Actions
When you do something other than moving or communicating, you typically take an action. They are acts taken by creatures on their turns. Actions are generally taken in order to deal damage, cast spells, make ability checks or inflict harmful conditions, but they can also be taken to heal or aid allies.
One Thing at a Time
The game uses actions to govern how much you can do at one time. You can take only one action at a time. This principle is most important in Combat.
Actions can come up in other situations too: In a social interactions, you can try to Influence a creature or use the Search action to read the creature's body language, but you can't do both at the same time. And when you're exploring a dungeon, you can't simultaneously use the Search action to look for traps and use the Help action to aid another character who's trying to open a stuck door (with Utilise action)
Resources
For a creature to perform an action, particularly in combat scenarios, it must expend one of three resources. These resources allow a creature to perform various activities such as attacking, casting spells, or using special features. The three primary resources are:
Action – Bonus Action – Reaction
Action
An Action is one of the three primary resources that a creature can expend during its turn. Actions like Attack, Dash, Magic, or Unarmed Strike typically require an Action.
You can only use an Action for activities that explicitly require one. If an activity requires an Action, no other resources ( Bonus Action or Reaction) can be used for that activity.
Bonus Action
A Bonus Action is an additional action a creature can take during its turn, granted by certain class features, spells, or other abilities.
You can only take a Bonus Action if a specific feature, spell, or ability states that it requires one. Otherwise, you do not have a Bonus Action to use.
The Bonus Action can be taken at any point during your turn unless its timing is specifically stated. If something prevents you from taking an Action, it also prevents you from taking a Bonus Action.
Reaction
A Reaction is a special action that occurs in response to a specific trigger, which can happen either on your turn or on another creature's turn. The most common type of Reaction is the Opportunity Attack.
Once you take a Reaction, you cannot take another Reaction until the start of your next turn. If the Reaction interrupts another creature’s turn, that creature can continue its turn immediately after it has been completed.
In terms of timing, a Reaction occurs immediately after its trigger, unless the specific description of the Reaction states otherwise.
Action Lists
Below is a list of common actions you can take, along with relevant details:
Cost: Each action requires using one of your available resources— Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction. To perform a specific action, you must have the appropriate resource available. For example, you cannot take the Attack action (which requires an Action) if you have already used your Action to take the Dash action.
Attack
Cost: Action
The most common action to take in combat is the Attack action, whether you are swinging a sword, firing an arrow from a bow, or brawling with your fists. With this action, you make one melee or ranged attack. This action often requires you to make an attack roll against the target's AC.
Certain features, such as the Extra Attack feature of the Fighter, allow you to make more than one attack with this action.
Cast a Spell
Cost: Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction
Spellcasters such as Wizards and Clerics, as well as many monsters, have access to spells and can use them to great effect in combat.
Each spell has a casting time, which specifies whether the caster must use an Action, Bonus Action, or Reaction, minutes, or even hours to cast the spell.
Casting a spell is, therefore, not necessarily an Action. Most spells do have a casting time of Action, so a spellcaster often uses their action in combat to cast such a spell.
Dash
Cost: Action
When you take the Dash action, you gain extra Movement for the current turn. The increase equals your Speed, after applying any modifiers. With a speed of 30 feet, for example, you can move up to 60 feet on your turn if you Dash.
Any increase or decrease to your Speed changes this additional Movement by the same amount. If your Speed of 30 feet is reduced to 15 feet, for instance, you can move up to 30 feet this turn if you Dash.
Disengage
Cost: Action
If you take the Disengage action, your Movement doesn't provoke Opportunity Attacks for the rest of the turn.
Dodge
Cost: Action
When you take the Dodge action, you focus entirely on avoiding attacks. Until the start of your next turn, any attack roll made against you has Disadvantage if you can see the attacker, and you make Dexterity saving throws with Advantage. You lose this benefit if you have the Incapacitated condition or if your Speed is 0.
End Concentration
Cost: None
If a spell must be maintained with Concentration, that fact appears in its Duration entry, and the spell specifies how long you can concentrate on it. You can end Concentration at any time (no action required).
Help
Cost: Action
When you take the Help action, you do one of the following:
Assist Ability Check Choose one of your skill or tool proficiencies and one ally who can perceive you. You give Advantage to the next ability check that ally makes with the chosen skill or tool. This benefit expires if the ally doesn't use it before the start of your next turn. To give this assistance, you must be near enough to the ally to assist verbally or physically when the ally makes the check. The DM has final say on whether your assistance is possible.
Assist Attack Roll You momentarily distract an enemy within 5 feet of you, giving Advantage to the next attack roll by one of your allies against that enemy. This benefit expires at the start of your next turn.
Hide
Cost: Action
With the Hide action, you try to conceal yourself. To do so stealthily, you must succeed on a DC 15 Dexterity (Stealth) check while you're Heavily Obscured or behind Three-Quarters Cover or Total Cover, and you must be out of any visible enemy's line of sight; if you can see a creature, you can discern whether it can see you.
