So I'm DMing a game and one of my players used ready action in a manner I'm not familiar with. He does his attacks, but instead of using his movement on his turn, he Readieshis movement in the event an enemy moves toward him. I ruled "no" but promised to look into the rule and circle back for the next game.
My interpretation is if you do anything for your main action, you cannot ready any action. That you are in a sense choosing "Ready" as your action in combat. So if you attack, you already chose your action. But I can't say I'm certain on this. What do you guys think?
Ready
Sometimes you want to get the jump on a foe or wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you can take the Ready action on your turn, which lets you act using your 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 goblin 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. Remember that you can take only one reaction per round.
When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell's magic requires concentration. If your concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking effect. For example, if you are concentrating on the web spell and ready magic missile, your web spell ends, and if you take damage before you release magic missile with your reaction, your concentration might be broken.
Ready is an action. You can ready to move, but doing so still takes your action.
Since movement itself is not an action, I'm assuming you can move and then ready an action, such as attack?
I'd say that you can move and then ready any of the options in actions in combat except ready. You've already done that. That leaves attack, cast a spell, dash, disengage, dodge (which you might as well already have done), help or hide. I think it may be down to DM interpretation whether you could add any unused movement to dash or, indeed, whether you could add any of your base movement to the additional movement provided. On disengage, I'd rule that a character could only use their unused movement for that turn. RAW that could potentially include saying, if this opponent looks like they're going to swing at me, I'm running - but, if they turn to run, I'll still try to hit them. Not sure if that would be stretching it.
I don’t see why you couldn’t use any remaining movement. If you have 30’ move speed and move 10’ and ready an action, if the ready action was “I move away if the enemy comes towards me”. You should still be able to move the remaining 20’ you have. Same if the readied action is a dash or disengage. If you couldn’t move what’s the point of disengaging. And the remaining 20’ is added to dash.
Ready specifically says, "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." I think it's either one thing or the other but, yes, with disengage accessing unused movement. In total "you [can] move up to your speed" so I don't think, RAW, you can add remaining movement to dash. It also says, "When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, ..." It seems that you can't cast a spell as a bonus action and I'd question whether you can ready to take a bonus action of another kind. You could say that the readying was the action but, again, that could be pushing it. Personally, I'd allow an interaction with an object to be readied but I think I'd need to consider proposals for a readying of both an action and an interaction with an object on a case by case basis.
I don’t see why you couldn’t use any remaining movement. If you have 30’ move speed and move 10’ and ready an action, if the ready action was “I move away if the enemy comes towards me”. You should still be able to move the remaining 20’ you have. Same if the readied action is a dash or disengage. If you couldn’t move what’s the point of disengaging. And the remaining 20’ is added to dash.
At least that’s how I read it.
If you're readying movement, that movement is your full move speed, just like Dash. It provokes attacks as normal. I don't think there's any shenanigans you can pull to also Disengage for that same movement, provided it's happening on an enemy's turn.
It happens right after the trigger happens, so it's going to be up to your DM whether a creature moving towards you gets to complete its movement (and when it reaches you, then you'd be provoking an opportunity attack by taking your readied action to move away), or whether the first time that movement brings it closer to you, you interrupt with your readied action and move away. You can probably guess by my phrasing which ruling I favor, but I think they're both valid.
It's a great use of a fast character in workably open spaces. You move into the movement distance of an opponent that doesn't have a ranged attack and ready to move away. The opponent moves toward you but you move away. The opponent adds dash to their movement to move right up to you but, as they've used their action, can't attack. You disengage and move to you, larger than theirs, movement speed. If they still want to target you, best they can do is move and dash. Meanwhile, your allies keep spell casting and firing.
I don’t see why you couldn’t use any remaining movement. If you have 30’ move speed and move 10’ and ready an action, if the ready action was “I move away if the enemy comes towards me”. You should still be able to move the remaining 20’ you have. Same if the readied action is a dash or disengage. If you couldn’t move what’s the point of disengaging. And the remaining 20’ is added to dash.
At least that’s how I read it.
