Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer Creatures
Frozen Sick
D&D Beyond Basic Rules
Basic Rules (2014)
Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in- Marketplace
Monstrous Compendium Vol. 1: Spelljammer CreaturesFrozen SickD&D Beyond Basic RulesBasic Rules (2014)Sign in to view your library & saved favorites.
Sign in
Indeed, this is interesting because Smite plus its Bonus Action timing becomes very similar to how a Reaction works:
No. Shield is a Reaction spell, not a Bonus Action spell. The restriction in question only applies to Bonus Actions, not Reactions:
The rules that are specific to Reactions do not list anything like the above text.
This claim is not supported by the rules.
Except that that's exactly what the smite spells allow you to do explicitly. They were deliberately carefully designed in such a way that they allow you to do this.
An attack is made which hits. The damage that is associated with that hit is resolved when that hit occurs during Step #3 of "Making an Attack". In that case, the text says: "On a hit, you roll damage . . .". This wording means that this happens simultaneously. Likewise, if a feature used any phrase such as "during" a hit, or "when" you hit, or "whenever" you hit, or "while" you hit or anything of that sort, then that consequence is tied to that hit -- it happens automatically when the hit happens.
In contrast, the wording for the smite spells say that you take a Bonus Action "immediately after" the hit. As such, that hit has already happened and has been resolved. Note that this is true regardless of whether or not any of us agree about whether or not it is allowed to be able to take a Bonus Action in the middle of an ongoing Action. Even if you could do that, the wording STILL says "immediately after", not "on", "during" or "when" or "simultaneously to".
This Bonus Action is taken sequentially to and NOT simultaneously to the attack / hit in question and that fact is unambiguous.
Now, given that, the wording of the spell description then goes out of its way to explicitly declare that the damage created by the smite spell gets applied to that attack / hit that has just recently been resolved. How does it do this? It's magic, that's how. It does this magically. (It's a specific vs general exception to the normal mechanics for resolving the damage of an attack.) The hit was fully resolved. Then, immediately after that, this spell adds "extra" damage which is dealt to the same target and is attributed to the attack / hit which has just recently been resolved. It's as simple as that.
It's not relevant. It's for effects that prevent you from taking Actions. For example, being Incapacitated. Incapacitated (and Stinking Cloud) also explicitly prevents you from taking Bonus Actions and/or Reactions, but that is also not relevant; redundancy within the Core Rulebooks leads to clearer rules as well as improving compatibility with legacy, third-party, and future content. Actions, Bonus Actions, and Reactions are all outlined in the Actions section of Playing the Game, but they each have independent rules and Bonus Actions and Reactions are not Actions. If you can take Actions on your turn and you have a Bonus Action, you can take it on your turn according to the timing of the Bonus Action. That is all. That rule does not affect the timing of Bonus Actions. I understand your confusion, but you have just misunderstood the rule.
They were very careful in timing the Bonus Action after the attack hits and before the damage.
Searing Smite
Ensnaring Strike
Hail of Thorns
Lightning Arrow
Three example spells that are cast with a Bonus Action immediately after you hit and one that is a Bonus Action immediately after you hit or miss that all have explicit wording that would also be taken as simultaneous and one of the spells replaces the damage rather than adds to it (and without time travel!).
The rules contradict you and the rules win. There is simply no room for a RAW or RAI interpretation where the Bonus Action takes place after the damage is dealt, particularly when that Bonus Action can replace the damage altogether; you cannot replace damage that has been already resolved. How does it occur between the attack and the damage? It's mag- not really. It's just an abstracted system of resources to represent activity (try not to say actions when talking about Actions) and restrict the number of activities that can be performed in one Combat Turn and/or Round. The Bonus Action is just a resource and it is not an Action. Its timing is determined by the ability to providing the Bonus Action and all the examples we have looked at here were spells, but there could be other non-spell Bonus Actions that follow the same pattern.
That you interrupt the attack sequence with a Bonus Action for your favorite flavor of Smite (or Lightning Arrow) or lose the opportunity, is, in your words, unambiguous. The rules require that sequence. If you prefer your interpretation, do what brings you joy but keep in mind in future discussions that it is a house rule.
The only thing that is in doubt is whether you can interrupt an Action with a generic Bonus Action (say to Misty Step) between attacks) as Bonus Actions are not Actions and are not restricted by One Thing at a Time, but that's off-topic and should be debated in another thread. I suspect you have thoughts on the matter.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
False.
