D&D 5E Would Allowing Multiple Reactions Break The Game?

[Rabulias]

To solve your problem you could house rule a controlled area and an enemy can not move through it in one turn.

So like, threatened squares count as difficult terrain, costing double movement? Hmm...

 

[Argyle King]

So like, threatened squares count as difficult terrain, costing double movement? Hmm...

I had considered that.

It's an idea I considered due to how the board game Betrayal at House on the Hill treats movement when enemies are in the room.

 

[Kinematics]

And what's good for the goose is good for the gander. If I allowed players to take multiple reactions, I'd allow a handful of high-dex or skirmish-type monsters (like will o'wisps and kobolds) to do it also. Not every monster, but just enough to keep things spicy.

Ohh... I slightly misread what you said, but it still sticks: What if weapons like whips could have multiple reactions? They're kinda junk weapons by default, but they're fast and flexible, and having an extra reaction (opportunity attack only) seems like it would give it an interesting niche use that still feels appropriate.

More broadly, if your intent is more dynamic combat... to me dynamic implies more movement... then increasing the occurrence of opportunity attacks (which discourage movement) seems contrary to your design objective. Instead, enabling limited amount of movement as a reaction would be more dynamic.

For this, I would consider something like: When an opponent that you're in melee range with makes an opportunity attack against a creature other than you, you may use a reaction to move up to half your speed.

Basically, in the moment the enemy is distracted, you have a chance to move away, perhaps getting behind some cover.

So like, threatened squares count as difficult terrain, costing double movement? Hmm...

Yeah, I like that idea. Only melee-threatened squares (including bare-handed types that melee, such as monks or brawlers). It makes a front line actually workable, even without the Sentinel feat. You'll generally have to go through three threatened squares to pass the fighter up front, and that's going to use up all your movement. You'd have to Dash to get the extra movement to reach the casters in the back, which means no attack that round, and time for the defending team to respond.

It does mean monk can't as easily beeline for the big bad to use Stunning Strike, but it also actually makes the monk's high movement rate more useful.

In general, more use of difficult terrain is desperately needed in combat. 30' of movement makes fights other than massive outdoor areas or volcanic calderas embarrassingly difficult to use as anything other than "walk up and hit each other till one falls over" types of fights.


On the reactions question, I actually probably wouldn't give more general reactions to players, as they can be used for any number of things. Instead, like the Cavalier, have specialty reactions that you might consider more as "maneuvers". EG: Whips in general get an extra opportunity attack per round (but not more than one per turn); have a 'retreat' maneuver that allows you to move away from distracted enemies (when they take an action against someone other than you); etc. Perhaps use 'common' magic items as the vehicle for the bonus pseudo-reaction (eg: Boots of the Coward).

With a bit of fine-tuning, I think that would work fine, and better than handing out full additional reactions to everyone without constraint.

 

[Quartz]

Try giving out an item that gives one extra reaction. My rewrite of the fighter gives one extra reaction at level 6 in place of the feat / ASI. Or an extra Bonus Action.

 

[Shiroiken]

4E was the only edition that had lots of reactions, and even then it was limited to once per turn. While it wouldn't "break" the game, it will have a lot more impact than you think. I have a few suggestions on your issues.You get 1 reaction, and trying to stop someone from moving by you (with an attack) also takes up that 1 reaction. It's also somewhat easier to move around someone in 5E than it was in other editions already. So, in a combat with multiple foes, trying to use traditional tactics to protect someone behind you doesn't work as well.

You get 1 reaction, and trying to stop someone from moving by you (with an attack) also takes up that 1 reaction. It's also somewhat easier to move around someone in 5E than it was in other editions already. So, in a combat with multiple foes, trying to use traditional tactics to protect someone behind you doesn't work as well.

It goes the other direction too. When facing a group of enemies, I've seen it become a tactic to trigger one of the enemy's reactions and then just choose that enemy to run by.

It depends on what you mean by "traditional." In 3E and 4E attacks of opportunity were a method of controlling the battlefield, but 5E works almost identical to 3E (except more spaces provoke). In AD&D and BECMI the tactic was forming a wall of heavily armored characters; you can't run past if there's no room. Something to consider, from the DM's perspective, is the intelligence of the enemy. Tactics often used by PCs, such as focused fire and taking attacks of opportunity, shouldn't be utilized by low intelligent creatures. Technically PCs shouldn't do this either, since it's manipulating the mechanics of the game, but that's a different issue.