If you're readying movement, that movement is your full move speed, just like Dash. It provokes attacks as normal. I don't think there's any shenanigans you can pull to also Disengage for that same movement, provided it's happening on an enemy's turn.
It happens right after the trigger happens, so it's going to be up to your DM whether a creature moving towards you gets to complete its movement (and when it reaches you, then you'd be provoking an opportunity attack by taking your readied action to move away), or whether the first time that movement brings it closer to you, you interrupt with your readied action and move away. You can probably guess by my phrasing which ruling I favor, but I think they're both valid.
I get what you are saying about readying movement. but if you are just moving, and only moving part of that movement, and as your action (after you moved) you ready disengage because you are trying to stay out of danger (maybe you are low on HP or you have campaign’s Mcguffin, you are trying to protect) can you use remaining movement you have left? If not it kind of makes readying disengage useless. although I don’t think disengage is used very often with readying an action.
I get what you are saying about readying movement. but if you are just moving, and only moving part of that movement, and as your action (after you moved) you ready disengage because you are trying to stay out of danger (maybe you are low on HP or you have campaign’s Mcguffin, you are trying to protect) can you use remaining movement you have left? If not it kind of makes readying disengage useless. although I don’t think disengage is used very often with readying an action.
Yes it does. Don't see it being much of a problem though.
I don’t see why you couldn’t use any remaining movement. If you have 30’ move speed and move 10’ and ready an action, if the ready action was “I move away if the enemy comes towards me”. You should still be able to move the remaining 20’ you have. Same if the readied action is a dash or disengage. If you couldn’t move what’s the point of disengaging. And the remaining 20’ is added to dash.
At least that’s how I read it.
If you're readying movement, that movement is your full move speed, just like Dash. It provokes attacks as normal. I don't think there's any shenanigans you can pull to also Disengage for that same movement, provided it's happening on an enemy's turn.
It happens right after the trigger happens, so it's going to be up to your DM whether a creature moving towards you gets to complete its movement (and when it reaches you, then you'd be provoking an opportunity attack by taking your readied action to move away), or whether the first time that movement brings it closer to you, you interrupt with your readied action and move away. You can probably guess by my phrasing which ruling I favor, but I think they're both valid.
I get what you are saying about readying movement. but if you are just moving, and only moving part of that movement, and as your action (after you moved) you ready disengage because you are trying to stay out of danger (maybe you are low on HP or you have campaign’s Mcguffin, you are trying to protect) can you use remaining movement you have left? If not it kind of makes readying disengage useless. although I don’t think disengage is used very often with readying an action.
You can't. And I don't really think you ought to be able to. Disengage is useless as a readied action, full stop, and that's okay. I don't think it would add much, aside from allowing the game to occasionally turn into unwinnable infinite chasing scenarios.
Still, there are plenty of monsters where an opportunity attack is much less threatening than their Multiattack action. This could still be a niche tactic to bust out when the situation calls for it.
I don’t see why you couldn’t use any remaining movement. If you have 30’ move speed and move 10’ and ready an action, if the ready action was “I move away if the enemy comes towards me”. You should still be able to move the remaining 20’ you have. Same if the readied action is a dash or disengage. If you couldn’t move what’s the point of disengaging. And the remaining 20’ is added to dash.
At least that’s how I read it.
If you're readying movement, that movement is your full move speed, just like Dash. It provokes attacks as normal. I don't think there's any shenanigans you can pull to also Disengage for that same movement, provided it's happening on an enemy's turn.
It happens right after the trigger happens, so it's going to be up to your DM whether a creature moving towards you gets to complete its movement (and when it reaches you, then you'd be provoking an opportunity attack by taking your readied action to move away), or whether the first time that movement brings it closer to you, you interrupt with your readied action and move away. You can probably guess by my phrasing which ruling I favor, but I think they're both valid.
I get what you are saying about readying movement. but if you are just moving, and only moving part of that movement, and as your action (after you moved) you ready disengage because you are trying to stay out of danger (maybe you are low on HP or you have campaign’s Mcguffin, you are trying to protect) can you use remaining movement you have left? If not it kind of makes readying disengage useless. although I don’t think disengage is used very often with readying an action.
