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
hi i am an assassin rouge (also new to the game so please be patient with me :/ )
i wanna use shortsword vex mastery and the dual wield feat to be able to use the advantage from vex and be able to proc the bonus dmg that i can use when i have advantage (sneak attack) but also i wanna use nick afterwards so i can attack three times a turn so it would go like
1A:shortsword then 1BA:dagger then dagger again from the nick mastery
That combo should work if you have the Dual Wielder feat, though strictly speaking since you're making the attack from the Nick mastery as part of the Attack action the order would actually go like:
With the Vex mastery, if the first attack hits, the next one would have advantage, and be eligible for Sneak Attack.
(This is probably better suited to the Rules & Game Mechanics forum, since it's not about a bug in D&D Beyond.)
pronouns: he/she/they
I agree with wagnarokkr, and also want to add that, since Nick gives you the second attack as part of your Attack action all on its own, you might not find Dual Wielder worth it, because rogues have a lot of uses for their bonus action already.
There is another option available:
The Dagger attack you get from the Nick mastery should qualify as the triggering attack for Dual Wielder as it is an attack with a Light weapon as part of the Attack action, allowing you to make a bonus action attack with your Shortsword, and thus having your Vex mastery active should you get an Opportunity Attack later.
That's right, the Dual Wielder Bonus Action extra attack is triggered every time you attack with a Light weapon, including the one you shift into your Attack with Nick, or any extra attacks.
Some examples from another thread by Plaguescarred, using Scimitar instead of the Dagger proposed by mahmoudgamer:
EDIT: for clarity.
Normally, the only way to interrupt an Action or Bonus Action is with a Reaction, so doing part of your Action, then a Bonus Action, then another part of your Action isn't really permitted.
With that being said, the interpretation of Nick is... controversial. Some players say you need to take the extra attack with the Nick weapon. Some players say you need to take it with the non-Nick weapon. Some players say either. Some players say neither.
In general, you want to take as few attacks with your Nick as possible. So you'd ideally want to attack twice with your Short Sword and only once with your Dagger. Depending on how you're treating Nick, your Action would permit one attack with the Dagger and one attack with the Short Sword. Then you can simply trigger your Dual Wielder attack with the Dagger attack you made during your Action. No shenanigans necessary.
With that being said, you may find it more worthwhile to use Crossbow Expert rather than Dual Wielder. On a Rogue, getting two extra attacks without your Dexterity mod will yield another 2d6 (on a Short Sword) = 7 damage. Getting one extra attack with your Dexterity mod would be d6 + 5 = 8.5 damage. However, the Crossbow Expert technique lets you save your Bonus Action and is far more flexible in terms of how you can fight.
This is debatable. EDIT: see #13.
Nitpick: That may have been true in 2014, but the current definition of bonus action only says it happens on a turn in which you take an action. And the more extensive description here: https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/dnd/br-2024/playing-the-game#BonusActions says "You choose when to take a Bonus Action during your turn unless the Bonus Action’s timing is specified."
Moreover, Divine Smite is explicitly a bonus action capable of interrupting an Action on your turn.
The "One Thing At A Time" rule dictates that you can only take one action at a time. Taking an action in the middle of another action would violate this rule.
It was also possible under the 5e/2014 rules, following the Bonus Action rules, which are similar to those in 5.5e:
It's not debatable -- there are definitely bonus actions (such as smites) that can be used in the middle of an action.
Whether more loosely-timed bonus actions, such as a bonus action attack, can be taken in the middle of one's attack action is, indeed, debatable, and that has been done to great extent elsewhere. (I wouldn't allow it, but I can't say it's wrong to do so.)
OTAAT exists to prevent people from trying to get the equivalent of a study action or an influence action while also attacking, as they were prone to do in the 5e14. There's no indication that bonus actions are included within its scope. Indeed, OTAAT is placed in the rules before bonus actions are introduced. If it were supposed to apply to them in the general case, it ought to be placed later, and also mention them.
(The principle by which I justify excluding most bonus actions from the Attack action is "attacks are quite complicated enough, thank you".)
My apologies, that's what I wanted to say.
