Does the Dodge action have any effect when you are incapacitated or your speed drops to 0?

Question

From the Basic Rules (emphasis mine):

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 or if your speed drops to 0.

I'm slightly confused that two benefits are listed, but the last sentence uses the singular. Am I splitting hairs here, or does this suggest that only the last named benefit (advantage on dex saves) is lost in this case? Which effect does the Dodge action still have when you are incapacitated or your speed drops to 0?

I'm fairly certain that the answer should be "none" (especially since this makes by far the most sense narratively), but it would be nice to have some clarification. I find this wording confusing, because it could have easily been rephrased to be completely unambiguous, but apparently that has not been done in any reprint so far. Note however that English is not my first language, a native speaker explaining why this is not as ambiguous as I think would also be an acceptable answer.

Answer 1

The benefit is the Dodge.

You're right, it can be read ambiguously.

However, in the context provided, it wouldn't make much sense that if you were incapacitated that disadvantage on attack rolls against you would not be negated, but your ability to make saves would be negated. But that is really just an interpretation. So, by context, they should be grouped together.

Reading as an entire paragraph

In addition to context, I believe the key is the paragraph grouping. The entire paragraph is describing the Dodge action and is the "benefit" referred to in the last sentence.

To see the contrast, imagine it is written like this:

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.

You make Dexterity saving throws with advantage. You lose this benefit if you are incapacitated or if your speed drops to 0.

If it were written like this, then the "benefit" would clearly only be the advantage on Dex saving throws.

As a GM

As a GM, it makes the most sense to go with context and interpret the benefit as the Dodge action, but, your game, your rules.

As a player

As a player, even a maximally cooperative GM is unlikely to side with the alternative interpretation, but sure, it's worth a shot.

If you're already incapacitated, you can't dodge anyway

Finally, it mostly matters in the case of having your speed reduced to 0, because if you're incapacitated, you can't take actions:

An incapacitated creature can't take actions or reactions.

Although you could become incapacitated while dodging, so it would matter in that case.

Answer 2

You lose both the attack and saving throw effects

"This benefit" refers to both the attack roll and Dexterity saving throw changes. I think I find that non-ambiguous due to the cooperative principle (specifically, the maxim of manner).

In a literal reading, it is ambiguous. We expect the rules to tell us what we need to know, though. Consider a different form of Dodge where you only lost the Dexterity saving throws benefit. I might word it like this:

Until the start of your next turn, any attack roll made against you has disadvantage if you can see the attacker. Additionally, you make Dexterity saving throws with advantage. You lose this second benefit if you are incapacitated or if your speed drops to 0.

I would feel compelled to separate the sentences and emphasize "second" in order to not be ambiguous. Because the rules don't do this, we can imply that the distinction is unnecessary.

Future features may still work

I'm not aware of any feature with a non-instantaneous effect that happens when you Dodge. Imagine if the following new feature were added to the game, though:

When you take the Dodge action, you also gain 5 temporary hit points. You lose these temporary hit points at the start of your next turn.

That works fine with the current wording of Dodge. You would still lose the attack and saving throw benefits, but the temporary hit points would remain.