D&D General Powering Up and Delayed Actions

[GMMichael]

What if abilities like Breath Weapons took a full round to come out? Like round 1, Dragon uses an Action to inhale, then it uses its breath weapon automatically at the start of its next turn.

It works great in Modos RPG. I suppose D&D could benefit from it, too . . . except that D&D is built on an assumption that everyone gets one or more attack actions per round. Your PCs might get bored. And what if the attack that PCs anxiously anticipated for a round misses?

I think you'd be better off saying that a weapon is "charging up" by meaning "here's what will be happening next round, not this round" instead of "your opponent will be doing nothing this round."

This way, players would have the opportunity to . . . heroically charge in and leap into their exposed vulnerable mouth.

I love it when PCs think this is a good idea.

It also got me wondering about balancing magic and weapons by doing the same to spells. How much better would fireball be if you knew where it was going and had a chance to react?

How angry would the caster PCs be? The saving throw assumes that a PC had a moment to anticipate where the fireball was going to go, and used that moment to attempt taking cover. So this line of thinking might tumble into "let's remove saving throws," which is an interesting, but not simple, proposition.

 

[BookTenTiger]

I think to make this work, the dragon's "Inhale" action also needs to have an effect. Maybe it knocks over opponents (making it more difficult for them to escape), maybe it launched them into the air with no Attacks of Opportunity, maybe it increases magic "static" so that spellcasters have to roll on the Wild Magic Table.

Then the charged-up breath weapon should be absolutely devastating. Maybe it can't miss, or there's no saving throw? That way characters have to scramble around making sure no one is in the blast zone.

The breath weapon could also have an ongoing effect. It could create a huge zone of fire, or open a chasm, or summon elemental spirits. So even if everyone avoids it, there's still an impact.

 

[Retros_x]

What if abilities like Breath Weapons took a full round to come out? Like round 1, Dragon uses an Action to inhale, then it uses its breath weapon automatically at the start of its next turn. This way, players would have the opportunity to take cover, to scatter, or even to heroically charge in and leap into their exposed vulnerable mouth.

I mean Recharge already exists. Its the job of the DM to telegraph it - In general telegraphing attacks and tactics is a very good thing to do as DM IMO. Combat starts to become much more dynamic when the players hear the enemies commander shout "Flank them and get me the head of that goddamn wizard!!". Or when one player sees the dragons head turn towards them, with murderous joy in their eyes and small flames lingering out of their mouth.

But I don't see a need to bake this in the rules + it would bring chaos into action economy.

 

[dave2008]

In order for that kind of thing to work in 5e / modern D&D-alikes, there's certain things that need to happen. Generally, evading the Super Attack needs to cost more than just movement for most PCs (the exception being those who have Bonus Action movement or exceptional speeds).

When I have used these type of mechanics I make it cost the movement + a reaction. Also, you have to have enough movement to make it work.

So, if the fighter moved 20' on their turn, they only have 10' of movement to get out of the area of the dragon's breath weapon and they must also spend their reaction to use that 10'.

 

[dave2008]

Then the charged-up breath weapon should be absolutely devastating. Maybe it can't miss, or there's no saving throw? That way characters have to scramble around making sure no one is in the blast zone.

I have used the charge up mechanic and simply increased the damage. Basically if the dragon is doing no damage on its initial turn (for the charge up) all that damage can be added to its fire breath on its next turn.

So for a red dragon: fire damage jumps from 91 to 160 or even 217 fire damage if it also eats up a rounds worth of legendary actions. That feels fairly devastating!

 

[Horwath]

Not bad idea for "1-round" casting.
But I would keep the targeting of fireball at the end of casting.

Caster starts casting,
if other identify the spell, they can scatter or try to interrupt the spell.
If they do not know the spell that can risk it.

But at the start of casters next turn, the spell is done and targeting is now made.