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

[James Gasik]

Something that seems similarly exploitative that just occurred to me is movement. By the rules, you can move on your turn up to your Speed. If you want you can Dash to double that available movement.

But upon closer inspection, I noticed something weird. Readying Movement doesn't require you to have not moved on your turn! Now, normally, this isn't a big deal- if you want to move more distance, you take the Dash action. Readying your movement to move again once it's not your turn isn't netting you a speed advantage (though it might conceivably have other benefits). Even if you can Dash as a bonus action, you could still Dash twice on your turn to move 3x your Speed. So there's no situation where this is going to let you move faster, but it still seems like a situation where you can ready a resource you shouldn't even have!

I guess you could theoretically move on your turn, go prone, and ready your movement for when you are attacked at range to force disadvantage, then stand up afterwards and still move half your speed, as opposed to crawling around?

 

[Xetheral]

You're ignoring that it directly tells you that you are taking a different action with the ready. Ready isn't an action, despite being in the action area. Ready allows you to perform a different action later, unless it's a spell in which case you cast it on your turn as normal.

Sure if you ignore that context it can seem the same as War Magic, but it's really not. You are can't using the ready action to cast the spell, since you MUST pick a DIFFERENT action to perform. In this case the Magic Action, because that's how you cast spells that take 1 action to perform.

I'm not ignoring the context, I simply view the context very differently than you do.

I think the simplest reading is that: (a) the Ready Action is indeed an Action; (b) the Ready Action typically permits you take another Action (or move) as a Reaction when a trigger is met; and (c) the paragraph about readying a spell describes an alternative use of the Ready Action that doesn't require taking another Action at any point, just casting the spell on your turn and using a Reaction to release the energy.

My interpretation is fully self-consistent, gives full effect to the language in the books describing the Ready Action as an Action, is consistent with the rules language of Improved War Magic, and avoids overloading the "as normal" language with implicit references to the Magic Action that notably do not appear in the text.

I see the argument for your interpretation, but I prefer mine because I view it as simpler and more consistent with the text.

 

[Charlaquin]

Something that seems similarly exploitative that just occurred to me is movement. By the rules, you can move on your turn up to your Speed. If you want you can Dash to double that available movement.

But upon closer inspection, I noticed something weird. Readying Movement doesn't require you to have not moved on your turn! Now, normally, this isn't a big deal- if you want to move more distance, you take the Dash action. Readying your movement to move again once it's not your turn isn't netting you a speed advantage (though it might conceivably have other benefits). Even if you can Dash as a bonus action, you could still Dash twice on your turn to move 3x your Speed. So there's no situation where this is going to let you move faster, but it still seems like a situation where you can ready a resource you shouldn't even have!

I guess you could theoretically move on your turn, go prone, and ready your movement for when you are attacked at range to force disadvantage, then stand up afterwards and still move half your speed, as opposed to crawling around?

Crawling just makes you move at half speed, so even then you don’t actually gain any extra movement by doing this.

 

[Maxperson]

I'm not ignoring the context, I simply view the context very differently than you do.

I think the simplest reading is that: (a) the Ready Action is indeed an Action; (b) the Ready Action typically permits you take another Action (or move) as a Reaction when a trigger is met; and (c) the paragraph about readying a spell describes an alternative use of the Ready Action that doesn't require taking another Action at any point, just casting the spell on your turn and using a Reaction to release the energy.

My interpretation is fully self-consistent, gives full effect to the language in the books describing the Ready Action as an Action, is consistent with the rules language of Improved War Magic, and avoids overloading the "as normal" language with implicit references to the Magic Action that notably do not appear in the text.

I see the argument for your interpretation, but I prefer mine because I view it as simpler and more consistent with the text.

Your interpretation requires you to invent an alternative use for ready that isn't stated or implied anywhere in the Ready Action wording. It also requires the absolute statement that when you take the Ready Action, you choose another action to take. That statement is not countermanded anywhere in the Ready Action language. What you say is fine as a house rule, but it's not a reading of RAW, because it requires assumptions.

My interpretation requires no assumption. We know you MUST pick another action to ready.

 

[BenjaminPey]

Darn this discussion moves fast. I don't think me going back four or five pages up-thread would do any good, so I'll just summarize what I personnaly get out of it.

I mostly agree with @pemerton that ttrpg rules are not meant to be parsed with such a high degree of technicality, even though there was in 2024 an intent to make them more so. I stand by my first assessment that all of this should be first and foremost rooted in the fiction, and that if you play with this in mind most if not all of the supposed loopholes or the perceived vagueness vanish. (Yes, even in the Stealth rule.)

In the "Actions as ressource and actions as things you do" debate, and the "is Ready an Action or an action?" question, I think the simplest explanation works best. Ready is a capital a Action. It is then allowed in Action Surge (but not with the Haste spell!).

I also think that it should be a small a action, as to be rooted in the fiction, and for this you need triggers to be meaningful. Not because silly triggers could allow you to act out of your turn in an Action-economy based game. That I don't care much, because it won't change a thing and, surprise: nobody does it. But because otherwise, if you allow Ready to just be an Action, without any bearing in the fiction, it simply becomes a way to circumvent these quite clear boundaries the game imposes on the kind of action (small a) your character can take, according to the rules and the fiction: a fighter mostly fights, their Attack action does this and that, a rogue can't sneak twice, etc. That, this "Ready as an Action but not an action", to me, goes against the intent of the rules, and is not even fully RAW-compliant, as this lenghty discussion showed in my view. Ready is an Action, but must be an action, too. It being a container for other actions shouldn't change that. I don't see a single reason why it should.

