Blog (A5E) World Actions

[Morrus]

Level Up is full of little things that you'll notice while playing but may not stand out as major rules additions. Things like countdowns, rare spells versions, mount traits, and world actions fall into this category.

A world action makes the environment a participant in a combat (or other turn-based encounter). They're a part of the initiative order, taking place at the start of each round. We provide a handful of example terrain-based world actions, but this is an area which Narrators or adventure writers can expand on easily. We're fairly sure that there will be hundreds of world actions available from fans and third parties soon!

 

[King Brad]

I've said this about a million different things in regards to LU..., but its design like this that makes my GM mind explode with inspiration. Built in mechanical support for dynamic exploration and combat.

I think the lack of support such as this is why so many dnd combats (according to various reddit threads) come down to a slugfest.

A+

 

[Stalker0]

Yeah! For example I love the cavernous think where an explosion can cause a cave in. It’s something any dm can do, but they just not think about it until they see it in their face.
This example is a nice way for a dm to force a fireball chucking pc to consider alternate tactics without making the creatures all fire resistant

 

[lichmaster]

These characteristics should literally be in every encounter: dynamic and reactive environments make for way more fun challenges

 

[Tonguez]

scene aspect tags! now these are nice

 

[tetrasodium]

I think that the best part about these kind of things is that there is a bog difference for players to know "$thisStuff is a real concern here & the gm might choose to do other stuff or twist it a bit" compared to o5e's "everything is normal unless gmfiat but we all know bob's gm style". It's hard to convey danger for a situation when everyone knows that the danger is the gm & world actions/terrain types do a good job of adding known unknowns to worry over

 

[Steampunkette]

Finally! With a little mix n' match I can do some Princess Briding.

Seriously, though... these are awesome. Especially as a framework. And I flat out love the Mirror effect. Though I'd make it apply primarily to Standing Mirrors. For a hand mirror you'd get a dex save to try and reflect. >.>

 

[Tonguez]

Seriously, though... these are awesome. Especially as a framework. And I flat out love the Mirror effect. Though I'd make it apply primarily to Standing Mirrors. For a hand mirror you'd get a dex save to try and reflect. >.>

Yeah the Mirror effect and the chandelier swinging are pretty cool and I’d love to have an across the board way for players to interact with these World actions too rather than just waiting for the GM to invoke

- like a player in the forest kicks up the leaves or throws dirt at an opponent, or tips over some boxes to create cluttered ground or forces an opponent to slip on loose gravel.
Does that need mechanics Or is it too much in a DnD paradigm?

 

[Steampunkette]

Yeah the Mirror effect and the chandelier swinging are pretty cool and I’d love to have an across the board way for players to interact with these World actions too rather than just waiting for the GM to invoke

- like a player in the forest kicks up the leaves or throws dirt at an opponent, or tips over some boxes to create cluttered ground or forces an opponent to slip on loose gravel.
Does that need mechanics Or is it too much in a DnD paradigm?

I've always sort of adjudicated that kind of thing on the fly. Some systems had solid frameworks to go off of to cover these same ideas, but it's nice to have a 5e style framework to use as a point of reference for future adjudication.

 

[Zaukrie]

Cool idea. Another thing I want to build on......