D&D 5E Reaction before your first turn starts?

[iserith]

The relevant rules are:

Reactions, Basic Rules, page 70
Surprise, Basic Rules, page 69
How to Play, Basic Rules, page 3

My ruling is:

While combat is more structured and DM and players take turns, "most of the time, play is fluid and flexible, adapting to the circumstances of the adventure." The general exception to taking reactions whenever they trigger is when you are surprised. In the absence of being surprised, if the circumstances of the adventure allow for it and the requirements of the trigger are met, then yes, you can take reactions before your first turn starts.

But you or your DM may make a different ruling based on this or other criteria.

 

[Dausuul]

I find nothing in the rules that says you need to wait till your first turn to take a reaction. Does that mean you can take a reaction before your first turn (if you are not surprised)?

Yup. Remember that if you're not surprised, that means you knew the enemy was there and there was potential for combat; you were already on your guard. There's no "combat mode" where you become able to take reactions--you can always take reactions, whether you're in initiative order or not. Initiative is just a way to resolve the question of who gets the first swing.

Surprise handles the special case where an enemy you didn't know about is attacking you. In that case, you can't take reactions because you haven't "woken up" to the threat yet.

(Admittedly, the assassin's ability to get advantage versus any creature that hasn't acted yet doesn't quite fit into this model, but that's one ability of one subclass. There are various ways you could explain it. In general, I think it works a lot better to treat "roll initiative" as a way to organize combat, not a transition from one game-world state to another.)

 

[Mouseferatu]

Grr. It rubs me the wrong way on a flavor level, but you guys may be right. It'd probably be unfair/too much of a nerf for me to enforce such a thing.

Ah, well. Not exactly the first abstraction in D&D combat I've had to shut up and deal with.

(Fortunately, the homebrew initiative rules I use are already deliberately random, so this actually becomes much less of a flavor issue for me.)

 

[Rabbitbait]

This may actually be a good thing though. I had been thinking surprise was just a bit too powerful. This will tone down the impact just a little. And of course, if it's good enough for the players, it's good enough for the monsters.

 

[CHaZMoDeuS]

Grr. It rubs me the wrong way on a flavor level, but you guys may be right. It'd probably be unfair/too much of a nerf for me to enforce such a thing.

Ah, well. Not exactly the first abstraction in D&D combat I've had to shut up and deal with.

(Fortunately, the homebrew initiative rules I use are already deliberately random, so this actually becomes much less of a flavor issue for me.)

I think it’s valuable to consider that reactions tend to be race or class based and are both there for flavor and balance. To have that reaction in their arsenal they are probably giving something up elsewhere. I personally wouldn’t arbitrarily go against the spirit of their creation by nerfing them.

 

[Benjamin Olson]

While philosophers may disagree on whether the first turn happens at conception, at birth, or at some milestone in between, rest assured that your character has an unbroken chain of turns stretching back to long before the particular combat, during most of which you just haven't had need to take things turn by turn.

Which is all to say that between the turn of your life proceeding combat and your first turn during combat you have a reaction.

Unless you're surprised. If you don't like characters getting reactions before their first combat turn make surprise easier to come by.

 

[Ovinomancer]

7 year old thread -- what's the reaction timing on that?

 

[Benjamin Olson]

7 year old thread -- what's the reaction timing on that?

It just means I probably should have taken my reaction 37 million rounds ago.

 

[CHaZMoDeuS]

It just means I probably should have taken my reaction 37 million rounds ago.

It was a treant battle. No biggie.

 

[Rabbitbait]

And six years later, the rule still doesn't sit quite right with me.