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

[Charlaquin]

I don't have a problem with the trigger in abstracto. If someone says "I ready my attack, as soon as this guy move, I react", it's perfectly fine, because delaying is the point. I could have acted earlier, but didn't do it, maybe because I'm not sure this guy is hostile. The fiction is preserved. But I do have a problem with this trigger magically changing what my character is capable of without having any kind of reality in the fiction. I couldn't have cast this spell without it, even though it is absolutly immaterial, inconsequential. It's not even an intent because my intent is to do it anyway, but the rules forbid me to, so I find a workaround. It's purely rules-contained, without any meaning nor function in the fictional world.

What’s the fictional reason that you can’t use the magic action with action surge again?

 

[BenjaminPey]

That fighters are good at doing fighty things. Less good at doing magicky things.

So, what is the fictionnal difference between readying your spell and casting your spell, up to the point of, but not including, the release?

 

[UngeheuerLich]

A RPG doesn't have to explain the laws of biology or physics to not have "edge cases".

Not really. We don't need those laws as we usually know how that works.
No rule says you get disadvantage on charisma checks if you don't bath before visiting the king...
but noone would probably object that.

Of RPGs I'm familiar with, I don't think Agon 2e or Prince Valiant have edge cases in the way that D&D does.

I am sure we will find some if we look close enough...

 

[Charlaquin]

I don't dispute you can, by RAW, ready your Magic action without taking a Magic action, as you can first Ready an action then attack. But in my book the Rogue needs their trigger to mean something, just like in our Action Surge case. If not, it's just a clever trick to circumvent the rule. A rules-lawyery tactic.

Again, I don't dispute the rules make all this possible, I just find this kind of metatactics to be in bad taste, because the goal is clearly to circumvent an explicit limitation by a clever arrangement of rules, without doing anything special in the fiction.

The goal is absolutely not to circumvent a limitation by a clever arrangement of the rules, and it is specifically this characterization of my genuine interpretation of the rules that I object to, and the reason I’m still here trying to explain to people how I arrived at this interpretation.

I do not care about being able to get around the action surge limitation on spellcasting. I think if that’s what someone is using the ready action to try to do, it’s a terrible tactic (terrible as in suboptimal). The reason I think it works this way is because I read the rules and it seems to me to be what they say, and I don’t see any reason to believe that the designers don’t want them to say that.

 

[Charlaquin]

@Charlaquin @ECMO3

If you're under the effect of Befuddlement, which says,

"can’t cast spells or take the Magic action"

Could you on your turn Ready to use any of the following?

Energy Bow
"Arrow of Transport. As a Magic action, you can fire one energy arrow from this weapon at a target you can see within 60 feet of yourself."

Mace of Terror
"While holding the weapon, you can take a Magic action and expend 1 charge to release a wave of terror from it."

Thunderous Greatclub
"Clap of Thunder. As a Magic action, you can strike the weapon against a hard surface to create a loud clap of thunder audible out to 300 feet. You also create a 30-foot Cone of thunderous energy.
"Earthquake. As a Magic action, you can strike the weapon against the ground to create an intense seismic disturbance in a 50-foot-radius circle centered on the point of impact."

Bead of Force
"You can take a Magic action to throw the bead up to 60 feet."

Brazier of Commanding Fire Elementals
"While you are within 5 feet of this brazier, you can take a Magic action to summon a Fire Elemental."

Since you're taking the Ready action, are you not taking the Magic action, so you could in fact Ready those even when affected by Befuddlement?

I would say no. Because the Ready Action does say you use the Action you ready in response to the chosen trigger as a Reaction. Just because you’re spending a Reaction to use the Magic Action in response to a trigger rather than spending an Action to do it on your turn, doesn’t mean you aren’t taking the Magic Action. Using the Ready action to cast a spell is a specific exception as laid out in the text of the Ready Action, wherein you cast the spell as part of the resolution of the Ready Action and then use your Reaction to release it.

 

[Charlaquin]

Right. Instead of taking the Magic Action later to cast the spell, you are taking it during your turn as normal and releasing the spell later. At no point does it say that you are not taking the magic action. The part where you clearly take a different action is still in effect.

Unless specifically told otherwise as is the case with Ready Action where you take the Magic Action as normal and also the Ready Action.

See post #433 for how the language would look if you cast the spell as part of the Ready Action.

The Ready Action does not specifically say you get a second Action on your turn.