The word "effects" is not used here. I have already directly quoted the rule a couple of times now, but for clarity, here it is again:
Yes, I agree that being Incapacitated is a good example of something in the game that deprives you of your ability to take actions and therefore also prevents you from taking a Bonus Action. But so is the One at a Time rule. The One at a Time rule is also something in the game that deprives you of your ability to take actions and therefore also prevents you from taking a Bonus Action. It's right there in the text that I've quoted multiple times now.
But even if that above text didn't exist, we would still have the following rule, which does not depend at all on whether or not Bonus Actions are actions or not:
The above is the rule for this game. Being in the process of taking one action explicitly deprives you of your ability to take actions and therefore that also prevents you from taking a Bonus Action. That is the general rule, and it is not ambiguous.
Now, someone else mentioned a while back that perhaps some texts for some Bonus Actions create a specific vs general exception to that general rule and I already acknowledged that perhaps that might be a possibility. But the general rule is what it is. It has been quoted and explained.
Furthermore, I already explained that whether or not a specific exception is made by the smite spells is not the important point in answering the OP's question about the timing of the casting of the smite spells. The timing that is dictated explicitly by the spell description is that the Bonus Action is taken after the attack / hit in question. This fact simply cannot be disputed without actually changing the text of the spell.
Until now, I have only bothered to examine the timing text within the spell description for Divine Smite which I have already quoted and is explicitly NOT what you have just declared above. If the timing is written differently for the various spells, then that is just bad design / editing from the authors. Once again, the timing of the Bonus Action for Divine Smite:
The phrase "and before the damage" is never used. That is a false claim. The Bonus Action is taken after the hit. When a hit occurs, that damage is resolved immediately, by rule. Then, after that, you can take your Bonus Action, if desired.
So now, I guess since you are bringing up multiple other spells, we should probably examine the timing for those as well:
Searing Smite:
Ensnaring Strike:
Hail of Thorns:
Lightning Arrow:
Seems pretty consistent to me.
On the contrary, the rules are exactly what I've directly quoted.
When a creature is hit, that damage from that hit is resolved. When a game element allows you to do something after a creature is hit, that damage has already resolved and then you do the thing. The fact that the thing in question here happens to be a spell whose description explicitly says that it provides extra damage to that hit doesn't change this timing -- instead, this can be explained by the simple concept that spells do what they say.
The one at a time rule doesn't prevent you from taking Bonus Actions, but I understand how you have misinterpreted the rule.
If the damage is resolved, it cannot be replaced. It's done. Therefore, the Bonus Action to cast Lightning Arrow must resolve prior to the damage being dealt. It doesn't matter if the spell does what it says it does, if the opportunity has passed, it has passed. I can't replace damage dealt after the damage has resolved, I can only heal and deal separate damage.
It is undeniable proof that the Bonus Action resolves before the damage is dealt. The Attack Hits or Misses and before determining further steps, you can use a Bonus Action or Reaction as features allow that alter how that Attack is resolved. Once the attack resolves, you are done.
Your take is a house rule and not RAW or RAI.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
And what deprives you of your ability to take actions? Because as I said, to me the "One Thing at a Time" rule applies to the Actions listed in this table, as the example demonstrates:
I disagree with your interpretation and explanations in the thread, but it's fine if you want to play by your reading.
EDIT: for clarity.
I think most players of paladins would hate to have the damage resolved before they cast Divine Smite because that would deprive them of the ability to double the smite damage if they scored a critical hit. That extra damage is usually well worth the risk of overkill from an unnecessary smite.
The shield example is a good one, because there are very well-known DMs -- Brennan Lee Mulligan, for instance -- who have players decide whether to cast it without knowing whether it'll actually stop any attacks. Smites, in theory, should work the same way -- you would cast it without knowing whether it'll be necessary
Really, though, it just comes down to DM style
It also seems like WOTC tried to put that power even more in the hands of DMs in 5e24 by removing a lot of language that specified "you have to use this thing before you know the outcome". For instance, Cutting Words:
The feature still works the same way, but the DM is now freer to step in and say, "Don't bother using that, it won't make a difference"
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
PIPA - Planar Interception/Protection Aeormaton, warforged bodyguard and ex-wizard hunter (Warrior of the Elements monk/Cartographer artificer)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)
Based on your interpretation the target's Resistance would apply twice?
Unless, of course (as is always the case with every rule in 5e), some other more specific ability intervenes. In this case, the smites and their ilk.
There is nothing in the rules that makes the resolution of determining the hit and rolling damage atomic. There's no shortage of abilities that intervene post-hit-determination but before damage, and the smites specifically say they're used after you hit, not after you make an attack. The one thing at a time rule is, even if generally applicable to bonus actions, irrelevant, because specific beats general, and the timing of smites occurs at a specific point. Even if an arbitrary bonus action is unavailable there, these specific bonus actions are because they say they are.
