D&D 5E Would Allowing Multiple Reactions Break The Game?

[abirdcall]

It shouldn't be easy to stop enemies from attacking weaker characters. Some people complain the game is too easy and I think a big part of that is that they just have the monsters act like zombies. All characters should need to worry about defence.

Protection is better than people think it is. All fighting styles only activate x times per turn. None are 'always on' in the way you are using it. You wanted a way to protect weak party members, well protection is a good one.

Ranged characters and spellcasters should have limitations and weaknesses.

And also yes extra reactions would break the game. And also make it take far longer.

 

[Argyle King]

It shouldn't be easy to stop enemies from attacking weaker characters. Some people complain the game is too easy and I think a big part of that is that they just have the monsters act like zombies. All characters should need to worry about defence.

Protection is better than people think it is. All fighting styles only activate x times per turn. None are 'always on' in the way you are using it. You wanted a way to protect weak party members, well protection is a good one.

Ranged characters and spellcasters should have limitations and weaknesses.

And also yes extra reactions would break the game. And also make it take far longer.

I agree that there should be some drawbacks to ranged combat (and casting spells). 5E has a few, but overall is not built that way. (Ranged combat strong options which have few -if any- downsides.)

The things I've mentioned go both ways. It is also difficult for the enemy to protect their vulnerable party members.

The issue with Protection Style is that there's a choice between being able to use the reaction to do something else (such as hit the enemy with an opportunity attack) and protecting. In contrast, Tunnel Fighter (Unearthed Arcana) grants an unlimited number of opportunity attacks (which I believe goes too far in the other direction). I wouldn't say that I feel Protection Style is bad, but there are times when it seems more difficult to use because it burns your ability to do other things.

While typing this, I had the thought that perhaps a fight with protection style should be able to use an action on their turn to give an adjacent ally the benefits of the dodge action until the beginning of the fighter's next turn (as long as the ally is adjacent to them).

Really though, the protecting people thing is only a small piece of what I'm looking at. Overall, what I'm looking at is making combat seem more fluid (and less stop-and-go) between turns. I'm aware (as others have said) that turns are an abstraction necessary for rpgs to function as a game; at the same time, some of the other games I play (and other editions of D&D I've played) had options for people to do things through a conflict.

Still, maybe it would break the game. I appreciate the input. I'm not concerned with things taking "far longer" because I do not believe that would be the case with the group I game with. (In my view, combat taking a while is more due to how 5E monsters use HP as a primary method of scaling.) However, I do think that this change may break parts of the game. I will consider it more.

 

[Undrave]

Normally, a 5E character only gets 1 reaction.

Most of the time, that is fine. However, I am of the opinion that there may be aspects of the game which may benefit from allowing more than 1. For example, creating a front line to protect squishy party members is difficult to do when a character can only attempt to hit/stop one enemy. There are also fighting styles -such as the protection style- which seem rather weak because you get one use per turn and then your fighting style effectively turns off (as opposed to being constantly usable like most styles are). Also, I feel as though combat could feel less static if there are more opportunities to react to what is happening and engage in the action.

I do not want an unlimited number of reactions. Off the top of my head, my rough idea is to either allow something like
[# of reactions = 1/2 proficiency bonus (round up)].
This would mean 1 reaction for levels 1 - 4; 2r for levels 5 - 12; and 3r for levels 13 - 20.

How do you feel this would change play?

More importantly, would this break the game?

I don't think EVERYONE getting an extra Reaction is quite the way to go, but for certain classes it make a lot of sense.

It removes a lot of the trade-offs of reactions. An arcane trickster can cast shield AND uncanny dodge in the same round. Is that game breaking? Probably not. Does it make characters who have access to multiple reactions more powerful? Definitely.

Personally, given your what you said about protecting allies, if I were to go this route I would probably just open up the number of opportunity attacks a character can make in a round. If you really want to have multiple reactions be a thing, I'd most likely balance it by making it a feat.

Another thing to consider is that, depending on your group, tracking the number of reactions made in a long round is more difficult than the simple binary state of whether you've used a reaction at all. So consider that it might result in increased mental load.

How about you simply treat each reaction as its own independent thing you can done once per round (and only one of those per turn)? For exemple, if you're a Fighter who took a feat and got both Protection and Interception, then they can use each of those once, in addition to their regular opportunity attack. If they have sentinel they get another reaction to use that stops monsters in their track.

Basically, getting more reaction is a character build decision and to get more of them you just need to get more ability/spell/feat that give you stuff to do on your reaction. This would probably favour the Fighter (and Rogue) more but I think it's a neat niche they could fit... but you could simply just ignore that stuff if you wanted and just build for your on-turn actions.

But you still can't use two on the same round.

I don't think it would break the game, but it would certainly make it slower so it's best if only a few characters get extra reaction than the standard.

 

[Fanaelialae]

I don't think EVERYONE getting an extra Reaction is quite the way to go, but for certain classes it make a lot of sense.

How about you simply treat each reaction as its own independent thing you can done once per round (and only one of those per turn)? For exemple, if you're a Fighter who took a feat and got both Protection and Interception, then they can use each of those once, in addition to their regular opportunity attack. If they have sentinel they get another reaction to use that stops monsters in their track.

Basically, getting more reaction is a character build decision and to get more of them you just need to get more ability/spell/feat that give you stuff to do on your reaction. This would probably favour the Fighter (and Rogue) more but I think it's a neat niche they could fit... but you could simply just ignore that stuff if you wanted and just build for your on-turn actions.