You can't. And I don't really think you ought to be able to. Disengage is useless as a readied action, full stop, and that's okay. I don't think it would add much, aside from allowing the game to occasionally turn into unwinnable infinite chasing scenarios.
Still, there are plenty of monsters where an opportunity attack is much less threatening than their Multiattack action. This could still be a niche tactic to bust out when the situation calls for it.
When already engaged in close combat, readying disengagement could be useful if, say, your party has a sneak attack or pack-tactic ally also in close combat. The trigger could effectively be their action turn.
A different question might ask whether it should be possible to delay a disengagement or whether there might be potential consequences if you try. Perhaps something like a contested check might be required in a delayed attempt to disengage.
When already engaged in close combat, readying disengagement could be useful if, say, your party has a sneak attack or pack-tactic ally also in close combat. The trigger could effectively be their action turn.
A different question might ask whether it should be possible to delay a disengagement or whether there might be potential consequences if you try. Perhaps something like a contested check might be required in a delayed attempt to disengage.
If you use your Ready action to Disengage on someone else's turn, you can't move out of the enemy's range so it achieves nothing. You're better off taking the Dodge action in that scenario so you're harder to hit and your allies still get their bonuses.
When already engaged in close combat, readying disengagement could be useful if, say, your party has a sneak attack or pack-tactic ally also in close combat. The trigger could effectively be their action turn.
A different question might ask whether it should be possible to delay a disengagement or whether there might be potential consequences if you try. Perhaps something like a contested check might be required in a delayed attempt to disengage.
If you use your Ready action to Disengage on someone else's turn, you can't move out of the enemy's range so it achieves nothing. You're better off taking the Dodge action in that scenario so you're harder to hit and your allies still get their bonuses.
If you're saying that you can't ready to disengage and use it to move then you can't ready to disengage. If you're talking about movement speed then it depends on if your base speed is faster than your opponents. In any case, if your opponent gives chase they may either need to give up an action to disengage or give your ally/ies an opportunity attack. Even for starters, that's something.
When already engaged in close combat, readying disengagement could be useful if, say, your party has a sneak attack or pack-tactic ally also in close combat. The trigger could effectively be their action turn.
A different question might ask whether it should be possible to delay a disengagement or whether there might be potential consequences if you try. Perhaps something like a contested check might be required in a delayed attempt to disengage.
If you use your Ready action to Disengage on someone else's turn, you can't move out of the enemy's range so it achieves nothing. You're better off taking the Dodge action in that scenario so you're harder to hit and your allies still get their bonuses.
If you're saying that you can't ready to disengage and use it to move then you can't ready to disengage. If you're talking about movement speed then it depends on if your base speed is faster than your opponents. In any case, if your opponent gives chase they may either need to give up an action to disengage or give your ally/ies an opportunity attack. Even for starters, that's something.
I agree that dodge can be a great option.
Technically you can use Ready to Disengage, but you shouldn't do it because it doesn't achieve anything. It has nothing to do with movement speed, it's about action economy.
When you Disengage on your turn, you still have to use your movement to get out of your enemy's reach, Disengage just prevents them from taking an attack of opportunity on that turn. But if you use the Ready action, you can only do one thing with it:
If you ready to disengage, then you cannot move.
If you ready a move, then you cannot disengage and they will get an attack of opportunity as you leave their reach.
Disengaging on other creatures' turns doesn't help much, but readying a Disengage does have extremely niche uses, are they good to keep in mind for more general scenarios involving readied actions. Two main points:
Outside of other special features, readying an action is the only default way to reliably burn up your reaction.
Your readied action can be taken on your own turn by setting the appropriate trigger- you don't need to wait until after your turn ends.
Burning your reaction can be useful - for example, when you are up against an enemy that is spamming Dissonant Whispers. If your goal this turn is to safely run away from nearby enemies AND expend your reaction so that you aren't vulnerable to something like Dissonant whispers, you can ready a disengage on a controllable trigger, satisfy that trigger, use your reaction to disengage, and then spend your movement - all during your turn.