You are way out beyond left field in your reading of the rules here, and both lightning arrow and the well-established interactions of smites and crits substantiate the general consensus.
SmiteMakesRight is right on the subject of smites.
The One Thing at a Time rule is what deprives you of your ability to take actions during certain times -- in this case, this happens during times when you are already taking another action. Actions are not limited to the table that you've mentioned, as written in the paragraph directly below that table. The point of the rule is that any activity that requires an action for a creature to accomplish must be performed sequentially, not simultaneously, as the example demonstrates.
Then, in the rule for Bonus Actions, we learn that anything that deprives you of your ability to take actions also prevents you from taking Bonus Actions. In this way, activities which require a Bonus Action for a creature to accomplish require the same level of focus on the task as actions do. While you are taking an action you cannot take a Bonus Action, at least as a general rule. Now, the point has been raised that perhaps the particular wording for some Bonus Actions might create a specific exception to this rule and I have acknowledged that this might be possible. That would have to be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
Since the Shield spell keeps popping up, let's quickly examine the wording for that spell:
First, Shield is a Reaction spell. Reactions use a different action economy resource than Bonus Actions and have different rules and restrictions regarding when and how they can be used.
But more importantly, the phrase that is used in this spell is "when". The phrase that is used in the smite spells is "immediately after". This is deliberately different timing so the mechanics for how to resolve these are different.
I'm not sure what this means. Are you talking about damage type resistance? This is a trait that is always on, so it is applied whenever damage is dealt.
For example, suppose you are attacking a creature that has resistance to Radiant damage. You attack it with your Warhammer, which does Bludgeoning damage. The attack is a hit. The creature is not resistant to Bludgeoning damage, so you roll the damage and deal the full amount of this damage to the creature. The creature takes that damage and is still standing. Immediately after this, you declare that you will use a Bonus Action to cast Divine Smite. The target for that spell is the creature that was just attacked and hit. The spell description explicitly declares that this spell deals "extra" damage that is applied to the hit that was just made. So, if that hit was a critical hit, then you roll double damage dice for this smite. Once this extra damage is rolled, we then cut that amount in half in this example because the creature in question has resistance to Radiant damage, and this extra damage from Divine Smite is radiant damage, as per the spell description.
Because the spell description tells us that this damage is attributed to the same hit that has just been resolved, we simply go back to Step #3 of "Making an Attack" for that particular attack and resolve any currently unresolved damage at this time because the spell description is essentially telling us to do that by applying the damage to the same attack. This is a specific vs general exception to the way in which damage is typically resolved. The damage for the attack is essentially resolved twice at two different times because the damage for the attack occurs at two different times, as per the spell description.
The general rule is that damage for an attack is resolved simultaneously to the hit. These both occur during the same Step #3 of "Making an Attack" and the phrase that is used is "On a hit . . .".
In order for a feature or ability to do what you've said and intervene post-hit-determination but before damage, it must also specify simultaneous timing. This must be evaluated on a case-by-case basis.
An example of a feature that successfully achieves this which has already been brought up in this thread is the Shield spell:
An example of a feature which does NOT do this is Divine Smite:
The timing is different. It just is. It really doesn't matter what the "consensus" is on the subject or how the community at large generally plays it. If we are discussing RAW, the text says what it says.
The description of Divine Smite doesn't say the attack is essentially resolved twice at two different times because the damage for the attack occurs at two different times, it says;
The consensus can be wrong, but it's not here.
The timing of the clauses is the same. "On a hit" can mean timing, but it can also mean dependence.
You cannot deal damage "on a hit" without resolving the attack first in order to know whether you hit or not. "On a hit" doesn't mean that it happens simultaneously - it is not possible. It means that the hit is required. You are skipping logical steps which is why you continue to misunderstand the rules interaction here. You must resolve the attack before the modification, replacement, or general resolution of damage. Damage is never resolved simultaneously with the attack roll, it (generally) requires the attack to succeed. Immediately after hitting is immediately before resolving damage. There is no room for an alternate RAW take. Your take is grammatically valid when examining one sentence in isolation, but not when examining the interaction within the larger rules and it has already been shown to be invalid multiple times.
RAW, the Bonus Action for Smite and similar spells or other abilities must be used before the damage is resolved or the opportunity to do so has passed.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
So if a Reaction spell is cast in response to "when you are hit" (e.g. Shield), the same holds true for a Bonus Action spell in response to "after hitting a creature" (e.g. Smite). This effectively becomes (blue text added by me):
Reactions are always event-triggered. Bonus actions sometimes are. However, when a BA is event-triggered, there is absolutely no reason to assume that, just because its a BA, that it has different timing.
