D&D General Rules that weren't...

[GMMichael]

No, I want them to be ready on their turn not wake up and decide to do their research then, followed by jumping in when they're good and ready some point later. (Which has also lead to "Well I was going to cast X, but while I was delaying and looking it up the fighter dropped, so now I'll jump in and take my turn to cast Cure Wounds on him" shenanigans).

Huh. I'd love to see more D&D players go, "I'm not ready, you go ahead," and "the fighter's down!? Cure wounds!"

Sadly, I've sworn off 5e. And since there will never be another edition, I guess I just won't get to see that particular sunrise.

 

[el-remmen]

Luckily, none of my players did that, but it does make "until your next turn" powers useless if you can just delay your action until after the power users next turn to get out of the condition.

While, as i said, this has (perhaps miraculously) not come up in 6 years, we have an understanding that if you have a standing effect/condition of that sort, it may still happen on the original initiative - DM's call.

 

[Remathilis]

Huh. I'd love to see more D&D players go, "I'm not ready, you go ahead," and "the fighter's down!? Cure wounds!"

It effectively made initiative less about acting first and more about getting your ability to act first and then acting whenever you felt like. It might sound strategic and cool, but it was basically some dude on his phone until I called his name and then thumbing though the PHB and then breaking the initiative order when it was most opportune for him.

You didn't miss much on that sunrise, unless you prefer everyone staring at books or zoned out on their phones instead of looking at the sky...

 

[Remathilis]

While, as i said, this has (perhaps miraculously) not come up in 6 years, we have an understanding that if you have a standing effect/condition of that sort, it may still happen on the original initiative - DM's call.

Really, all I did was make the player decide what action they will take on their actual turn rather than a nebulous "I'll declare what I'm doing when I'm ready."

 

[el-remmen]

I get it. But sometimes players aren't sure what to do, or want to see what someone else does first, and doing that is a risk for a potential reward, and that is the kind of thing I like. Trust me, if it turned out to be a pain in the tuchus, been exploited, or slowed the game down, I would have dropped it long ago.

 

[Remathilis]

I get it. But sometimes players aren't sure what to do, or want to see what someone else does first, and doing that is a risk for a potential reward, and that is the kind of thing I like. Trust me, if it turned out to be a pain in the tuchus, been exploited, or slowed the game down, I would have dropped it long ago.

I get it. I'm not on a chess timer for turns. But when your turn comes, you get three choices:

• Act
• Declare you are waiting to Act when a condition is met (after the orcs go, when the fighter is out of the blast range, etc)
• Stand dumbfounded in the fog of war and take the dodge action while you decide what to do next turn.

If it works for you, more power to you. It stopped working for me when it became a crutch to zone out and then take your sweet time deciding what to do...

 

[el-remmen]

If it works for you, more power to you. It stopped working for me when it became a crutch to zone out and then take your sweet time deciding what to do...

Yeah. that would irk me to no end.

 

[Bagpuss]

We give rogues advantage on the first round of combat if they attack someone who has not gone yet. Not sure where that came from. Seems like a thing carried over.

Probably because in 3rd Ed you didn't have your Dexterity bonus to AC until you acted in combat (you were caught "flat-footed") which meant rogues could sneak attack you. In 5th you rogues need advantage to sneak attack, so you would give rogues advantage (possibly even all characters) on opponents that hadn't acted.

We also play with flanking rules since it just carried over from 4e days. We have not started the new campaign with the 5.5e rules yet so I have not tried to stop the flanking part.

Flanking was common in 3rd Ed too.

 

[Bagpuss]

I get it. I'm not on a chess timer for turns. But when your turn comes, you get three choices:

• Act
• Declare you are waiting to Act when a condition is met (after the orcs go, when the fighter is out of the blast range, etc)
• Stand dumbfounded in the fog of war and take the dodge action while you decide what to do next turn.

If it works for you, more power to you. It stopped working for me when it became a crutch to zone out and then take your sweet time deciding what to do...

Yeah I think working in Ready is a good idea (which is the declare a trigger and an action), I didn't really like Delay for the same reasons you mentioned before.

 

[Xenolith234]

Has anyone tried action declaration before initiative is rolled, ala older editions? I know there’s speed factor in the 2014 DMG that I’ve thought hard about using.