Our Group's Cleric has the duty to protect the backline wizard. Following scenario:
a bunch of enemies is 20 feet away and it is not clear if our frontline can engage all of them. The Cleric is worried that an enemy could circle around his melee range and attack the wizard directly by flanking him. He thus wants to Ready an Action: If a melee enemy comes within 12 feet of me i move to him and attack.
I allowed this in the moment but i did not find a definitive answer if it is possible. If he could ONLY move and uses his reaction for the Ready Action itself, he would have no Reaction to intercept the melee enemy if the latter just runs past him nontheless, and this approach of using the Ready Action would not work.
RAW, using the Ready action, a player can choose an action to perform OR to move up to their speed, which they then do by taking a reaction once their triggering condition is met. They can not both move and perform an action as a readied response.
That said, I would absolutely allow a player to do what you described, so long as they were "saving" their movement for when they take a reaction, rather than using on their turn. It's not quite RAW, but I think it is perfectly reasonable.
Our Group's Cleric has the duty to protect the backline wizard. Following scenario:
a bunch of enemies is 20 feet away and it is not clear if our frontline can engage all of them. The Cleric is worried that an enemy could circle around his melee range and attack the wizard directly by flanking him. He thus wants to Ready an Action: If a melee enemy comes within 12 feet of me i move to him and attack.
I allowed this in the moment but i did not find a definitive answer if it is possible. If he could ONLY move and uses his reaction for the Ready Action itself, he would have no Reaction to intercept the melee enemy if the latter just runs past him nontheless, and this approach of using the Ready Action would not work.
Sadly you can't move and attack, or vice versa, on any action but an Attack action.
As others said, you really can’t by RAW. You can only ready an action. You can’t ready a move. You can ready the dash action, which would allow you to move, but then you’d have no action left to attack, and as you note, would use their reaction as part of the ready.
So their action would be to ready a dash. Their reaction would trigger. They’d run up next to the enemy, and pretty much wave as the enemy passed by.
As others said, you really can’t by RAW. You can only ready an action. You can’t ready a move. You can ready the dash action, which would allow you to move, but then you’d have no action left to attack, and as you note, would use their reaction as part of the ready.
So their action would be to ready a dash. Their reaction would trigger. They’d run up next to the enemy, and pretty much wave as the enemy passed by.
No, you can ready a move. You just can't ready a move and an action at the same time. Sequilonis laid out how it works above.
Technically you can ready the Dash action, but it doesn't do anything, because the Dash action doesn't actually move you, and you can't ready both an action and a move at the same time.
Yeah, Readying Dash is not very useful because you can't move off-turn (unless some game feature allows it; here are some examples: Dissonant Whispers question).
This is the explanation from the Dev:
@thomas_conners If you ready the Dash Action, can you then move up to twice you speed in reaction to the trigger? @JeremyECrawford Dash gives you extra movement. Off your turn, you have no movement. E.g., 0 ft. + 30 ft. = 30 ft., not 60 ft.
The same reasoning applies to Readying Disengage: you won't be able to move when the trigger occurs.
Our Group's Cleric has the duty to protect the backline wizard. Following scenario:
a bunch of enemies is 20 feet away and it is not clear if our frontline can engage all of them. The Cleric is worried that an enemy could circle around his melee range and attack the wizard directly by flanking him. He thus wants to Ready an Action: If a melee enemy comes within 12 feet of me i move to him and attack.
I allowed this in the moment but i did not find a definitive answer if it is possible. If he could ONLY move and uses his reaction for the Ready Action itself, he would have no Reaction to intercept the melee enemy if the latter just runs past him nontheless, and this approach of using the Ready Action would not work.
RAW, using the Ready action, a player can choose an action to perform OR to move up to their speed, which they then do by taking a reaction once their triggering condition is met. They can not both move and perform an action as a readied response.
That said, I would absolutely allow a player to do what you described, so long as they were "saving" their movement for when they take a reaction, rather than using on their turn. It's not quite RAW, but I think it is perfectly reasonable.
Sadly you can't move and attack, or vice versa, on any action but an Attack action.
As others said, you really can’t by RAW. You can only ready an action. You can’t ready a move. You can ready the dash action, which would allow you to move, but then you’d have no action left to attack, and as you note, would use their reaction as part of the ready.So their action would be to ready a dash. Their reaction would trigger. They’d run up next to the enemy, and pretty much wave as the enemy passed by.Move along, nothing to see her.
No, you can ready a move. You just can't ready a move and an action at the same time. Sequilonis laid out how it works above.
Technically you can ready the Dash action, but it doesn't do anything, because the Dash action doesn't actually move you, and you can't ready both an action and a move at the same time.
pronouns: he/she/they
Yeah, Readying Dash is not very useful because you can't move off-turn (unless some game feature allows it; here are some examples: Dissonant Whispers question).
This is the explanation from the Dev:
The same reasoning applies to Readying Disengage: you won't be able to move when the trigger occurs.