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What is a D&D 5E Round Anyway?
Dungeons & Dragons rules can sometimes be bloated or confusing. For the most part, 5E mitigates the bloat and confusion that its predecessors were notorious for. One issue comes when rules have similar verbiage to earlier editions yet are distinct in the new one (such as with surprise rounds in fifth edition). An oft-asked question at many a table is “what’s the difference between a D&D 5E round and a turn?” The difference is surprisingly straightforward, but the nuances of applying these mechanics can make a difference in the game flow. And also everyone’s enjoyment of the session.
What is a D&D 5E Round Anyway?
To better understand what a round in Dungeons & Dragons 5E is, it’s best to pull back the scope a bit. Let’s explore this question by first understanding what 5E combat is. Chapter 9 of the Player’s Handbook has a section that sums up combat in a tidy paragraph:
The Order of Combat
“A typical combat encounter is a clash between two sides, a flurry of weapon swings, feints, parries, footwork, and spellcasting. The game organizes the chaos of combat into a cycle of rounds and turns. A round represents about 6 seconds in the game world. During a round, each participant in a battle takes a turn. The order of turns is determined at the beginning of a combat encounter, when everyone rolls initiative. Once everyone has taken a turn, the fight continues to the next round if neither side has defeated the other.”
In a nutshell, a single round is when every participant in combat has had the opportunity to take their turn. A participant doesn’t have to actually do anything on their turn…just be presented with the opportunity to do so. And in game time terms, that’s about 6 seconds. Once everyone has had their turn in the initiative order, that round is over and a new one begins. There are 10 rounds in a minute. That’s important to know for spells with a 1-minute duration like bane, cloud of daggers, and haste.
What is a D&D 5E Turn Then?
A single turn involves everything a participant is able to do on their turn. If there are three participants, then there are three turns per round for that particular combat scenario. If there are twenty participants (gods help you) then there are twenty turns per round. Regardless of the number of turns, a round is still about 6 seconds in duration.
Elements of a Turn
During a participant’s turn, they may choose up to three basic options:
- Action
- Movement
- Bonus Action
The participant can choose to do these in any order or skip any number of them as well. Things like shouting a taunt at an adversary are considered free actions. Additionally, one can spend their action to move again (this is considered dashing), but they sacrifice other action options like attacking or casting a spell (unless that spell’s casting time is one bonus action. Sometimes a player may use a reaction such as with casting Shield or opportunity attacks when an enemy moves outside of your attack range without first disengaging. But those are special cases and occur on other participants’ turns.
Okay, Isn’t This All Just Semantics at This Point?
Yes and no. The simplest way to remember the difference between a turn and a round in Dungeons & Dragons 5E is to think of how we talk to each other at the table.
“Who’s turn is it?” That’s for the individual player character, monster, NPC, whatever. But the reason it all matters comes down to certain conditions or actions in the game. Some spells, as previously mentioned, have durations that effectively last for 10 rounds. Others may specify that the effects last until the start of your next turn or the end of your next turn. Furthermore, the rogue’s sneak attack feature specifies its use more broadly as “once per turn”…it doesn’t say on whose turn. The Player’s Handbook states:
Sneak Attack
“Beginning at 1st level, you know how to strike subtly and exploit a foe’s distraction. Once per turn, you can deal an extra 1d6 damage to one creature you hit with an attack if you have advantage on the attack roll. The attack must use a finesse or a ranged weapon.”
It stands to reason that a rogue could use sneak attack more than once per round so long as the proper conditions are otherwise met. You just cannot use sneak attack more than once per turn. So even if the rogue had a multi-attack on her turn, she can apply the extra damage only once.
Recapping the D&D 5E Round
Remember that even though a lot is going on during a single combat round, it only lasts about 6 seconds. For all intents and purposes, the action is happening concurrently. This isn’t exactly a perfect way to think about it because someone’s action who is higher in the initiative order can directly influence someone who’s up later (if that rogue takes out the bugbear that everyone was planning to hit when it was their turn, for example). So, initiative order can make it seem like everyone stands around patiently waiting for their chance to shine. But in reality, initiative is simply a tool we use to bring mechanical order to the chaos ensuing in combat.
- pay attention to a spell’s description as well as its duration to understand exactly when the effects end
- combat is made up of rounds; rounds are made up of turns; turns are made up of actions, movements, bonus actions, and reactions
- one round is 6 seconds, ten rounds equal 1 minute
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