Making sure I understand "Recharge5-6"

[MarkVIIIMarc]

I typically play with a pretty tight group and want to see how everyone else uses "Rechage 5-6" when a monster has it.

In this case, a dragon uses its breath weapon and it needs rechanged.

Does rolling to recharge on its next turn commit the dragon to using its breath weapon or nothing?

Or does the dragon get to roll for the recharge then "knowing" if it has a throat full of fire or acid or whatever the dragon gets to decide it will make melee attacks if it fails?

Hope that makes sense.

[PhantomSoul]

You regain the capacity to use the ability, but you aren't required to use it immediately (like you don't need to cast all of your spells the moment you take a long rest and regain those slots).

[MarkVIIIMarc]

You regain the capacity to use the ability, but you aren't required to use it immediately (like you don't need to cast all of your spells the moment you take a long rest and regain those slots).

Thank you. I will essentially repeat what you said to show I read it and see if I understand.

So the act of trying to recharge isn't an action or bonus action and doesn't commit tha creature to that course of action.

[EggKookoo]

So the act of trying to recharge isn't an action or bonus action and doesn't commit tha creature to that course of action.

I don't think the creature is "trying" to recharge. It's just a check to see if the feature has recharged.

[Intregus182]

Thank you. I will essentially repeat what you said to show I read it and see if I understand.

So the act of trying to recharge isn't an action or bonus action and doesn't commit tha creature to that course of action.

Correct.

If something is an action or bonus action it will always explicitly state that it takes an action.

[Chronos]

The dragon rolls its recharge at the start of its turn, regardless of what else it's doing.

Once it makes the roll, based on whether it successfully recharged or not, it can decide on what it wants to do in that turn. Most likely, this will be choosing to use its breath weapon again if it recharged, or to do something else such as melee attacks if it hasn't.

The recharge mechanic would be pretty much useless, if you only recharged when attempting to use the ability and got screwed out of your action if it failed. It'd effectively make breath weapons just once per encounter, because nobody's going to bother with an action that has a 2/3 chance to not work at all (before you even look at things like saving throws). Worse than that, actually, because it wouldn't recharge between encounters, either, so the dragon would never want to use it.