 

[Xetheral]

In post #433 we can see how WotC words it when they use a different action to also allow spellcasting. In the example we see a completely different Magic Action also allowing a spell to be cast as a part of it, instead of it being a separate Magic Action.

If Ready Action was not using a separate Magic Action to cast the spell, they would have used that language in Ready Action as well. The folks who want it to not be two separate actions have ignored that post, through.

They don't consistently write it that way when casting is part of another action. Consider Improved War Magic, which permits casting a spell as part of an Attack Action:

When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace two of the attacks with a casting of one of your level 1 or level 2 Wizard spells that has a casting time of an action.

One can use Improved War Magic to cast a spell by using Action Surge to take the Attack Action (as long as one hasn't yet cast a leveled spell that turn). In my opinion, the most natural reading of the rules for the Ready Action works similarly. As I posted earlier, it seems to me to be quite a stretch to try to read the "as normal" language in the text of the Ready Action to both require and permit a character readying a spell to also take a Magic Action. As I see it, the simpler reading is that the character readying a spell does so as part of the Ready Action, just like Improved War Magic lets a character cast a spell as part of an Attack Action.

 

[Charlaquin]

"Can't cast spells" probably negates "you cast it as normal" no matter what side of the discussion you are on.

It does, but the magic item effects they were asking about were not spells. I would still say it’s not possible, because Readying the Magic Action to do something other than casting a spell does not list the same exception as using it to cast a spell does, so clearly you do take the Magic Action using your Reaction in response to the trigger in that case. That you’re doing it with a Reaction instead of an Action doesn’t get around the fact that Befuddlement doesn’t allow you to take the Magic Action.

 

[Teemu]

I would say no. Because the Ready Action does say you use the Action you ready in response to the chosen trigger as a Reaction. Just because you’re spending a Reaction to use the Magic Action in response to a trigger rather than spending an Action to do it on your turn, doesn’t mean you aren’t taking the Magic Action. Using the Ready action to cast a spell is a specific exception as laid out in the text of the Ready Action, wherein you cast the spell as part of the resolution of the Ready Action and then use your Reaction to release it.

Right, so this interpretation would also prohibit you from using Action Surge to Ready any of the magic item abilities I mentioned in my earlier post, correct? As Action Surge prevents you from using the Magic action.

 

[Charlaquin]

"Specific beats general" is a principle for establishing hierarchies of norms. Not for varying, or departing from, lists and definitions.

The "clearly laying out" isn't a way of changing the action economy, though. It's a way of making readying a spell more "burdensome" than (say) readying an attack, or movement - @BenjaminPey has set this out nicely not too far upthread.

No it doesn't. It relies on the fact that (i) what is readied is an action, even though (ii) it is also (typically) performed as a Reaction, and further that in the case of casting a spell (iii) the readied action is performed partly on the character's turn ("casting the spell as normal") and partly as a Reaction ("releasing the held energy"). If readying a spell did not involve (iii) but was handled in the same way as 4e does it, then it would be an action performed as a Reaction (and so would be the Magic action). Stretching out the action over the character's turn plus their reaction (as per (iii)) doesn't change this, in my view.

This is my point. The Reaction from Readying an action also involves performing an action. When a spell is readied, that action is "stretched out" to the detriment of the character, as per (iii) above. But there is still the readied action being performed. Which is, in this case, the Magic action.

I don't agree. The Ready Action has the character perform another action - the readied action. Hence why, as I said, the readied action does permit - indeed, it requires - taking a second action on your turn, when what you are readying is the release of a spell whose energy you hold after casting it.

(A further consideration here is that you are implying that it is a type of "power up" in using two actions on the one turn - whereas it is your interpretation that involves the power up, by separating the casting of a spell from its normal context that brings with it various limitations, such as not being able to be done by way of Action Surge.)

So, again, we’re bumping up against the problem of the word “action” being used both as the name of a resource you spend to do things on your turn, and the name of the things you spend that resource to do. In my understanding, the Ready Action costs one use of the resource called an “action,” and for that cost allows you to perform an Action off-turn, by spending a different resource, called a “reaction.” It doesn’t allow you to “take a second action,” it gives you a way to perform an Action that doesn’t require spending an action (the resource).

In the case of casting a spell, the Ready Action has to lay out a specific exception because the Action you would otherwise use to cast spells carries additional costs and limitations. So, it instructs you to pay those costs and obey those limitations on your turn, and then spend the reaction resource to actually apply the spell’s effects.