First of all, you continue to apply incredibly precise meaning to differing wording, when the 5e rules (both sets) were not written with that level of precision.
Secondly, they do have different timing. Shield interrupts hit determination. Smites are post-hit-determination. You can't wait until your opponent activates their smite to say "well, then I'll shield". (Probably. It's certainly how I'd play it, but without a deep dive I can't be bothered to do, I'm not convinced it's actually 100% clear-cut. Anyway, that way lies madness. This is not an invitation to debate that question.)
Dude, that is literally sequential timing. You determine if it's a hit, then you roll damage. If the rules had you roll damage and to hit at the same time, that would be simultaneous. But there'd still be an opportunity between determining hit-and-damage and applying the damage for timing to happen. I don't think it's possible for hit determination and damage application to be simultaneous with in the D&D mechanical paradigm.
(I can envision systems where the damage roll is the hit roll, but we ain't there. Nor are we in a conflict-resolution paradigm.)
The writers of D&D 5e have never set down in print anything resembling a complete timing model. You are claiming that you, personally, have derived the correct one. Whether you're right or not doesn't matter. Barring the designers actually setting their model, if they have one, down, which they won't and shouldn't, the consensus model is the timing model. If you think it's wrong, you need to shift the consensus by reason. I am amenable to being persuaded, but your arguments are, frankly, bad. They are anchored on a thin reed. They contradict the 'things do what they say' principle. They fight against the extant precedent. They overcomplicate.
You can play it your way at your table, and it mostly doesn't matter, but it ain't RAW.
" Do you get to know if an enemy died before deciding to smite or not?"
If my dm didnt tell me, refused to answer when asked if it is dead, and basically pulled shenanigans to get me to burn a spell slot for smite just in case, i would find a new dm.
This is borderline dm-versus-pc behavior.
I throw a LOT at my players when i dm, but when they WIN, when they kill the bad guy, I am celebrating with them. Im not looking for ways to trick them into burning resources.
Not really. It's a matter of style -- how much information one normally gives the player.
It's also a matter of how one does the mechanics. If you're expecting the player to roll all damage dice at once, it's entirely possible not to know if they're dead or not before the player commits to the smite.
That's correct. So, this damage gets applied to the same attack. But the spell description also says that the Bonus Action that is taken to be able to cast this spell occurs after the hit and the initial damage from the weapon attack or unarmed strike in question occurs on a hit, so these two damages for this attack occur at two different times, as per the spell description. The only way to resolve such an attack in this situation is to resolve the damage two different times since the damage occurs at two different times.
I disagree. As shown in the above quote of the rules, the determination of the result of the attack roll is performed within the same step (Step #3) as the application of the damage which occurs "on a hit" within the overall process of Making an Attack.
For a feature to be triggered at that particular moment, it must say so. An example of this, as quoted above, occurs within the spell description of the Shield spell by use of the phrase "when" to describe the timing. There are a few other possible phrases that we see throughout the game which would also work, such as "whenever" and so on. However, the use of the phrase "after" absolutely positively does not indicate this same timing. It indicates a different timing which is after the event in question.
In the case of the smite spells, the author is deliberately specifying a timing of "after" the hit for precisely the reason that is raised by the OP's question -- it's precisely so that the spellcaster can know if the target creature is still alive before committing to burning a spell slot. This is a deliberate design choice by the author.
Thank you for bringing this text to my attention, which appears in the spellcasting chapter -- I had not noticed this before.
With this, we can now comfortably ignore the other argument about Bonus Actions not being possible while an action is being taken. This text confirms, at least for Bonus Action spells, that a particular Bonus Action might create a specific vs general exception to that general rule.
So, to answer the OP's question, we can now just look at the timing that is specified by the Bonus Action in question. In the case of all smite spells, the Bonus Action is taken after the hit, which is a different timing than a spell such as Shield whose Reaction is taken when the hit is made.
Incorrect. The Shield spell is cast when the hit occurs. The smite spells are cast after the hit occurs. The blue text can include the Shield spell but not the smite spells. See above for more explanation on this.
Sure, I agree with this. My point above was related to the other issue of whether or not a Bonus Action can generally be taken during an action (when the timing isn't specified). There is a restriction in place for Bonus Actions which does not apply to Reactions. But I've been convinced that when the timing is specified then that would override that general rule, so this aspect of the mechanic doesn't really need any further discussion.
It's true that when the Bonus Action is event-triggered then there is no reason to assume that the timing is different than an event-triggered Reaction. Whether or not the timing is different depends on what the text actually says for each of the features in question.
