D&D 5E Feat for extra reactions?

[Quartz]

My battlemaster player has been saying that he doesn't feel like he has enough control in combat with only one reaction.

Fighters - particularly Battlemasters - do need help in 5E.

Give him an item that lets him take a second reaction and see how it goes. If it's too powerful you can remove the item; if it's good then you can make it a class ability. I'm not so hot on making it a feat as I can see the opportunities it would give a Rogue. In an earlier thread I riffed on Fragarach with an item that gave the wielder extra Riposte strikes as sort-of-Legendary Actions.

Battlemasters get very few maneuvers and superiority dice, so an alternative might be to increas the numbers of those. Balance this by dropping the feat / ASI at 6th level.

 

[Flamestrike]

I'd leave reactions as they are, but allow an Attack of Opportunity, without expending your reaction.

Or something like:

You gain an extra reaction each round that can only be used for making an attack of opportunity... or words to that effect.

 

[Garthanos]

Sentinel? Pole Arm Mastery? Surround yourself and have your enemies be feared and be forced to use their action to move?

a fear spell is a level 3 spell just like a fireball.. you burst out opportunity attacks on them and they individually take one or 2 or more attacks of damage. Sentinel stops them from moving if you hit ... but the spell keeps pushing them next turn it certainly is nasty.

 

[delph]

My personal favorite will be "When you take dodge action, you can do 2 reactions" but it's almost same as was somewhere quoted "When you have Extra Attack feature, you can forgo those extra attacks and make dodge as bonus action" so you still have 2 attacks and attacks on you are with a disadvantage. (And for my BM with AC 23 it's really close to be untouchable, still damaging)

 

[Pauln6]

If the new UA class features get implemented, all fighters could get combat manoeuvres. So how about :

You no longer need to expend your reaction to use combat manoeuvres that would normally require a reaction but you may not use your reaction to attack the same target more than once from the same triggering event.

You can take two reactions in the same round. Once you have used this ability, you cannot use it again until you have completed a long or short rest.

As far as the Charger feat goes, surely this can be fixed by allowing a shove or overrun as part of the melee attack so the PC can attack AND knock them down or barrel through to complete their movement?

 

[Flamestrike]

What about instead a feat that lets them gain 1 Legendary Action per round. It can be used when a reaction could be used, or at the end of any turn. When they would gain an additional Extra Attack, they instead gain an additional Legendary Action per round.

That... wouldnt be a bad way to space out the extra attack class feature.

If you have that feature you can choose to withhold one of your attacks on your turn, in exchange for the ability to make that attack later in the round, immediately following another creatures turn.

 

[Blue]

Let's break this down.

First, the let's move a up the axis more than a bit. I think I'm pretty safe to say the most people would say that a feat that granted an extra Action every round would be too powerful. That's beyond the top boundary.

What about a limited Action? Hmm, sounds a bit like Haste, which is considered one of the stronger spells. I think a feat that granted a permanent Haste extra action would also be too much.

How about a defined Action like an attack that only happens occasionally? This seems more like bonus action extra attack on crit or kill. That's only part of the GWM, so that's easily within reach of a feat.

So, a reaction is only an attack, much like what GWM grants on a crit or kill. It happen occasionally. A second reaction happens even less frequently.

I'd allow it. However, I'd limit it to a single reaction per turn just to be more in the 5e paradigm.

 

[TheCosmicKid]

How about a defined Action like an attack that only happens occasionally? This seems more like bonus action extra attack on crit or kill. That's only part of the GWM, so that's easily within reach of a feat.

So, a reaction is only an attack, much like what GWM grants on a crit or kill. It happen occasionally. A second reaction happens even less frequently.

My concern is that, especially with the proper build, "occasionally" can still be a lot more frequently than the 5-10% of the time that GWM procs.

I'd allow it. However, I'd limit it to a single reaction per turn just to be more in the 5e paradigm.

For the record, I did find an official extra-reactions feature that isn't limited to once per turn: the hydra's heads.

 

[Blue]

My concern is that, especially with the proper build, "occasionally" can still be a lot more frequently than the 5-10% of the time that GWM procs.

Agreed, but since that's the "less important" feature of GWM, it's not more than half the feat. So if we increase it to 20% for a full feat, we have to wonder how often the second reaction will get triggered in combat. Not just a perfect round, but all the rounds. And with the once per turn limitation, it's not even a single creature triggering it more than once.

I think an important thing to remember is that the feat grants the second reaction - many times the first one isn't triggered, so we need to hit both the first one triggered and then the another trigger coming around. From a different creature. I think it will be in the same frequency as the GWM bonus attack once it's doubled to represent the entire feat.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

That... wouldnt be a bad way to space out the extra attack class feature.

If you have that feature you can choose to withhold one of your attacks on your turn, in exchange for the ability to make that attack later in the round, immediately following another creatures turn.

I came up with it for an idea to make the Fighter into a Captain. That is, a person whose greatness and prowess is an inspiration to allies, and a source of dread to enemies.

The idea was, you mostly take the Battle Master fighter, and you put this feature on it in place of the normal extra attack progression, and suddenly the tactical applications increase, Rally becomes a bigger effect, etc.

Then it should just be a matter of adding some minor follower and stronghold features that mostly effect downtime, and let the fighter use Action Surge and Second Wind for allies (perhaps with a feat), and you’ve got a Captain.