D&D 5E If You Don't Have a Maneuver Ready..

[ren1999]

..as your DM, if you don't know exactly what maneuver you're going to use as your reaction, or combined with your standard action, I may take it away from you for that round to speed up the game.

What do you think about that? Am I too harsh?

 

[DEFCON 1]

Take it away altogether? Perhaps a little.

Tell him that if another choice is not ready it's automatically Deadly Strike? Perfectly reasonable in my opinion.

 

[DM Howard]

Yeah I agree with Defcon 1. I don't think you should ever take away a player's action just because he is being slow but make it a default.

 

[Warbringer]

If the player can't make their mind up, dice are used for damage... done; expertise dice are damage dice that may be exchanged for maneuvers.

 

[ren1999]

Good advice. It shall be so.

 

[Tony Vargas]

..as your DM, if you don't know exactly what maneuver you're going to use as your reaction, or combined with your standard action, I may take it away from you for that round to speed up the game.

What do you think about that? Am I too harsh?

My DM does this for immediate actions in her regular 4e campaign. If you declare an immediate action, but it turns out you can't actually use it or don't want to use it, you'v used up your immediate action until it re-sets at the end of your next turn. It has helped speed play now that we're in Paragon levels.


I don't see the need for such a house rule in 5e, though. It's already pretty fast and the fighter had little enough to do as it is.

 

[Connorsrpg]

If a player doesn't add a maneuver to their go, they don't perform a maneuver. That is simple. Of course it was easier when all fighters got Parry, b/c it could then be used for that.

Of course, nothing wrong with treating Deadly Strike as the 'norm', unless of course they don't have it (like rogues and monks)?

 

[ren1999]

Ah! Then each class with expertise dice should have a suggested default Maneuver that players can call out if they can't think of anything. Or the DM can just allow.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I generally don't do this because I like tactical puzzles you need to think through, but I occasionally use it for stressful, fast-moving situations where the PC really doesn't have time to think.

Keep in mind that some players really hate such play. I've seen discussions on this where folks stated that they'd walk out if a DM did this. My take is that I wouldn't want such high-strung people in my game anyway, but that's something each DM has to decide for himself.

Something I'd like to try someday is to use this as a surprise rule: if the party is surprised, during the initial surprise round the player must declare their action within 1 second of being called upon or lose the action.

 

[Blackbrrd]

Personally, I just skip along the initiative order if somebody doesn't know what to do. Usually one monster or player goes, then the player has decided what to do. I don't move the character in the initiative order. It makes people pay attention and speeds up the game. Better for everybody involved.

Btw, I had a new player in the group I am playing last session. He always started looking at his powers (4e) when it was his turn. I mentioned he should be looking at what to do when it wasn't his turn. He picked this up really quick and combat went much quicker after that.