No. The timing of the casting of the Shield spell does not interrupt hit determination. It is the effect of the spell after it has been cast which actually changes the hit determination for the triggering attack. You actually are initially hit since that is the specified requirement for being able to take the Reaction. For example, if the attack roll die result was low enough so that the attack initially missed then you actually cannot cast Shield in that situation.
In order for the timing of the spell to actually interrupt hit determination, it would have to say something like "when you are attacked" instead of "when you are hit".
But I agree that the Shield spell DOES have different timing than the smite spells. The Shield spell is cast post-hit-determination. The smite spells are cast post-hit-resolution. This is because the Shield spell is cast "when you are hit" and the smite spells are cast "immediately after you are hit".
The truth of this issue is somewhere in the middle. There are many times throughout the rulebooks where the particular wording is extremely important and mechanically significant, and there are other times where some of the text is a lot closer to flavor-text. The 2024 rules made an effort to include a lot less flavor text than the 2014 version, but both sets have some mixture of both.
Ok, we're kind of splitting hairs here and perhaps my wording for my explanation on this point could have been better. The point that I was trying to make is that the rules establish what happens when you Make an Attack. It's a three-step process which gets fully completed before we move on to the next aspect of gameplay unless there was some sort of event-trigger happening during this process. Within this, one single step is listed which says that you determine if the attack hits and, on a hit, you roll the corresponding damage. It might be useful here to fully quote the entire rule so that we can see all of the context:
Step #3 above is how an attack is resolved. If the attack is a hit, the damage is determined and applied as part of resolving the attack.
When a feature says that something happens "immediately after hitting a target with a Melee weapon or an Unarmed Strike", we are no longer talking about any moment that occurs within the resolution of the attack. We are talking about after that event has occurred. If the trigger was meant to occur during the attack in question, then the authors would have used a phrase such as "when" or "during", not "after".
Perhaps someday the writers might go into detail about the differences between "when" and "after" in a future Sage Advice entry. If not, then we must simply use the text as it is written.
__________
At this point, if people refuse to acknowledge that there is a difference between a trigger occurring when something happens vs after something happens, then I'm afraid there's just nothing more for me to discuss on this subject and I will now just agree to disagree.
It doesn't matter that the steps of Resolve an Attack are in the same step of Making an Attack. They are sequential within that step and that sequence can be interrupted. "On a hit" doesn't make it simultaneous, it is not possible. It establishes dependence. "On a hit" means "if you hit", not "at the same time that you hit". "Immediate after" a hit is the particular moment between knowing that you hit and before determining damage.
In the case of spells with a casting time of a Bonus Action that you take when you hit (or hit or miss), the author is not specifying a timing after the damage so that the spell can benefit from a critical hit or so that Lightning Arrow can replace the damage. Both types of spells must be cast before the damage can be modified. Once the damage is resolved, it is too late.
You have acknowledged that Bonus Action timing qualifies for a Specific beats General exception. You don't seem to be acknowledging that "On a" defines dependence "on completion of a sale, we ring the bell"
Merriam-Webster, "On":
Cambridge, "On":
You are clinging to one definition to claim your point (Merriam-Webster definition 3), but because the exact same phrase has multiple meanings, it proves nothing. And given that the chosen definition is incompatible with Reaction and Bonus Action Triggers, Lightning Arrow, and other rules provided, it cannot be the one intended by the author. "On a hit" determines dependence, that you cannot deal damage without hitting first. The events are still sequential and therefore a trigger can occur between them.
Many sources suggest rolling to hit and damage at the same time, but it is to expedite combat and is not tied to a timing mandated by the rules.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
To that point, if you're the kind of DM that isn't going to tell a player if their smite is redundant or shield not worth casting, you can tailor your descriptions of the combat to at least hint in the direction of the right choice
"After that last blow from the monk, the ogre looks like it's about to collapse but manages to stay standing, if barely, with blood pouring out of its mouth and numerous wounds. It's clearly hanging on by a thread. Paladin, you're up"
Active characters:
Edoumiaond Willegume "Eddie" Podslee, Vegetanian scholar (College of Spirits bard)
Lan Kidogo, mapach archaeologist and treasure hunter (Knowledge cleric)
Peter "the Pied Piper" Hausler, human con artist/remover of vermin (Circle of the Shepherd druid)
PIPA - Planar Interception/Protection Aeormaton, warforged bodyguard and ex-wizard hunter (Warrior of the Elements monk/Cartographer artificer)
Xhekhetiel, halfling survivor of a Betrayer Gods cult (Runechild sorcerer/fighter)