Expeditious Retreat?

[Bizmal]

I've seen a lot of people talking about this it still doesn't get to the bottom of it.

1st Question:

Expeditious Retreat: Casting Time - Bonus action
This spell allows you to move at an incredible pace. When you cast this spell, and then as a bonus action on each of your turns until the spell ends, you can take the Dash action.

Bonus actions from the player's handbook read: You can only take one bonus action your turn, so you must choose which bonus action you use when you have more than one to choose from.


So as it reads you cast the spell and then next turn you can begin using your Dash as a bonus action because you've used your one action bonus to cast the spell. Correct?

2nd Question.

Dash
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.

So, I have moved 15ft and I attack as my main action I could then use my one bonus action to dash I could Dash 30ft. Correct?

[GavinRuneblade]

I've seen a lot of people talking about this it still doesn't get to the bottom of it.

1st Question:

Expeditious Retreat: Casting Time - Bonus action
This spell allows you to move at an incredible pace. When you cast this spell, and then as a bonus action on each of your turns until the spell ends, you can take the Dash action.

Bonus actions from the player's handbook read: You can only take one bonus action your turn, so you must choose which bonus action you use when you have more than one to choose from.


So as it reads you cast the spell and then next turn you can begin using your Dash as a bonus action because you've used your one action bonus to cast the spell. Correct?

2nd Question.

Dash
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.

So, I have moved 15ft and I attack as my main action I could then use my one bonus action to dash I could Dash 30ft. Correct?
Look again closely at the first sentence and remove the bit about on later rounds "When you cast this spell... you can take the dash action" now look at the middle bit "And then as a bonus action on each of your turns until the spell ends you can take the dash action". See that word "and". It is very important here.
You get to dash right now, and dash again next round if you want.

On your second question, your dash is equal to your full speed. Also you can move, attack, and move again. So if you moved 15 feet and attack, you can move the rest of the 15 feet without needing to dash. then if you dash you can additionally move another full 30 feet.

[Bizmal]

Look again closely at the first sentence and remove the bit about on later rounds "When you cast this spell... you can take the dash action" now look at the middle bit "And then as a bonus action on each of your turns until the spell ends you can take the dash action". See that word "and". It is very important here.
You get to dash right now, and dash again next round if you want.

On your second question, your dash is equal to your full speed. Also, you can move, attack, and move again. So if you moved 15 feet and attack, you can move the rest of the 15 feet without needing to dash. then if you dash you can additionally move another full 30 feet.

Ok the answer to the 2nd answer makes sense but I'm not so sure about the first one. It says, and then as a bonus action. Then under bonus action it says. You can only take one bonus action your turn, so you must choose which bonus action you use when you have more than one to choose from. If the spell is cast as a bonus action then and the dash also a bonus action you must choose one. So for that one round, you have to choose.

Where does it say as well as casting the spell you dash?

[Bizmal]

Nvm, So many people say you can but it does not seem to read like that. I'll just go with the flow.

thanks

[GavinRuneblade]

Nvm, So many people say you can but it does not seem to read like that. I'll just go with the flow.

thanks

It does read that way, you're assuming you need to dash as a bonus action. But you don't. Casting the spell lets you dash. Not as a bonus action, as the effect of casting the spell you immediately dash. In all future rounds you can also use a bonus action to dash. those are two different effects.

[matjam]

It depends what your definition of "and then" is.

The people at WoTC are generally consistent when it comes to these things.

If they would want you to not be able to dash on the same turn as the spell being cast, they would say "On the next turn as a bonus action" or something like that. By saying "and then" they're trying to explicitly call out that you can dash on the same turn as you cast the spell.

So, cast the spell, dash. And then, on your next turn, you can also dash as a bonus action. As long as you continue to concentrate. So don't get hit.

It'd be pretty useless if you couldn't cast it and then move & dash. Typically when you're casting Expeditious Retreat, you want to get out of there, fast. So whats the point if it takes a turn to "get up to speed".

[LordEntrails]

I read it the way Matjam and GavinRuneblade do. But personally don't like the spell much since all it lets you do is use Dash as a bonus. Basically it makes you as fast as a rogue *G* and that doesn't seem that beneficial to me :)

But each to their own.

[Dax Doomslayer]

One thing to note is that the 'rule of specific' overrides a general rule. The spell in this case is the 'rule of specific'. The way I read/interpret the spell is that they are making a specific distinction to override the general rule for bonus actions on the first round of casting with the "cast this spell, and then as a bonus action" wording. As matjam indicated, WoTC normally would specifically state 'on your next turn' if that was the case. In addition, using a resource to do this I don't think would really be unbalancing either way but that's two cents from a random guy on a message board - lol.

[Ckorik]

I've seen a lot of people talking about this it still doesn't get to the bottom of it.

1st Question:

Expeditious Retreat: Casting Time - Bonus action
This spell allows you to move at an incredible pace. When you cast this spell, and then as a bonus action on each of your turns until the spell ends, you can take the Dash action.

Bonus actions from the player's handbook read: You can only take one bonus action your turn, so you must choose which bonus action you use when you have more than one to choose from.


So as it reads you cast the spell and then next turn you can begin using your Dash as a bonus action because you've used your one action bonus to cast the spell. Correct?


No. Why are you ignoring the comma?

When you cast this spell, you can take the Dash action
and
and then as a bonus action on each of your turns until the spell ends, you can take the Dash action.

If you don't try to combine the separate texts, you end up with the correct way the spell works.



2nd Question.

Dash
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.

So, I have moved 15ft and I attack as my main action I could then use my one bonus action to dash I could Dash 30ft. Correct?

In your example you don't say what your movement is - which is how Dash works. Dash isn't an 'extra 30 feet of movement' - what it does is double your movement speed for the round (once). If your movement is 30 - and you dash - you have 60 feet of movement - you can break that up however you want between other actions you might have, such as move 50 feet - open a door and move another 10 feet. Or move 10 feet - attack, move 10 more feet - attack - move 10 more feet - attack - and then move 30 feet after (assuming you had the attacks).