TheSword
Warhammer Fantasy Imperial Plenipotentiary
A good point well made. I definitely need to tone down my rhetoric.
D&D 5E (2024) Using Action Surge to cast spells in 2024
- Thread starter ECMO3
- Start date
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I’m not just trying to find a technical way to justify an exploit. This is the genuine, good-faith interpretation I have arrived at based on my best understanding of the rules. Just because it differs from yours doesn’t mean it’s an attempt to exploit a loophole, and I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that you didn’t mean it this way, but it’s kind of rude of you to imply that it is.
UngeheuerLich
Legend
Ok. I take your word for it.
As I said, during the game we probably would find an ad hoc ruling and then have a mature discussion which interpretation to use in future sessions.
My compass usually is: how would players like it if I as a DM find such a way to circumvent a limitation from a class.
If I imagine them not applauding me for finding that, I'd probably rule against that.
In a 3.5 game, every melee fighter multiclassed one level of barbarian to gain rage, no matter what noble and urban background they had.
While this is clearly OK ruleswise, I asked them to have an in game justification at least.
My players told me that this is technically not a requirement.
Next time they encountered trolls, they all had a level of barbarian (totally in line with the monster building rules of 3.5).
Guess how much they liked it. After that, player characters started to make sense again.
If your players and you like finding such rules interactions, that is totally fine.
I will rule also rule against ready to double dip sneak attacks without perceivable triggers that enemies actually trigger. I will rule against grabbing the spirit guardian cleric and carry them around 5 times in the same 6 seconds to multiply the damage.
That does not mean that this is bad wrong fun, but this is not a game I would like to run as DM nor want to take part as a player.
yep you got them. Clearly in this case, between the choice of:
1) WOTC designers simply did not think of this very specific rules interaction when they changed action surge.
OR
2) Cackling madly they gleefully kept this rules exploit intact, waiting for the legions of debates and the cries of sorrow as DMs are chained to the demands of their players to let this one through.
I mean its got to be number 2, number 1 just makes absolutely no sense right?
So after the 24 pages of debate, here is where I fall:
RAW: I think Maxperson's notion that a spell is still being cast on your turn is valid....aka magic is happening. But by the book this spellcasting is being done through the Ready action and Not the Magic Action, and therefore....is RAW legal. Nothing is preventing the fighter from casting spells, the raw is simply they cannot do it using the Magic Action, and the Magic Action is never mentioned as being a part of the Ready Action.
RAI: WOTC designers were clear that there intention with this change was to prevent fighters from casting two spells on a turn with action surge. And while this has a big of a bigger impact since it does require concentration....I think its clear this was not an intended interaction. Action Surge is not meant to be used to cast spells....or facilitate the casting of spells a second later....that's not its intended purpose. So RAI, absolutely not to this interaction.
RAW: I think Maxperson's notion that a spell is still being cast on your turn is valid....aka magic is happening. But by the book this spellcasting is being done through the Ready action and Not the Magic Action, and therefore....is RAW legal. Nothing is preventing the fighter from casting spells, the raw is simply they cannot do it using the Magic Action, and the Magic Action is never mentioned as being a part of the Ready Action.
RAI: WOTC designers were clear that there intention with this change was to prevent fighters from casting two spells on a turn with action surge. And while this has a big of a bigger impact since it does require concentration....I think its clear this was not an intended interaction. Action Surge is not meant to be used to cast spells....or facilitate the casting of spells a second later....that's not its intended purpose. So RAI, absolutely not to this interaction.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
I don’t even think this is a matter of “finding” some special interaction. It’s just the most straightforward reading of the rules. Action Surge says you can’t use it to take the Magic Action. The Ready Action is not the Magic Action. Since you can cast a spell with either action, I think it’s worth doing a closer reading to make sure that the most straightforward reading isn’t leading to an unintended interaction. And when I do so, I see that there are a bunch of additional restrictions on spells cast with the Ready Action, so the fact that it seems at a cursory reading to be usable in contexts where the Magic Action would not doesn’t strike me as “getting away with” something. Furthermore, the entire point of the Ready Action is to allow you to take Actions at times you wouldn’t normally be able to. So, again, using it to cast a spell when you wouldn’t be able to with the Magic Action seems perfectly consistent with the intended function of the Ready Action to me.
Obviously, if I was a player at someone else’s table who ruled as you did, I wouldn’t argue. There’s enough ambiguity that I can understand why they would come to a different conclusion than I did, and even if there wasn’t, there‘s a time and place to debate rules interpretations, and it’s not at the table in the middle of an ongoing game. It’s here, on forums dedicated to that kind of discussion, while I’m on my lunch break at work.
Charlaquin
Goblin Queen (She/Her/Hers)
OR, hear me out:yep you got them. Clearly in this case, between the choice of:
1) WOTC designers simply did not think of this very specific rules interaction when they changed action surge.
OR
2) Cackling madly they gleefully kept this rules exploit intact, waiting for the legions of debates and the cries of sorrow as DMs are chained to the demands of their players to let this one through.
I mean its got to be number 2, number 1 just makes absolutely no sense right?
3) they thought that having to spend your action and reaction and your concentration, and still have a chance that the trigger never comes up or you lose concentration, was sufficient additional drawbacks and costs that casting a spell this way was reasonable and didn’t need to be prevented.
The trigger can be pretty broad, so I would consider the chance of it not triggering pretty minimal (generally you would set the trigger to happen very quickly unless beneficial not to).
The reaction is actually a real cost. Fighters typically have lots of things they can do with a reaction, especially fighters that can cast.
But all that said, I just can't get passed all the stuff already discussed. and am firmly with @Stalker0 on this one: It might be RAW at a stretch, but it's, for me, definitely not RAI.
mamba
Legend
Each action but Ready does one thing instantly, Ready does 'all the actions' but at a later time. It has a lot less in common with the other actions than those have with each other. That they all do different things does not change that and is expected (why have two actions that do the same thing)
If you cannot see that this makes Ready an outlier, I don't think there is much more to say here
mamba
Legend
on its own, probably not, but when you add the Hiding / Invisible rules...I mean its got to be number 2, number 1 just makes absolutely no sense right?
