An entire round of combat lasts only 6 seconds!
On Your Turn, you can move a distance up to your speed. You can use as much or as little of your speed as you like on Your Turn, following the rules here.
Your Movement can include Jumping, climbing, and Swimming. These different modes of Movement can be combined with walking, or they can constitute your entire move. However you’re moving, you deduct the distance of each part of your move from your speed until it is used up or until you are done moving. This may be broken up.
Your Turn can include a variety of flourishes that require neither your action nor your move.
You can communicate however you are able, through brief utterances and gestures, as you take Your Turn.
You can also interact with one object or feature of the Environment for free, during either your move or your action. For example, you could open a door during your move as you stride toward a foe, or you could draw your weapon as part of the same action you use to Attack.
If you want to interact with a second object, you need to use your action. Some magic items and other Special Objects always require an action to use, as stated in their descriptions
When you take your action on Your Turn, you can take one of the Actions presented on the right, an action you gained from your class or a Special feature, or an action that you improvise. Many Monsters have Action Options of their own in their stat blocks.
When you describe an action not detailed elsewhere in the rules, the GM tells you whether that action is possible and what kind of roll you need to make, if any, to determine success or failure.
You can take a Bonus Action only when a Special ability, spell, or other feature of the game states that you can do something as a Bonus Action. You otherwise don’t have a Bonus Action to take.
You can take only one Bonus Action on Your Turn, so you must choose which Bonus Action to use when you have more than one available.
You choose when to take a Bonus Action during Your Turn, unless the bonus action’s timing is specified, and anything that deprives you of your ability to take Actions also prevents you from taking a Bonus Action.
Certain Special Abilities, Spells, and situations allow you to take a Special action called a Reaction. A Reaction is an instant response to a trigger of some kind, which can occur on Your Turn or on someone else’s. The Opportunity Attack is the most Common type of Reaction.
When you take a Reaction, you can’t take another one until the start of your next turn. If the Reaction interrupts another creature’s turn, that creature can continue its turn right after the Reaction.
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.
Certain features, such as the Extra Attack feature of the Fighter, allow you to make more than one Attack with this action.
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, a 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 1 action, so a Spellcaster often uses their action in combat to cast such a spell.
When you take the Dash action, you gain extra Movement for the current turn. The increase equals your speed, after applying any modifiers. Your speed is essentially doubled.
A creature can use a weapon attack to knock a weapon or another item from a target's grasp. The attacker makes an attack roll contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) check or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check. If the attacker wins the contest, the attack causes no damage or other ill effect, but the defender drops the item.
The attacker has disadvantage on its attack roll if the target is holding the item with two or more hands. The target has advantage on its ability check if it is larger than the attacking creature, or disadvantage if it is smaller.
If you take the Disengage action, your Movement doesn’t provoke Opportunity Attacks for the rest of the turn.
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 are Incapacitated (as explained in Conditions ) or if your speed drops to 0.
When you want to grab a creature or wrestle with it, you can use the Attack action to make a special melee attack, a grapple. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them. The target of your grapple must be no more than one size larger than you, and it must be within your reach.
Using at least one free hand, you try to seize the target by making a grapple check, a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). You succeed automatically if the target is incapacitated. If you succeed, you subject the target to the grappled condition (see the appendix). The condition specifies the things that end it, and you can release the target whenever you like (no action required).
You can lend your aid to another creature in the completion of a task. When you take the Help action, the creature you aid gains advantage on the next ability check or attack roll it makes to perform the task you are helping with, provided that it makes the check before the start of your next turn.
When you take the Hide action, you make a Dexterity (Stealth) check in an attempt to hide.
When a creature can’t see you, you have advantage on Attack rolls against it. The creature has disadvantage on attack rolls against you. If you are hidden—both unseen and unheard—when you make an Attack, you give away your Location when the Attack hits or misses.
Sometimes you want to get the jump on a foe or wait for a particular circumstance before you act. To do so, you can take the Ready action on Your Turn, which lets you act using your 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.
When the trigger occurs, you can either take your Reaction right after the trigger finishes or ignore the trigger. Remember that you can take only one Reaction per round.
When you ready a spell, you cast it as normal 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 1 action, and holding onto the spell’s magic requires Concentration. If your Concentration is broken, the spell dissipates without taking Effect. For example, if you are concentrating on the web spell and ready Magic Missile, your web spell ends, and if you take damage before you release Magic Missile with your Reaction, your Concentration might be broken.
When you take the Search action, you devote your attention to finding something. Depending on the Nature of your Search, the GM might have you make a Wisdom (Perception) check or an Intelligence (Investigation) check.
Using the Attack action, you can make a special melee attack to shove a creature, either to knock it prone or push it away from you. If you're able to make multiple attacks with the Attack action, this attack replaces one of them.
The target of your shove must be no more than one size larger than you, and it must be within your reach. You make a Strength (Athletics) check contested by the target's Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics) check (the target chooses the ability to use). You succeed automatically if the target is incapacitated. If you succeed, you either knock the target prone or push it 5 feet away from you.
With this option, a creature uses the special shove attack from the Player's Handbook to force a target to the side, rather than away. The attacker has disadvantage on its Strength (Athletics) check when it does so. If that check is successful, the attacker moves the target 5 feet to a different space within its reach.
You normally interact with an object while doing something else, such as when you draw a sword as part of an Attack. When an object requires your action for its use, you take the Use an Object action. This action is also useful when you want to interact with more than one object on Your Turn.