During higher level fights, when some monsters start to get things they can do off-turn, it seems weird that a PC just kinda has to stand there and not do much of anything.

This is an abstraction of the game. Everything in game is happening all at the same time, but the game breaks the 6 second round down into turns for ease of use. Characters don't ever just "stand there," but are taking their action at the same time. If you want to expand the round from 6 seconds to 10 seconds, it won't make that much of a difference, except to spells of 1 minute duration (and most of the time those won't be affected).

Looking at how some of the newer members of the group (who are also new to D&D) interact with the game, I've noticed that a few tune out a little when it's not their turn and they're not able to be involved in what is going on. This seems to happen more now that some monsters of lair actions and such. I believe (but have not asked yet) that some of this comes from feeling as though a lot is going on, but they cannot really interact. Facial expressions and body language has given me the perception that they feel it's kinda lame that they cannot react to what is happening very much.

Not to be offensive (which means I'm about to offend you), but this sounds like either a DM issue or a bad player issue. As the DM, you need to keep the action moving and descriptions vivid. Large combats can bog down, in which case you need to try and keep everyone engaged as much as possible, usually by have enemies attacking multiple players or separating them. This isn't always easy, especially if playing over a VTT, but suggestions include using fewer, more powerful monsters (which most DMs seem to like anyway).

It's also possible it's the players. I've had players who didn't give a crap about anything other than their turn. One particular guy used to pull out his handheld video games (pre-smartphone era) both between combats and when it wasn't his turn. He only paid attention when he had to do something. He was a crappy player, and I'm glad I no longer game with him.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

Normally, a 5E character only gets 1 reaction.

Most of the time, that is fine. However, I am of the opinion that there may be aspects of the game which may benefit from allowing more than 1. For example, creating a front line to protect squishy party members is difficult to do when a character can only attempt to hit/stop one enemy. There are also fighting styles -such as the protection style- which seem rather weak because you get one use per turn and then your fighting style effectively turns off (as opposed to being constantly usable like most styles are). Also, I feel as though combat could feel less static if there are more opportunities to react to what is happening and engage in the action.

I do not want an unlimited number of reactions. Off the top of my head, my rough idea is to either allow something like
[# of reactions = 1/2 proficiency bonus (round up)].
This would mean 1 reaction for levels 1 - 4; 2r for levels 5 - 12; and 3r for levels 13 - 20.

How do you feel this would change play?

More importantly, would this break the game?

I think making specific exceptions is a better idea. Let Protection work x/SR without using a reaction, or something.

 

[Fanaelialae]

If you just want to improve your players ability to tank for their allies, you could also use what World's Without Number does. It's called Screen an Ally and it allows you to designate someone to protect.

Converting it to 5e, it might look something like the following.

Screen Ally
Once per round as a free action, you may choose an ally within 10 feet to protect. Until your next turn, so long as they remain within 10 feet of you, an enemy who attacks that ally must make an opposed Athletics or Acrobatics check against you. On a failure, it must attack you. The number of attackers you can screen against in a given round is equal to the number of attacks you can make (you can normally screen one attacker, but each rank of Extra Attack allows you to screen against an additional attacker).

 

[Argyle King]

4E was the only edition that had lots of reactions, and even then it was limited to once per turn. While it wouldn't "break" the game, it will have a lot more impact than you think. I have a few suggestions on your issues.You get 1 reaction, and trying to stop someone from moving by you (with an attack) also takes up that 1 reaction. It's also somewhat easier to move around someone in 5E than it was in other editions already. So, in a combat with multiple foes, trying to use traditional tactics to protect someone behind you doesn't work as well.

It depends on what you mean by "traditional." In 3E and 4E attacks of opportunity were a method of controlling the battlefield, but 5E works almost identical to 3E (except more spaces provoke). In AD&D and BECMI the tactic was forming a wall of heavily armored characters; you can't run past if there's no room. Something to consider, from the DM's perspective, is the intelligence of the enemy. Tactics often used by PCs, such as focused fire and taking attacks of opportunity, shouldn't be utilized by low intelligent creatures. Technically PCs shouldn't do this either, since it's manipulating the mechanics of the game, but that's a different issue.

This is an abstraction of the game. Everything in game is happening all at the same time, but the game breaks the 6 second round down into turns for ease of use. Characters don't ever just "stand there," but are taking their action at the same time. If you want to expand the round from 6 seconds to 10 seconds, it won't make that much of a difference, except to spells of 1 minute duration (and most of the time those won't be affected).