Bonus Actions are still actions. If the rules worked the way you suggest, the entire "One Thing At A Time" section becomes meaningless. You already can't use the same Action to do two different things.
The example included in "One Thing at a Time" only mentions the main Actions listed in the Actions table:
Bonus actions are explicitly not Actions. The two are in no way interchangeable. Actions are Actions, Bonus Actions are Bonus actions, and never the twain shall meet.
(Now, there's an explicit statement that anything that stops you from taking actions also stops you from taking Bonus actions, but that is not the same thing as saying they're the same thing.)
Players want to. All the time. Defining things as actions isn't going to stop players from trying to talk while they fight, or to roll their knowledge skills, or whatever. The nature of the action economy may be obvious to rules nerds, but to the average player, just defining using social skills as an action doesn't mean they can't "just talk".
Bonus Actions are literally defined as actions: "Various class features, spells, and other abilities let you take an additional action on your turn called a Bonus Action." Emphasis mine.
Characters can explicitly make short utterances and move as part of an action. Players may request information from the DM based of what their character might know, but anything that rises to the level of requiring thought/research/investigation would be require they take an action for Study. These aren't issues covered by the "One Thing At a Time" rule but by the limitation on the number of Actions a character may take in a turn.
In terms of the "One Thing At a Time" rule only mentioning listed actions in the table, we're only discussing actions in the table. Indeed, I can't think of a Bonus Action activity that is not itself a listed action from the table.
lowercase action, not uppercase Action. When describing this section, I replace many references to lowercase action with activity so that it is clearer. Any time a lowercase action is referenced, it could be referring to activities or Action. Only when an uppercase Action other than at the start of the sentence is it clear. This leads to debates, as mentioned before.
Regardless, Actions, Bonus Actions, and Reactions are separate and distinct rules concepts and are not interchangeable. You cannot use one instead of another. Nothing about their individual rules applies to any of the others.
Bonus Actions can explicitly be taken when you choose during your turn and some explicitly can only be taken during an Action.
Reactions can only be taken at timings specified for each ability and many are during another Action.
It's absolutely not meaningless, niche, but not meaningless.
There are a number of ways to get more than one action during your turn. Fighter's With Action Surge. Wild Magic result 53-56, Haste.
One Thing At A Time means that a Hasted Fighter that Action Surged has to fully resolve their Attack before they can take another Action. If they downed an enemy with their first attack, they can't Study before their next attack, for example.
There are so many more.
There are certain abilities, such as Cunning Action or Step of the Wind that will let you take an Action as a Bonus Action, but that is a pretty narrow selection of Bonus Actions. I would say these are the rarest of Bonus Actions, but I haven't actually taken count of them.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.
You're confused about the distinction between lowercase and uppercase 'action'. Lowercase 'action' refers to the activities you can do. If the Bonus Action lets you do something, it lets you perform an action. That action is bound by all the rules of any other action - including the "One Thing At a Time" rule (which covers lowercase 'actions' not just uppercase 'Actions'). Again, that section of text is not meaningless garbage. It's actual rules text that not only has a purpose but a fairly clear one: to simplify the rules by making actions atomic.
Reactions are given a specific exemption to this in that they occur when triggered. If Bonus Action were an exception, rules would exist making them an exception. No such rules exist.
The text about Bonus Actions being taken when you choose simply means you can take them before or after any Actions. It does not override the rules requiring that you take actions one at a time. Bonus Actions are, as the rules explicitly state, 'actions' (lower case) affected by the One Thing At a Time rule - your argument is actually backwards (you're attempting to argue the rule applies to uppercase 'Action' but not lowercase 'action').
The rule exists and it says, "You choose when to take a Bonus Action during your turn unless the Bonus Action’s timing is specified."
I am not confused, but WotC is not clear. It would be grammatically awkward to define a rule that restricts a concept before the concept is defined. If Bonus Actions were a type of Action, the rule, "You choose when to take a Bonus Action during your turn unless the Bonus Action’s timing is specified" would be completely redundant and unnecessary.
One Thing At A Time does not apply to Bonus Actions and it is not meaningless for the scenarios I provided in my previous post.
How to add Tooltips.
My houserulings.