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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9761330" data-attributes="member: 42582">Nor does it specifically say that a <thing that I have my PC do> is both a Reaction and an action having a category (such as Attack, Magic, etc). It leaves that to be inferred.And the idea of "spending" a Reaction to use an action is not set out in the rules either. Eg when a player has their PC cast a Shield spell, they are not "spending" a Reaction to use an action (such as the Magic action). They are just using a Reaction. <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024/playing-the-game#Reactions" target="_blank">The rules text on Reactions</a> is itself unclear about this:Certain special abilities, spells, and situations allow you to take a special action called a Reaction. A Reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind, which can occur on your turn or on someone else’s. The Opportunity Attack, described later in this chapter, is the most common type of Reaction. When you take a Reaction, you can’t take another one until the start of your next turn. If the reaction interrupts another creature’s turn, that creature can continue its turn right after the Reaction.According to this, a Reaction is a special action that you take. But according to the Readying rules text, when you take your Reaction you perform your readied action - which is not, itself, a Reaction but something like an Attack of the release of held spell energy.This is why I say that the rules aren't drafted with sufficient technical precision to yield an answer by close reading. An answer has to be inferred from text and context.This notion of "action" as both a resource and a thing done is not found in the rules, at least in what I've read. It's your interpretive construction.As I read it, the rules use the word "action" to describe certain sorts of things that a character might do; to express the rationing/action economy principle in respect of those things; and to set out the timing/turn-by-turn rules for those things. For instance, there is <a href="http://this" target="_blank">this</a> and <a href="https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024/playing-the-game#YourTurn" target="_blank">this</a>:The game uses actions to govern how much you can do at one time. You can take only one action at a time. On your turn, you can move a distance up to your Speed and take one action. These don't characterise actions as a resource. They state principles about when things can be done.When it comes to readying a spell, to me the key thing is this:*If readying a spell was handled as it is in 4e, then the character would cast the spell as their Reaction. This would be described as an "action" (the readied action), and would be a Magic action (albeit performed as a Reaction rather than in the usual fashion). *The fact that readying a spell is made [i[more challenging as a thing to succeed at, by requiring the spell to be cast immediately (with all that entails, about spending a slot and so on) and then adding the additional stuff about holding the energy (with all that entails, including concentration), doesn't - to my mind - change the previous dot point. I still see a casting of a spell, which is a Magic action. The fact that the Casting Time rules don't identify Readying or a Reaction as alternatives to the Magic action for casting 1 Action spells reinforces my thinking on this.As I've said, I don't regard my interpretive argument as knock-down. But I do think it makes the whole of the rules text into a coherent enough whole, and it maintains a coherent fiction. (Again, this is something where I agree with [USER=7039344]@BenjaminPey[/USER].)(EDITed to fix some formatting tags.)</blockquote>

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