Ready specifically says, "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." I think it's either one thing or the other but, yes, with disengage accessing unused movement. ....
The wotc text is, again, ambiguous. It says "you choose the action you will take" and yet, according to the interpretation that:
... you can't effectively disengage. You could only choose this option to burn your reaction but, if this was the case, you might as well do something with an actual effect and, for instance, attack.
You and your roguish friend are heading down the moderately wide passageway. Suddenly an opponent jumps out to attack and wounds you. On your turn, you say that you move around your opponent with a plan to disengage. You ask the DM whether you can delay disengaging until your roguish friend has made their attack. I may then be down to DM interpretation whether or not you can do this.
In this situation, and with a favourable DM interpretation, you could either ready to disengage so as to use your remaining movement or ready another effective action or you could simply ready to move up to your full movement speed.
So I'm DMing a game and one of my players used ready action in a manner I'm not familiar with. He does his attacks, but instead of using his movement on his turn, he Readies his movement in the event an enemy moves toward him. I ruled "no" but promised to look into the rule and circle back for the next game.
My interpretation is if you do anything for your main action, you cannot ready any action. That you are in a sense choosing "Ready" as your action in combat. So if you attack, you already chose your action. But I can't say I'm certain on this. What do you guys think?
Ready
Sometimes you want to get the jump on a foe or wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you can take the Ready action on your turn, which lets you act using your 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 goblin 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. Remember that you can take only one reaction per round.
When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, and holding onto the spell's magic requires concentration. If your concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking effect. For example, if you are concentrating on the web spell and ready magic missile, your web spell ends, and if you take damage before you release magic missile with your reaction, your concentration might be broken.
Ready is an action. You can ready to move, but doing so still takes your action.
I think in past editions you could ready movement, but to do so in 5e you'd need to use your action on your turn to ready it like any other action.
What ChiorOfFire said. If the player disagrees that it is an action it’s literally under Actions in Combat section of the PHB.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Since movement itself is not an action, I'm assuming you can move and then ready an action, such as attack?
Yes.
I'd say that you can move and then ready any of the options in actions in combat except ready. You've already done that. That leaves attack, cast a spell, dash, disengage, dodge (which you might as well already have done), help or hide. I think it may be down to DM interpretation whether you could add any unused movement to dash or, indeed, whether you could add any of your base movement to the additional movement provided. On disengage, I'd rule that a character could only use their unused movement for that turn.
RAW that could potentially include saying, if this opponent looks like they're going to swing at me, I'm running - but, if they turn to run, I'll still try to hit them. Not sure if that would be stretching it.
I don’t see why you couldn’t use any remaining movement. If you have 30’ move speed and move 10’ and ready an action, if the ready action was “I move away if the enemy comes towards me”. You should still be able to move the remaining 20’ you have. Same if the readied action is a dash or disengage. If you couldn’t move what’s the point of disengaging. And the remaining 20’ is added to dash.
At least that’s how I read it.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Ready specifically says, "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." I think it's either one thing or the other but, yes, with disengage accessing unused movement. In total "you [can] move up to your speed" so I don't think, RAW, you can add remaining movement to dash.
It also says, "When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal but hold its energy, which you release with your reaction when the trigger occurs. To be readied, a spell must have a casting time of 1 action, ..." It seems that you can't cast a spell as a bonus action and I'd question whether you can ready to take a bonus action of another kind. You could say that the readying was the action but, again, that could be pushing it.
Personally, I'd allow an interaction with an object to be readied but I think I'd need to consider proposals for a readying of both an action and an interaction with an object on a case by case basis.
If you're readying movement, that movement is your full move speed, just like Dash. It provokes attacks as normal. I don't think there's any shenanigans you can pull to also Disengage for that same movement, provided it's happening on an enemy's turn.
It happens right after the trigger happens, so it's going to be up to your DM whether a creature moving towards you gets to complete its movement (and when it reaches you, then you'd be provoking an opportunity attack by taking your readied action to move away), or whether the first time that movement brings it closer to you, you interrupt with your readied action and move away. You can probably guess by my phrasing which ruling I favor, but I think they're both valid.
