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

[Charlaquin]

It's a long thread, so this may have already been covered (and it doesn't actually apply to the OP which is using a staff) but how do you get around:

One Spell with a Spell Slot per Turn
On a turn, you can expend only one spell slot to cast a spell. This rule means you can’t, for example, cast a spell with a spell slot using the Magic action and another one using a Bonus Action on the same turn.

Notice it says for example (which means not limited to) and casting as a reaction means casting as normal on the turn. You are still casting that turn.

So assuming you just cast a spell with your first action, how can you cast another one (discounting non spell slot spells here, which are exempted in this limitation) with your second? Yes, the spell is likely triggered off your turn, but there is NO question you cast it ON your turn.

You don’t. The Ready Action specifically says you cast the spell as normal on your turn and release it later, and casting a spell as normal definitely includes spending the spell slot, so if you’ve already cast one spell on your turn, you definitely can’t Ready another with action surge. Unless the spell doesn’t require a spell slot. Like if you’re casting it from a staff, as in the example in the opening post.

 

[mamba]

These are all examples of ways that spells that have a casting time of an action but can be cast using something other than a Magic action. These are all exceptions to how "most" such spells are cast. Ready a spell is just one more way of doing this.

Ready uses the Magic action to cast spells, it makes you select the action you actually use, Ready itself is not a proper action, it being listed under actions does not change that. It does cause confusion however, which is why this thread is still going

 

[ECMO3]

So assuming you just cast a spell with your first action, how can you cast another one (discounting non spell slot spells here, which are exempted in this limitation) with your second? Yes, the spell is likely triggered off your turn, but there is NO question you cast it ON your turn.

I agree with this and you can't cast two spells which use a slot, I don;t think anyone is arguing you can. But there are plenty of spells that you can cast without using slots through numerous methods.

 

[mamba]

Ready does spell out how it works and "normal" does not mean "use the Magic action

actually that is exactly what normal means…

ESPECIALLY since ready does not allow you to take a second action on your turn.

you pick the action you want to perform as a reaction, and in case you chose Magic you perform it right then and there, but do not yet release the spell result. Ready is not an action that is being performed, ever… what does Readying an Attack look like as an action on your turn?

 

[pemerton]

I don't think it's intended to do this. They changed the wording on Action Surge.* They didn't have to, but they did. It seems they felt that taking a 2 level dip into Fighter as a spellcaster was too prone to spell combo shenanigans (or the community did, take your pick) and wanted to nix it. I can't for the life of me see why they'd change that wording and still leave a jankier workaround in the rules on purpose- they apparently just didn't think to examine the ramifications of their own rules.

you have to admit it's weird for the book to make a list of possible actions, slap Ready on there, and yet somehow it's not actually an action, it's just the process by which you can make another action resolve while someone else is performing their own actions during the round.

<snip>

What's even weirder about Ready is Readying Movement. Movement is not an action in 5e. You just move up to your speed during your turn. There is no "move action" (there's Dash, I suppose, but it modifies your movement and if you Readied a Dash it would have no effect). But when Readying Movement, that takes up your action!

So Ready isn't an action, Movement isn't an action, but when combined, they are? What kind of nonsense is this, lol. I mean, I get why it has to be an action- if it wasn't, you could Ready Movement while say, you were Incapacitated until the end of your turn (since, you know, nothing stops you from moving while Incapacitated other than plain common sense, lol).

So rather than write rules in a sensical way, WotC is basically saying "c'mon guys, you know what we meant, right?" and thus spawning endless debates over nothing at all!

These are good posts. the D&D rules simply aren't drafted with sufficient precision to support the intricacate readings that some posters/RPGers are attempting.

Ready began its life in 3E, as a Standard Action (PHB p 128) that is a "Special Initiative Action" (PHB p 133). It "lets you prepare to take an action later, after your turn is over" - but, "Only partial actions can be readied" (PHB p 134). So you perform an action when you Ready an action; and then you perform an action when you take your readied action.

In 4e, Ready is also a Standard Action (Rules Compendium p 247). It lets you read a standard, move or minor action, but "Whichever action is chosen, the act of readying it is a standard action" (RC p 247). When your chosen trigger occurs, you "can use the readied action" - but "Using a readied action is an immediate reaction" (RC p 247). So you perform an action when you Ready an action; you then perform an Immediate Reaction when you take your readied action; but your readied action is also a Standard, Move or Minor action.

This is all a bit garbled, in both editions, as a result of the attempt to integrate a system for delayed/responsive actions into a metronomic framework of turns and action economy. In 4e, for instance, the Immediate Reaction bit is there to tell us how to handle the timing of the readied action. But it's not meant to change other rules features of the readied action that might depend on the action's classification. As an example: the Timeless Locket has a Daily power that allows taking a Standard Action as a Minor Action. Suppose that - for whatever reason - a character Readies the use of their Timeless Locket to cast a spell (I know this would be unusual, but there are a lot of baroque effects that can affect a character in 4e, so let's suppose that, for whatever reason, this is a sensible thing for the character's player to choose to do.) They use a Standard Action to ready a Minor Action. When their trigger is satisfied, they can perform an Immediate Reaction but that then involves performing an out-of-turn Minor Action, which further means that they can perform an out-of-turn Standard Action. If, in the circumstances, there are consequences for performing an Immediate Reaction, the character suffers those. If there are consequences for performing a Minor Action, the character is subject to those too (eg maybe they have an ability that lets them spend a Healing Surge as a free action when they perform a Minor Action). If there are consequences for performing a Standard Action, the character is subject to those too.

