specifically allowed you to cast, and then hold by concentrating on until a specific trigger occurs, and cause it to take effect. Again, that this is not normally how the Magic Action is used is just a case of specific beating general.

The wording you listed does not allow for the Magic Action to be taken and no spell or magic item be used when the action is taken.

It doesn’t need to. That’s what the text of the Ready Action is doing.

 

[pukunui]

Also in the DMG magic items that cast spells do NOT generally state you can use a Magic Action to cast XXX. They say while you are holding this item you can cast XXX, while magic items that do not cast spells do state you can use a magic action to XXXX

That's because it's stated in the "Activating a Magic Item" section.

 

[Charlaquin]

The Ready Action is not a normal method of spellcasting. "Cast as normal" can only mean you cast it as if the Magic Action is being taken.

It can’t mean that, because if you’ve taken the Ready Action then you don’t have an Action available to take the Magic Action. The only logical interpretation is that “cast as normal” means performing the required spellcasting components and expending the required resources.

EDIT: Also, the Ready Action is absolutely a normal method of spellcasting. It’s explicitly identified as one of the basic actions of the game, and casting a spell is one of the things you can use it to do.

 

[Maxperson]

There is another way to reconcile it, actually: specific beats general. You generally use the Magic Action to cast a spell or use a magic item or other feature that requires the use of the Magic Action. You also generally do so as an Action. The Ready Action gives you a more specific way to use the Magic Action, as a Reaction, to release a spell you cast (as normal) with the Ready Action.

You could also argue that the Ready Action constitutes “a (magic item or)feature that requires you to use the Magic Action,” if you prefer that explanation.

Normal = the norm. I'd bet somewhere near 90%-95% of spells are cast using the Magic Action. That's the normal. You could argue specific beats general, but specific beating general means it's not the norm, so cannot apply here.

Right, you are using the Magic Action to release the spell (or magic item effect) that the Ready Action specifically allowed you to cast, and then hold by concentrating on until a specific trigger occurs, and cause it to take effect. Again, that this is not normally how the Magic Action is used is just a case of specific beating general.

The Magic Action cannot do that. It has no option for releasing a spell already fully cast, and there is no specific language in the Ready Action that overrides that.

 

[Clint_L]

Anything that leads to this much litigation is way too much rules lawyering for me, reinforcing my immediate inclination to just say "no." Arguing on forums is fine, but if there's one thing I hate, it's arguing about rules when we could be playing the game. The OP seems obviously against RAI, is potentially unbalancing, and I wouldn't even entertain it.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think another section needs to be bolded here. Specifically: "When you take the Magic action, you cast a spell that has a casting time of an action...".

Now bear with me, because I want to go over every point carefully.

Let's assume this is a valid reading of the rules: if the spell's casting time is other than "an action", it's not the Magic action. We see this with shield and counterspell, naturally, but also with Warcaster and the War Magic feature of the Eldritch Knight.

You didn’t finish reading the text of the Magic Action. It goes on to say what happens in the case of the spell having a casting time of more than one action… Granted, if the casting time is 1 Reaction, that is not done with the Magic Action. That’s a special case, where the spell itself specifies the conditions for its use.

Logically, casting a spell using your reaction via the Ready Action would work the same way, ie, we're not using the Magic Action.

Well, no. The text of the Ready Action specifies what happens: you declare what action you will take later as a Reaction, and what triggering event will allow you to do so. In the specific case of casting a spell, you must also cast the spell immediately - as normal, so you need the necessary components and to expend the required resources, and then later release the spell with your Reaction. In my reading, in light of the previous text about specifying the Action you’ll take, this Reaction constitutes a use of the Magic Action, but you could argue that the text about how to Ready a spell overrides the preceding text about declaring an Action, since it is more specific.

But then we have this pesky "cast the spell as normal" rule which doesn't define what "as normal" means in this instance. Is it "as normal" by the spellcasting rules?

Yes. What else could it even mean?

"As normal" for the person casting the spell?

I don’t understand how this is different. Unless the person casting the spell normally casts spells some way other than the spellcasting rules, but that would be a case of specific beating general, so in that case you would cast the spell “as normal” according to those rules.

The argument in play is that Ready turns the Magic Action into a Reaction, despite the fact the rules don't explicitly say this (the assumption is that it is implicit by the "as normal" wording).

No, it doesn’t turn the Magic Action into a Reaction, it allows you to use your Reaction to release the spell, and there’s some ambiguity as to whether doing so constitutes using the Magic Action, but I’d personally rule that it does.

