A Mechanical Way to Represent "Impatient and Rash"

[5ekyu]

So, was pondering a more mechanical and less "just role-play it" fluffy way to represent a magical flaw that makes its user rash and impatient.

"While your character's turn occurs in the normal initiative order at the regular step, while the character is afflicted the player must choose their "action" (not the bonus action or move or reactions - just the action) at the top of the initiative order - letting anyone with a higher initiative than your character their turns between the point you choose what the character's action will be and the time the turn is actually taken."

Obviously, in the hands of someone with the top of the order, its not really a flaw but that should vary from encounter to encounter even for relatively fast on their feet types - barring a lot of optimization.

The degree of specificity does not have to be high, nothing more than choosing between "Attack Action", "Cast a spell", "Dodge", "Dash", etc. "Ready" would have to have the action readied noted but not the trigger. Its a hair-trigger knee-jerk intent, not the actual execution.

If the action cannot be taken when the turn comes, the action is lost.

Thoughts?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Could work. Nothing jumps out as inherently unbalanced, although if you are only asking for the type of action rather than the specific action, I don't expect much will be end up being all that different for the player/PC.

Unless the character is a combat / healer type that might care about switching from Attack to Cast A Spell (to cast a heal) depending on what happens in the round before them... more often than not the player will say 'Attack action' at the top of the round and then discover when their initiative comes up that yeah, there are still plenty of targets to take the Attack action against. Likewise they will say "Cast A Spell" and when the time comes, they can easily find a reason and target to cast a spell on. There will be very few times where the action will be lost.

It would only be if you required the player to state not only the action but also the target and/or specific attack/spell they want to make/cast that there will be a chance that the situation will have changed enough where the possibility of losing the action will actually occur.

Try it out and see. My guess gut feeling is that the magical flaw won't have much of a tangible impact.

 

[Krachek]

You have +x on initiative check.
You can’t take the dodge or disengage action.
Or
reckless attack always on.