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Edit: This question isn’t asking wether you can ready to disengage. That question has been fully answered in a forum linked in a comment below. What this question is asking is, if you ready disengage, then when it does get to your turn are you already disengaged, and so can move away without provoking opportunity attacks? Below is the question as originally stated:

Can you ready the disengage action (say when the enemy gets within 5 feet of you), so that on your turn you can move away from that enemy without provoking opportunity attacks as you have already disengaged?

In other posts I have seen that readying disengage is legal, but I’ve not seen this particular question asked before.

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    \$\begingroup\$ I have closed your question as I felt the linked one answers your own. If you feel this is not the case feel free to edit this one to explain why and it can be reopened. But where are my manners? Hello and welcome to the site! Please take the tour if you haven't already done so and you can visit the help center for further guidance as well. Good luck and happy gaming! \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 4, 2020 at 23:48
  • \$\begingroup\$ I have edited my question to explain why I believe it is different enough from the one you linked to warrant its own answers. \$\endgroup\$
    – user63301
    Commented May 9, 2020 at 23:34
  • \$\begingroup\$ I do still feel this is a duplicate, though it may be that I simply don't understand your question. The most upvoted answer at the question I linked states: "However, this would be a complete waste of a reaction. Disengage doesn't allow you to use any of your movement, it only lasts until the end of the turn you use it [...]" Does this answer your question? Actually, you're right, your question is definitely different. I'll be writing up an answer myself and I'll reopen your question now \$\endgroup\$ Commented May 10, 2020 at 0:07

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You can ready the Disengage action but it will almost always be useless

The Ready action states (emphasis mine):

[...] 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 [...]

[...] 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.

And now let's look at the Disengage action:

If you take the Disengage action, your movement doesn't provoke opportunity attacks for the rest of the turn.

Since the Disengage action is an action, we can Ready it. However, the Disengage action only lasts for the rest of the turn on which you use it. If you use it during your own turn, it only lasts until the end of your turn; if you use it during Bob's turn, it only lasts until the end of Bob's turn. This makes Readying the Disengage action almost always useless, and I'll detail out a bit more why that is:

Say we Ready the Disengage action and use it later in the round on Bob's turn: That means that on the turn we used it (Bob's turn), and only on Bob's turn, we would not provoke opportunity attacks. However, opportunity attacks are only provoked when we move, and it is currently Bob's turn so it is highly unlikely for us to move and benefit from the Disengage action in any way.

The only time Readying the Disengage action has any meaningful effect (besides somehow expending movement on Bob's turn) is if we trigger the Readied action on the same turn we Readied it (our own turn). However, Readying an action and having it occur on our own turn is almost entirely useless since we could have just taken the action itself and we would get to keep our reaction.

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No, this doesn't work the way you think.

As I mentioned in my answer to Can I Ready an action to Disengage?:

Disengage [...] only lasts until the end of the turn you use it, and you can't ready an action and move in response to the trigger. So you would be stuck in the same place, having burned your reaction, and the advantages of Disengage would end as soon as the other creature's turn ends.

If you ready an action to disengage on another creature's turn then disengage only lasts until the end of that creature's turn, it doesn't carry over into your turn.

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