Reactions in Play By Email

[This be Richard]

So I have a sizable group of friends that runs play-by-email D&D games. We're looking to start a new game up, and I'm going to be running this time, but I've hit a snag. See, we've always played second edition and used group initiative. That meant that I didn't really need to worry about reactions and the like or the order of who goes when. Now, however, I'd like to use fifth edition (on account of it being enormously better than second edition), but I don't know how to handle things like reactions.

We've always had a very relaxed posting policy -- necessary for how many people we have and how busy they often get -- and I can't realistically get people to post frequently/reliably enough to do everybody's actions in proper initiative order with natural breaks for reactions and such without slowing the game down to the point that it would probably collapse under its own weight.

Does anybody have any ideas about how I could get 5e to work with this crew?

The only thought I've had so far would be to still do group initiative, but incorporate an extra "turn" for reactions and bonus actions. So it'd be like this:
1. Players take actions and bonus actions -- They post what they're doing and I post the results including any reactions made on the parts of the monsters.
2. Monsters take actions -- I post the tentative actions the monsters are taking.
3. Players take reactions and any bonus actions they hadn't taken before -- They post what they're doing in response to the monsters' actions, and I post the results of both the monsters' and the players' actions.
4. Repeat from Step 1.

But I'm not entirely sure that'd work or if there might be better ideas.
Worst case scenario, I can always walk us back to second edition for the new game, but I'd really like to bring everybody into the THAC0-less light of 5e.

Any thoughts, ideas, or opinions?

[Rusty Killinger]

I'd be tempted to just take their reactions for them. At least as I've played they don't come up that often and are usually an easy decision. (Do I really want to take a free hit on the goblin that just ran past me, or do I do nothing?). (Cast feather fall or take fatal fall damage? I don't know).

The exception might be the shield spell, which can eat up all your spell slots at low level. And I've heard people complain about the protection fighting style for eating up reactions.

Can anyone else think of examples?

[Ninja_Prawn]

If you've got a PC with a reaction that comes up frequently, like Shield or Protection, I would suggest setting up a 'standing order' whereby they let you implement their reaction when certain conditions are fulfilled.

The other thing you have to think about is legendary actions. A dragon gets about half of its DPR from legendary actions, and if you can't interrupt the PCs' turn, you can't use them. If you do use them, you need to know which order the PCs act in (which can be fuzzy with side initiative) and anyone who acts after the legendary action might want to change their plan based on it. Honestly, that doesn't sound compatible with your e-mail set-up.

[Jermz]

I'd be tempted to just take their reactions for them. At least as I've played they don't come up that often and are usually an easy decision. (Do I really want to take a free hit on the goblin that just ran past me, or do I do nothing?). (Cast feather fall or take fatal fall damage? I don't know).

The exception might be the shield spell, which can eat up all your spell slots at low level. And I've heard people complain about the protection fighting style for eating up reactions.

Can anyone else think of examples?

Lore bard with Cutting Words comes to mind.

[This be Richard]

I hadn't even considered legendary actions.
I know it would be a flagrant violation of the rules as written, but do you suppose it would be game-breaking to let a legendary monster take their legendary actions as part of their turn, after the players have collectively acted and before taking their normal actions? My first thought is that it would interfere with the functionality of combat healers, who might want to get people healed (or back on their feet) between a legendary action and either another legendary action or the monster's proper turn. But I don't think that would ruin the game, necessarily.
It's a lot less cinematic to have legendary actions butt up against normal actions instead of spreading them over the round between player turns... but does it ruin things?

Alternatively, does anyone have any other suggestions for how to handle legendary actions in this format?

[Ninja_Prawn]

I know it would be a flagrant violation of the rules as written, but do you suppose it would be game-breaking to let a legendary monster take their legendary actions as part of their turn, after the players have collectively acted and before taking their normal actions?

My view: that completely defeats the point of LAs.

LAs exist so that solo monsters can compete in the action economy. The whole deal is that a solo "boss" monster is less challenging because they're easy to pin down in place (and they've only got one pair of eyes, so they're easy to hide from, and you only need to hit them with one status effect to cripple them) - they only get one move per round while the party gets several, so LAs give them a chance to reposition themselves and get a bit of a grip on the battlefield.

And that doesn't work if your players can only issue actions/reactions once a week. I'm afraid I can't think of a solution, aside from not using legendary monsters - or switching to the Angry DM's paragon monster system.

[Rusty Killinger]

Lore bard with Cutting Words comes to mind.

Just read the description. They can use their reaction to interrupt almost anything. That does complicate things.

[Nerdguy88]

Well initiative all works at the "same time" anyways. One round is not a step of events more a "you go first because your able to respond .1 seconds faster"

Have everyone send you what they do then type it up in order and post it. That way it reads like a book of sorts.

I think that might actually work really well. Instead of having people "post" that they attack and rolled a 24 and did 15 damage, have them email you. Then once you have received everyone's type up a few paragraphs on everything that happened and post it!

[This be Richard]

And that doesn't work if your players can only issue actions/reactions once a week. I'm afraid I can't think of a solution, aside from not using legendary monsters - or switching to the Angry DM's paragon monster system.
I was not, prior to this, familiar with paragon monsters. But after doing some research, they seem pretty cool. Thanks for pointing me in that direction.
I'll probably end up taking a pass on legendary monsters and just going with the normal and paragon varieties, sad though it makes me to miss out on everything that legendaries bring to the table.


Have everyone send you what they do then type it up in order and post it. That way it reads like a book of sorts.
I think that might actually work really well. Instead of having people "post" that they attack and rolled a 24 and did 15 damage, have them email you. Then once you have received everyone's type up a few paragraphs on everything that happened and post it!
I could give this a try. What we've historically done (with second edition) is have everybody post what they're doing in big flowery paragraphs with a brief, one-or-two-sentence description of what they're mechanically doing in parentheses at the bottom. Then I (or whoever's DMing) rolls everything out and posts the turn's results in similarly flowery language with the mechanical outcomes in parentheses at the bottom.
I'd hate to take the in-character action descriptions away from the players, but I suppose I could have people just email me their actions.
That doesn't actually solve the reaction problem, though.


I suppose I could require that people set up standing orders and/or say in their posts what reactions they're preparing to do, but it feels like that would cheat them in the event of anything they weren't expecting.

[Ketiara]

We have a sorcerer in a play by post game, and when he post his action he also post his reaction if it comes up, like shield or counter spell sin his case.

As a paladin with great weapon fighting, when I post my attack I also post a swing for OA's and cleaves if they come up.

This is possible for us because it's not DM against players but we play together. If there's any new development that a player couldn't have foreseen then he can redo his action.

All of this works very well.