It's a great use of a fast character in workably open spaces. You move into the movement distance of an opponent that doesn't have a ranged attack and ready to move away. The opponent moves toward you but you move away. The opponent adds dash to their movement to move right up to you but, as they've used their action, can't attack. You disengage and move to you, larger than theirs, movement speed. If they still want to target you, best they can do is move and dash. Meanwhile, your allies keep spell casting and firing.
I get what you are saying about readying movement. but if you are just moving, and only moving part of that movement, and as your action (after you moved) you ready disengage because you are trying to stay out of danger (maybe you are low on HP or you have campaign’s Mcguffin, you are trying to protect) can you use remaining movement you have left? If not it kind of makes readying disengage useless. although I don’t think disengage is used very often with readying an action.
EZD6 by DM Scotty
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/397599/EZD6-Core-Rulebook?
Yes it does. Don't see it being much of a problem though.
You can't. And I don't really think you ought to be able to. Disengage is useless as a readied action, full stop, and that's okay. I don't think it would add much, aside from allowing the game to occasionally turn into unwinnable infinite chasing scenarios.
Still, there are plenty of monsters where an opportunity attack is much less threatening than their Multiattack action. This could still be a niche tactic to bust out when the situation calls for it.
When already engaged in close combat, readying disengagement could be useful if, say, your party has a sneak attack or pack-tactic ally also in close combat. The trigger could effectively be their action turn.
A different question might ask whether it should be possible to delay a disengagement or whether there might be potential consequences if you try. Perhaps something like a contested check might be required in a delayed attempt to disengage.
If you use your Ready action to Disengage on someone else's turn, you can't move out of the enemy's range so it achieves nothing. You're better off taking the Dodge action in that scenario so you're harder to hit and your allies still get their bonuses.
If you're saying that you can't ready to disengage and use it to move then you can't ready to disengage.
If you're talking about movement speed then it depends on if your base speed is faster than your opponents.
In any case, if your opponent gives chase they may either need to give up an action to disengage or give your ally/ies an opportunity attack.
Even for starters, that's something.
I agree that dodge can be a great option.
Technically you can use Ready to Disengage, but you shouldn't do it because it doesn't achieve anything. It has nothing to do with movement speed, it's about action economy.
When you Disengage on your turn, you still have to use your movement to get out of your enemy's reach, Disengage just prevents them from taking an attack of opportunity on that turn. But if you use the Ready action, you can only do one thing with it:
Disengaging on other creatures' turns doesn't help much, but readying a Disengage does have extremely niche uses, are they good to keep in mind for more general scenarios involving readied actions. Two main points:
Burning your reaction can be useful - for example, when you are up against an enemy that is spamming Dissonant Whispers. If your goal this turn is to safely run away from nearby enemies AND expend your reaction so that you aren't vulnerable to something like Dissonant whispers, you can ready a disengage on a controllable trigger, satisfy that trigger, use your reaction to disengage, and then spend your movement - all during your turn.
The wotc text is, again, ambiguous. It says "you choose the action you will take" and yet, according to the interpretation that:
... you can't effectively disengage. You could only choose this option to burn your reaction but, if this was the case, you might as well do something with an actual effect and, for instance, attack.
You and your roguish friend are heading down the moderately wide passageway. Suddenly an opponent jumps out to attack and wounds you. On your turn, you say that you move around your opponent with a plan to disengage. You ask the DM whether you can delay disengaging until your roguish friend has made their attack. I may then be down to DM interpretation whether or not you can do this.
In this situation, and with a favourable DM interpretation, you could either ready to disengage so as to use your remaining movement or ready another effective action or you could simply ready to move up to your full movement speed.
This adds to an argument that you can't similarly use remaining movement with a readied disengage.
However, saying "you choose the action you will take in response to that trigger," does suggest a choice between options.
Would disengage remain an option that could effectively be taken? I think this would be left to DM interpretation.