The rules for Readying a spell are even more murky, as they state you begin casting the spell, but the spell doesn't go off until you use your Reaction, and if your concentration is interrupted. The spell slot and components are consumed when you Ready the spell.

What’s murky about that? That sounds very precise and explicit to me. You just do exactly what that says.

All well and good, but the original question has to do not with casting a spell, but a magic item, and this is where things get sticky:

"Some magic items allow the user to cast a spell from the item. The spell is cast at the lowest possible spell and caster level, doesn't expend any of the user's spell slots, and requires no components, unless the item's description says otherwise. The spell uses its normal casting time, range, and duration, and the user of the item must concentrate if the spell requires concentration."

Right, so in this case, casting the spell “as normal” would mean at the spell’s lowest possible spell and caster level, without requiring components or a spell slot (but would probably require spending charges from the staff - the staff itself would specify).

The Wand of Magic Missile: "This wand has 7 charges. While holding it, you can use an action to expend 1 or more of its charges to cast the magic missile spell from it. For 1 charge, you cast the 1st-level version of the spell. You can increase the spell slot level by one for each additional charge you expend."

With this item, the user isn't really casting the spell. The Wand is casting the spell when the user uses an action to expend one of its charges.

Yep, that’s what “casting a spell as normal” looks like for a wand of magic missile.

Ok, following me so far? Here's where it gets weird.

It's time for another confusing Dev Tweet!

Using a Wand does not use the spell rule in Ready!

This tweet is from 2016, when the Cast a Spell action and the Use Item action were different actions with different rules for use. It makes sense in that context, but it’s irrelevant to the rules we’re currently discussing, which were released in 2024 and in which neither of those actions exist; casting a spell yourself and using a magic item to do it are both now covered by the same Action, the Magic action.

Come to think of it, the weirdness of this particular ruling might be part of why they decided to roll casting a spell yourself and casting a spell from a magic item into the same action in the 2024 rules, and why they made sure to name that action something suitably general, instead of “Cast” or something like that.

So what on Earth does that mean, exactly? Let's look at the rule again:

"When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell's magic requires concentration."

Holding onto a spell cast with the Ready Action requires concentration. A spell cast from a magic item (be it via the Magic Action or the Ready Action) does not require concentration to maintain its effects, because that’s how the rules for casting spells from magic items work.

So, for example, if you used the Ready Action to cast Hold Monster from a Staff of Power on a goblin as soon as it starts to act hostile towards you, you would have to expend 1 charge from the staff and concentrate until the goblin started acting hostile towards you. If it does so before the start of your next turn, and if you have not lost concentration before that point, then at that time you would be able to use your Reaction to release the spell (debatably constituting a use of the Magic Action for the purposes of any effects that may care about that), causing it to take effect. In that case, since this instance of Hold Person was cast from a staff, its duration would last for a full minute without you needing to concentrate on it.

 

[Charlaquin]

Anything that leads to this much litigation is way too much rules lawyering for me, reinforcing my immediate inclination to just say "no." Arguing on forums is fine, but if there's one thing I hate, it's arguing about rules when we could be playing the game. The OP seems obviously against RAI, is potentially unbalancing, and I wouldn't even entertain it.

It doesn’t really require litigation. There are two potential interpretations here, both of which can pretty reasonably be arrived at from the text, and because this is the internet, people who have arrived at each of those different interpretations are trying to prove each other wrong, and that’s what requires litigation. In an actual gameplay context, the DM would either say “yes” or “no,” and in either case a player trying to dispute the ruling with the sorts of arguments we’re making here would be equally disruptive behavior.

As to whether a “yes” is potentially unbalancing, it definitely isn’t. Given the choice between using your Action Surge to use the Attack Action (likely allowing multiple attacks, since you’re a Fighter), while being able to maintain your concentration on any active buff or damage over time spells, and keep your Reaction available for an Opportunity Attack, or to give all of that up for a chance to cast one spell, if the trigger occurs before the start of your next turn and you haven’t lost concentration by then… I don’t know about you, but it’s a pretty rare case where I would pick the latter option. And let’s not forget, this is only possible when the spell you want to cast comes from a magic item or race/class/feat feature that lets you cast a spell without a spell slot.

 

[Maxperson]

It can’t mean that, because if you’ve taken the Ready Action then you don’t have an Action available to take the Magic Action.

I've been thinking about that a little further. This is very clearly a case of specific beats general. The Ready Action explicitly says that you take a different action. So yes, you can do both the Read Action and the Magic Action. They just have to be taken together for the specific exception to kick in.


"Then, you choose the action you will take in response to that trigger, or you choose to move up to your speed in response to it."