D&D 5E (2014) Multiple reactions replacing Legendary Actions?!

[the Jester]

Reactions won’t be “more common and varied” without the change to LA.

There is absolutely no reason why this should be true. There is plenty of room for both.

 

[overgeeked]

There is absolutely no reason why this should be true. There is plenty of room for both.

Except redundancy. They both serve exactly the same function in exactly the same way, they just have different names. There's no reason to give one creature both extra reactions and specific abilities they can do as reactions and give that same creature legendary actions. They'll likely ditch legendary actions, as apparently indicated by the time dragon not having any, and replace them with reactions.

 

[James Gasik]

Now maybe this isn't universal, but from what I've seen, players don't like Legendary Actions very much. As you learn to play the game, you get used to certain limitations. I can move so far on my turn. I have to make do with one action, one bonus action, one reaction. You plan your turns based on this, heck you build your character over time with this in mind- someone who likes dual wielding isn't going to load up on a bunch of bonus action abilities, as an example.

Then you're fighting some monster and out of nowhere, it's now doing all this extra stuff when it's not even it's turn. And you have no real way to react to it or plan around it, it just does it's thing when it wants to. And even if you did ready an action to deal with it's Legendary Action, that makes you less effective on your actual turn....and it doesn't need to weaken it's effectiveness in any way to get this effect.

I've heard terms like "boss magic" or "NPC powers" or "total bs" thrown around by people frustrated by this. Now, just imagine, you run your company based on, oh, I don't know, call it 70% customer satisfaction (disclaimer, all numbers are made up and imaginary, this is a hypothetical scenario). You have frequent polls to see what the customers have to say. Now let's also assume that only 25% or less of the customers are DM's who want to run challenging boss encounters. That's a potential 75% of people who can be frequently annoyed by Legendary Actions (and their cousins, Lair Actions). And you only need 31% of your customers, less than half of all consumers, to voice their discontent before you tell your developers "find another way".

 

[billd91]

If players aren’t liking legendary actions, rebranding them as “reactions” isn’t going to help.

 

[MarkB]

Except redundancy. They both serve exactly the same function in exactly the same way, they just have different names. There's no reason to give one creature both extra reactions and specific abilities they can do as reactions and give that same creature legendary actions. They'll likely ditch legendary actions, as apparently indicated by the time dragon not having any, and replace them with reactions.

Which says nothing about the possibility of expanding reactions in general, beyond just legendary creatures.

 

[James Gasik]

If players aren’t liking legendary actions, rebranding them as “reactions” isn’t going to help.

I didn't say it would, lol, just forwarding a hypothesis as to why WotC decided to tinker with this aspect of monster design.

EDIT: I suppose if there was a mere cantrip that could let you interact with reactions, that wouldn't be such a big deal... ^-^

 

[darjr]

I think I love the flexibility this adds and I'm willing to take on a new Shocking Grasp to support it.

 

[fluffybunbunkittens]

Some Legendary creatures don't need reactions because they aren't reacting to things, they're just massive.

Give their bodyparts their own initiatives!

 

[James Gasik]

Give their bodyparts their own initiatives!

And their own hit point totals!

 

[mamba]

Then you're fighting some monster and out of nowhere, it's now doing all this extra stuff when it's not even it's turn. And you have no real way to react to it or plan around it, it just does it's thing when it wants to. And even if you did ready an action to deal with it's Legendary Action, that makes you less effective on your actual turn....and it doesn't need to weaken it's effectiveness in any way to get this effect.

you have the same issue with multiple reactions