I haven't worked out the best way to describe all this, but one thing that is clear is that, when a 4e PC performs an action, it might fall under multiple classifications - here the Immediate Reaction is a Minor Action, and that Minor Action is the performance of a Standard Action. (Another way this can come up: if a character is dazed, and so limited to one action, they can still use their Timeless Locket to perform a Standard Action as a Minor Action - that does not count as two actions, but rather as one action that is classified as Minor for the rationing purposes of the action economy, but as Standard for the power/potentiality purposes of the action economy.)

I don't know 5e D&D all that well (either 2014 or 2024), but looking at both versions on D&D beyond there is the same sot of garbled wording:

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.

First, you decide what perceivable circumstance will trigger your Reaction. 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. Examples include “If the cultist steps on the trapdoor, I’ll pull the lever that opens it,” and “If the zombie steps next to me, I move away.”

When the trigger occurs, you can either take your Reaction right after the trigger finishes or ignore the trigger.​

The first paragraph says that you take the Readied action on your turn. The second paragraph says that you take an "action" (or movement) in response to your chosen trigger. The third paragraph says that when the trigger occurs you take your reaction. So the thing you do, in response to the trigger, is both a reaction and an action (or movement). So once again we have an action falling under multiple labels - it is both a reaction (analogous to the 4e Immediate Reaction) and an action (as in 4e).

When it comes to spells, it is even more baroque - but the idea that casting a typical spell ceases to be a Magic action and becomes some other type of action simply because of the metagame framework of turn-taking and action economy is a bit weird. Though the Action Surge rule also seems to be about that metagame framework as much as anything else!

So it's all a bit of a mess. But it seems like the most straightforward ruling is that Action Surge is meant for fighter-y things rather than caster-y things, that it expresses that by excluding the Magic Action, and hence that readying a spell, or the use of a device that is normally triggered by using the Magic Action, is out of bounds.

 

[ECMO3]

Ready uses the Magic action to cast spells,

No it doesn't. Ready is an action. You can Ready a magic action, but you can't do that to cast a spell. There are specific rules for spells.

it makes you select the action you actually use,

But when you use the Ready action, the action occurs later during the trigger. That does not happen in this case because you cast the spell on your turn when you ready it.

You absolutely can ready the Magic action, but not for casting spells. The entire verbiage of the Ready action is pretty clear on this, note it even says you release the energy when it triggers, which is different from the verbiage for the other examples.

Ready itself is not a proper action,

Yes it is a proper action in 2024. Ready is defined as one of "the game's main actions"

How can you say it is not a proper action given that? In 2014 you were right, but the 2024 rules are different in this regard.

 

[ECMO3]

and Magic is very clearly defined as required to cast spells with casting time ‘action’

Cleary not! I gave you numerous examples of how you can cast a spell with a casting time of an action without using the Magic action, Ready a spell is just one more way to do it.

 

[Maxperson]

I get what you're saying. But you have to admit it's weird for the book to make a list of possible actions, slap Ready on there, and yet somehow it's not actually an action, it's just the process by which you can make another action resolve while someone else is performing their own actions during the round.

Which means that Ready isn't really an action at all, it's a non-action that modifies another action. It's plainly illogical to make a comprehensive list that includes something that shouldn't be there. Like if I was making a list of the major food groups that went like this:

Fruit
Vegetables
Grains
Protein Foods
Dairy
Botox

I'd like to think nobody would accept my list as fact! What's even weirder about Ready is Readying Movement. Movement is not an action in 5e. You just move up to your speed during your turn. There is no "move action" (there's Dash, I suppose, but it modifies your movement and if you Readied a Dash it would have no effect). But when Readying Movement, that takes up your action!

So Ready isn't an action, Movement isn't an action, but when combined, they are? What kind of nonsense is this, lol. I mean, I get why it has to be an action- if it wasn't, you could Ready Movement while say, you were Incapacitated until the end of your turn (since, you know, nothing stops you from moving while Incapacitated other than plain common sense, lol).

So rather than write rules in a sensical way, WotC is basically saying "c'mon guys, you know what we meant, right?" and thus spawning endless debates over nothing at all!

Yeah. As I mentioned upthread, a lot of this vagueness is in my opinion deliberate to force rulings over rules.

Also, about this: "No no no. If I repeat my view another 1,363 more times before the thread is locked, everyone is compelled to agree with me. The internet said so, and the internet is never wrong."

What happens if someone else repeats their view 1,363 times before you?

 

[Maxperson]

“Cast normally” is not defined anywhere, but in context is very clearly talking about the normal rules for casting the spell. On the other hand,

Correct. And those are Magic Action, Reaction, and Bonus Action, with spells of longer than 1 action being multiple rounds of Magic Actions. Abnormal ways of casting spells are all the rest of the ways.

actions are very clearly defined, and “Ready” is not “Magic.”

And is also not normal for casting spells.

 

[ECMO3]

actually that is exactly what normal means…

I disagree.

you pick the action you want to perform as a reaction, and in case you chose Magic you perform it right then and there,

No this is complete nonsese.

Now you are just making stuff up. There is not a carve out for the Magic action, nothing in the Ready action says Magic actions work differently or that you take them on your turn when you Ready the Magic action.

If you ready the Magic action you choose a trigger than then you use your reaction to take that action when the trigger occurs. This is no different than any other readied action.

The only thing that works differently is "Ready a spell" and it uses that term, not "ready a Magic action" or even "Ready a Magic action to cast a spell". Any other Magic action, besides casting a spell, works the same. It is using a spell that is different and it is specifically different than readying a Magic action.