On a successful check, you have the Invisible condition. Make note of your check's total, which becomes the DC for a creature to find you with a Wisdom (Perception) check.
The condition ends on you immediately after any of the following occurrences:
- You make a sound louder than a whisper
- An enemy finds you, you make an attack roll
- You cast a spell with a verbal component.
Magic
Cost: Action
When you take the Magic action, you magic something by casting a spell that has a casting time of an Action or by using a feature or Magic Item that requires a Magic action to be activated.
If you cast a spell that has a casting time of 1 minute or longer, you must take the Magic action on each turn of that casting, and you must maintain Concentration while you do so. If your Concentration is broken, the spell fails, but you don't expend a spell slot.
Opportunity Attack
Cost: Reaction
In a fight, everyone is constantly watching for enemies to drop their guard. You can rarely move heedlessly past your foes without putting yourself in danger; doing so provokes an Opportunity Attack (also often referred to as 'Attack of Opportunity').
You can make an Opportunity Attack when a hostile creature that you can see moves out of your reach. To make the Opportunity Attack, you use your Reaction to make one melee attack against the provoking creature. The attack interrupts the provoking creature's Movement, occurring right before the creature leaves your reach.
Ready
Cost: Action
You take the Ready action to wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you take this action on your turn, which lets you act by taking a 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 zombie 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.
Readying a Spell When you Ready a spell, you cast it as normal (expending any resources used to cast it) 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 an action, and holding on to the spell's magic requires Concentration, which you can maintain up to the start of your next turn. If your Concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking effect.
Search
Cost: Action
When you take the Search action, you make a Wisdom check to discern something that isn't obvious. The Search table suggests which skills are applicable when you take this action, depending on what you're trying to detect.
Search
| Skill | Thing to Detect |
|---|---|
| Insight | Creature's state of mind |
| Medicine | Creature's ailment |
| Perception | Concealed creature or object |
| Survival | Tracks or food |
Study
Cost: Action
When you take the Study action, you make an Intelligence check to study your memory, a book, a creature, a clue, an object, or another source of knowledge and call to mind an important piece of information about it.
The Areas of Knowledge table suggests which skills are applicable when you take this action, depending on the area of knowledge the Intelligence check is about.
Areas of Knowledge
| Skills | Areas |
|---|---|
| Arcana | Spells, magic items, eldritch symbols, magical traditions, planes of existence, and certain creatures (Aberrations, Constructs, Elementals, Fey, and Monstrosities) |
| History | Historic events and people, ancient civilizations, wars, and certain creatures (Giants and Humanoids) |
| Investigation | Traps, ciphers, riddles, and gadgetry |
| Nature | Terrain, flora, weather, and certain creatures (Beasts, Dragons, Oozes, and Plants) |
| Religion | Deities, religious hierarchies and rites, holy symbols, cults, and certain creatures (Celestials, Fiends, and Undead) |
Unarmed Strike
Cost: Action
Instead of using a weapon to make a melee attack, you can use a punch, kick, head-butt, or similar forceful blow. In game terms, this is an Unarmed Strike—a melee attack that involves you using your body to damage, grapple, or shove a target within 5 feet of you.
Whenever you use your Unarmed Strike , choose one of the following options for its effect.
Damage
You make an attack roll against the target. Your bonus to the roll equals your Strength modifier plus your Proficiency Bonus. On a hit, the target takes Bludgeoning damage equal to 1 plus your Strength modifier.
Grapple
The target must succeed on a Strength or Dexterity saving throw (it chooses which), or it has the Grappled condition. The DC for the saving throw and any escape attempts equals 8 plus your Strength modifier and Proficiency Bonus. This grapple is possible only if the target is no more than one size larger than you and if you have a hand free to grab it.
Grappling
A creature can grapple another creature. Characters typically grapple by using an Unarmed Strike. Many monsters have special attacks that allow them to quickly grapple prey. However a grapple is initiated, it follows these rules.
Grappled Condition Successfully grappling a creature gives it the Grappled condition.
One Grapple per Hand A creature must have a hand free to grapple another creature. Some stat blocks and game effects allow a creature to grapple using a tentacle, a maw, or another body part. Whatever part a grappler uses, it can grapple only one creature at a time with that part, and the grappler can't use that part to target another creature unless it ends the grapple.
Escaping a Grapple A Grappled creature can use its action to make a Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check against the grapple's escape DC, ending the condition on itself on a success. The condition also ends if the grappler has the Incapacitated condition or if the distance between the Grappled target and the grappler exceeds the grapple's range.
Shove
The target must succeed on a Strength or Dexterity saving throw (it chooses which), or you either push it 5 feet away or cause it to have the Prone condition. The DC for the saving throw equals 8 plus your Strength modifier and Proficiency Bonus. This shove is possible only if the target is no more than one size larger than you.
Utilise
Cost: Action
You normally interact with an object while doing something else, such as when you draw a sword as part of the Attack action. When an object requires an action for its use, you take the Utilise action.