But you still can't use two on the same round.

I don't think it would break the game, but it would certainly make it slower so it's best if only a few characters get extra reaction than the standard.

It still means that abilities that were previously trade offs now can be used in parallel (like Shield and Uncanny Dodge). So it's still a pretty significant boost for characters with access to such abilities.

Although, you do bring up a good point. I hadn't considered a rogue being able to use Uncanny Dodge multiple times per round. At that point the rogue is practically a barbarian.

 

[Argyle King]

I don't think EVERYONE getting an extra Reaction is quite the way to go, but for certain classes it make a lot of sense.

How about you simply treat each reaction as its own independent thing you can done once per round (and only one of those per turn)? For exemple, if you're a Fighter who took a feat and got both Protection and Interception, then they can use each of those once, in addition to their regular opportunity attack. If they have sentinel they get another reaction to use that stops monsters in their track.

Basically, getting more reaction is a character build decision and to get more of them you just need to get more ability/spell/feat that give you stuff to do on your reaction. This would probably favour the Fighter (and Rogue) more but I think it's a neat niche they could fit... but you could simply just ignore that stuff if you wanted and just build for your on-turn actions.

But you still can't use two on the same round.

I don't think it would break the game, but it would certainly make it slower so it's best if only a few characters get extra reaction than the standard.

Even if I allow more than 1, it would still be limited. Right now, the rough idea I have would cap it at 3 (at higher levels).

I do not want an unlimited number of reactions. Off the top of my head, my rough idea is to either allow something like
[# of reactions = 1/2 proficiency bonus (round up)].
This would mean 1 reaction for levels 1 - 4; 2r for levels 5 - 12; and 3r for levels 13 - 20.

I had also floated the idea of a feat which gives +1 reaction and adding proficiency dice to initiative checks.

(I'm heavily leaning toward using the proficiency die alternative rule from the DMG. I'm also considering divorcing initiative from Dexterity and just making it a flat roll.)

Maybe I could have the feat available, but not change the underlying amount of reactions which a character has?
In that case, 2 reactions would be the highest possible, and achieving that would require investing a feat.

 

[Undrave]

It still means that abilities that were previously trade offs now can be used in parallel (like Shield and Uncanny Dodge). So it's still a pretty significant boost for characters with access to such abilities.

Although, you do bring up a good point. I hadn't considered a rogue being able to use Uncanny Dodge multiple times per round. At that point the rogue is practically a barbarian.

I might have gotten mixed up with 'round' and 'turn'?

I don't think a Rogue doing multiple Uncanny Dodge is a good idea either, but I don't think a Rogue using both 1 Uncanny Dodge and 1 Opportunity Attack before their next turn comes around is that big of a deal.

It is a Power Boost, but it's impact isn't quite as big as a more active boost because it's highly dependant on what enemies do. If the Rogue decides to go for a Ranged Weapon build, they're probably not gonna be using their opportunity attack that often, and if they go melee they are now more likely to be attacked themselves, even if they can use an ability, multi attacks become more dangerous. And if you use one of your defensive reaction against an enemy, they're now free to just move away from you without triggering an Opportunity Attack because you used your reaction for their turn.

I had also floated the idea of a feat which gives +1 reaction and adding proficiency dice to initiative checks.

(I'm heavily leaning toward using the proficiency die alternative rule from the DMG. I'm also considering divorcing initiative from Dexterity and just making it a flat roll.)

Maybe I could have the feat available, but not change the underlying amount of reactions which a character has?
In that case, 2 reactions would be the highest possible, and achieving that would require investing a feat.

Or you just link it to the Extra Attack class feature.

 

[Argyle King]

Or you just link it to the Extra Attack class feature.

Could you elaborate on that?

I'm not sure if you mean that reactions would equal the number of attacks someone could do or if you mean something else.

 

[Undrave]

Could you elaborate on that?

I'm not sure if you mean that reactions would equal the number of attacks someone could do or if you mean something else.

Yup, that's what I mean. You get an extra attack, you get an extra reaction.

So the Fighter would be the best at reaction, and others that could lead to spell abuse or the Rogue would be stuck with just 1 reaction.

 

[Nefermandias]

Yup. This would be my concern. The game is unlikely to break, but highly likely to become significantly slower and more annoying. I loved 4E but in combat the greatest flaw it had was that you could have so many Immediate Actions, Reactions, Interrupts, and so on, which could lead to lengthy chains of stuff happening, and drastically slowed the game down as they became common (usually somewhere in the level 11+ range).

Imediate Actions were only once per round (it didn't matter if it was an Imediate Reaction or Imediate Interrupt. The only difference was if they resolved either before or after the trigger).

Opportunity Actions on the other hand, were once per turn. It wasn't really different from 3.5 though.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Imediate Actions were only once per round (it didn't matter if it was an Imediate Reaction or Imediate Interrupt. The only difference was if they resolved either before or after the trigger).

Opportunity Actions on the other hand, were once per turn. It wasn't really different from 3.5 though.

Sure, but the issue was that people started building up relatively large numbers of them. It wasn't the same guy using them all. After L11 or so, you saw more and more of this, and it added up.

Re: 3.5E, yeah, not a huge difference, except that in 4E, far more characters could voluntarily select abilities which worked out-of-turn, and very often those abilities were also powerful and useful (theoretically a good thing), so you saw it more often.

Overall, in my experience, 4E ran a lot faster than 3.5E in combat (even than lower-level 3.5E), until you got into that higher-level range, at which point it gradually slowed to about the same unacceptably slow pace.