Hence, Ready being an Action and an action, casting a spell with a Ready action should inherit all the explicit limitations put on casting a spell with a Magic action.

That the Eldritch Knight, a magical fighter, can cast more spells, is perfectly in line with that. It's the whole purpose of this subclass: fighters mostly fight, but you can fight and cast! You're special!

That is not to say the game is fully consistent in all its profuse rules. It's almost godëlian, anyway: I'm sure you could devise a theorem about how a rule system will automatically produce this kind of peculiarities when it's complex enough. I'm indeed quite sure they are instances where the rules are not rooted in the fiction at all. But that is, to me, all the more reasons to let them be rooted where they can be.

 

[ECMO3]

But upon closer inspection, I noticed something weird. Readying Movement doesn't require you to have not moved on your turn! Now, normally, this isn't a big deal- if you want to move more distance, you take the Dash action. Readying your movement to move again once it's not your turn isn't netting you a speed advantage (though it might conceivably have other benefits). Even if you can Dash as a bonus action, you could still Dash twice on your turn to move 3x your Speed. So there's no situation where this is going to let you move faster, but it still seems like a situation where you can ready a resource you shouldn't even have!

I think you are missing the point. You Ready the move.

Sure it isn't something you normally have on your turn, just like an AOO is not something you have on your turn. You take the ready action, which means you forgo other actions and then can move in response to the trigger.

 

[ECMO3]

You are taking the Magic Action for your ready.

It doesn't say that either. The rules factually do not say this. You are misinterpreting them and believe this is what they mean, but they do no say this.

That says Magic Action on your turn a hell of a lot more than the ready rules say that they are allowing a spell as part of the ready action(nothing even hints at that).

No it doesn't say this. The rules specifically say in writing that you can "Ready a spell" as part of the "Ready action" and they say you "cast the spell" on your turn when you do that.

What the rules don't say is that you use the "Magic action" when you use this specific use of the "Ready action" to "Ready a spell" ... that part you are making up.

 

[ECMO3]

Your interpretation requires you to invent an alternative use for ready that isn't stated or implied anywhere in the Ready Action wording.

Not true.

"Ready" is in a table of the games "main actions"

Ready is specifically refered to as "this action" in the description of ready

Ready has specific rules for "Ready a spell"

Those specific rules dor Ready a spell do not say anything about a "Magic action"

All his interpretation needs is to pay attention to what is actually written in the text.

It also requires the absolute statement that when you take the Ready Action, you choose another action to take. You normally interact with an object while doing something else. That statement is not countermanded anywhere in the Ready Action language.

This is absolutely not true and it is countermanded multiple places. The text in Ready clearly says you can ready movement, and that you can Ready a spell.

Further it gives two specific examples in the text - "pull a lever" and "I move" and neither of these things are defined actions or things you would typically use a main action for. Interact with an object is not a "main action" yet you can do it with Ready

The idea that you must chose another main action when you use the action Ready is patently false.

We know you MUST pick another action to ready.

We actually KNOW you don't have to pick another main action to Ready.

There is no move action in 5E .... yet you can move with Ready!

 

[Xetheral]

Your interpretation requires you to invent an alternative use for ready that isn't stated or implied anywhere in the Ready Action wording. It also requires the absolute statement that when you take the Ready Action, you choose another action to take. That statement is not countermanded anywhere in the Ready Action language. What you say is fine as a house rule, but it's not a reading of RAW, because it requires assumptions.

My interpretation requires no assumption. We know you MUST pick another action to ready.

Your conclusion that "[w]e know you MUST pick another action to ready" is incorrect. At a minimum, it is explicitly possible to ready movement rather than an Action based on the rules text that states: "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." If readying an Action was indeed the only option, then I think there would be a (somewhat) stronger argument that the separate paragraph about readying a spell implicitly provides additional rules that cover readying the Magic action to cast a spell. But readying an Action is not the only option.

Ultimately, the text of the Ready Action does not explicitly specify whether the separate paragraph about readying a spell is providing an alternative to readying an Action or readying movement, or whether it is instead providing additional rules that cover readying the Magic Action to cast a spell. I think the former reading is the better reading--the rules presented for readying a spell are complete on their face, and there is thus no need to read into them a unstated dependence on the Magic Action. By contrast, the latter reading's addition of such an unstated dependence on the Magic Action unnecessarily complicates things by not making it clear whether a caster readying a spell takes the Magic action (a) when they cast the spell; (b) when they release the energy; or (c) some combination of the two. (This matters because Action Surge only prohibits taking a Magic action on your turn.)

I understand that you disagree with me and think the latter reading is nevertheless the better reading. That's cool! As is often the case, the text could have been written more clearly. But just because we disagree on what is the best reading of the text doesn't mean that either of us are making any unfounded assumptions. We both have good reasons backing up our interpretations.

 

[pemerton]

In anll instances of referring to Actions, as in the game rules object, are capitalized in the 2024 PHB, but here it is not.

This isn't true for DnD Beyond. See, eg

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.


On your turn, you can move a distance up to your Speed and take one action. You decide whether to move first or take your action first.

The main actions you can take are listed in “Actions” earlier in this chapter. A character’s features and a monster’s stat block also provide action options. “Movement and Position” later in this chapter gives the rules for movement.​

But I don't have a copy of the PHB to compare.