Not to be offensive (which means I'm about to offend you), but this sounds like either a DM issue or a bad player issue. As the DM, you need to keep the action moving and descriptions vivid. Large combats can bog down, in which case you need to try and keep everyone engaged as much as possible, usually by have enemies attacking multiple players or separating them. This isn't always easy, especially if playing over a VTT, but suggestions include using fewer, more powerful monsters (which most DMs seem to like anyway).

It's also possible it's the players. I've had players who didn't give a crap about anything other than their turn. One particular guy used to pull out his handheld video games (pre-smartphone era) both between combats and when it wasn't his turn. He only paid attention when he had to do something. He was a crappy player, and I'm glad I no longer game with him.

"Traditional" as in the tactics which would be intuitive to someone outside of D&D are somewhat harder to use.

I'm aware that the 6-second round is an abstraction. Other games have that too. Though, other games also have ways for the target to attempt to defend (i.e. dodge, parry, block) or otherwise be involved in the resolution process. I understand and accept that's not part of how D&D is built. Still, if there's a way to blur some of that abstraction a little more, I would like to do so.

In 4E, I did allow more than 1 reaction (with some limitations) and it was mostly fine, but that was also done in conjunction with running a lot of the rest of the game differently too. The result for 4E was to speed things up. I'm less familiar with 5E or what impact some of the same ideas would have in 5E.

I'm not offended by your closing remarks. From my perception, I don't believe some of the same "problems" exist when playing other games. (If so, I haven't noticed it as much with the same DM.) Though, I also haven't yet gathered info from some of the newer players to get a feel for what parts of playing they enjoy. I assume they wouldn't continue to show up if they weren't enjoying some aspect of it.

In the past, we have had some "bad" players. They're currently not part of the group.

 

[Shiroiken]

I'm aware that the 6-second round is an abstraction. Other games have that too. Though, other games also have ways for the target to attempt to defend (i.e. dodge, parry, block) or otherwise be involved in the resolution process. I understand and accept that's not part of how D&D is built. Still, if there's a way to blur some of that abstraction a little more, I would like to do so.

Something that was a houserule I've seen in 3E to simulate dodging, parrying, and blocking was rolling AC (1d20+ instead of 10+). The big difference is the action economy with other games. Several that I've played required the use of actions for these, meaning that you lost out on attacks to do so. With only a single action, this doesn't translate well into D&D.

In 4E, I did allow more than 1 reaction (with some limitations) and it was mostly fine, but that was also done in conjunction with running a lot of the rest of the game differently too. The result for 4E was to speed things up. I'm less familiar with 5E or what impact some of the same ideas would have in 5E.

The action economy was very different in 4E than 5E. Because of Defenders, they allowed 1 Reaction per turn so they could properly function. Additionally, there were more potential reactions with powers. I am concerned that you find 5E running slower than 4E. When I played 4E, even the simplest combats (using the encounter guidlines) took at least half and hour, with the average taking about an hour to an hour and a half. My 5E combats, however, seldom take longer than half an hour to 45 minutes unless it's a boss fight (or I really screw something up). Not sure what the difference between our games is.

I'm not offended by your closing remarks.

I'm glad. Internet isn't the best form of communication, and I'm not the most eloquent to begin with

 

[Argyle King]

I'm glad. Internet isn't the best form of communication, and I'm not the most eloquent to begin with

That's true. Typically, I try not to assume offense. I know that discussions can sometimes get heated, but -even if/when- I disagree with someone, I do my best to approach it from the perspective of having a discussion.

In regards to speed:

I don't know. In both editions, high levels having more HP is a factor. In 4E, I modified how monsters were built (elites and solos in particular) to address some of that. I haven't gotten under the hood of 5E as much.

My perception among the usual group is that 4E combat more-often seemed to keep moving in some way. Rarely was there a turn in which a PC didn't have something to do. My guess was that having powers wasn't a barrier because most of our players wrote down what their powers did. Personally, I used index cards for my powers and would flip over the ones I used to keep track of what I had used. (It was a pretty nice $2-$3 solution: a pencil and index cards.)

The current 5E campaign has gotten to higher tiers of play; it appears that a few of the PCs have turns during which they aren't doing much or having much of a way to interact with what is going on. As I said upthread, one of the players seems to suffer from anxiety because of having fewer choices. He seems concerned with making the "wrong" choice due to only having a small handful of choices to make.