Bonus Reactions: Could this make combat feel more dynamic?

[CrazyCrab]

Hi everyone,
I usually play with a very large group (5-7 players, sometimes more... a meetup with possibly too many members and not enough DMs :smallwink: ) and I will be running a game in two or three months or so. I've been a player for a couple of months now and I tend to note things I want to avoid when running and honestly I began to despise combat with a big group like this. I still like playing the game and the DM's pretty good, but I've just started to try and avoid combat wherever possible, sticking to role-playing and solving problems. It takes between 30 and 40 mins for one round to pass and this isn't even Warhammer. With smaller parties, sure, the combat is fine as it is. It flows quite well, everyone does their thing, enemies do their thing, we move on. With a party like this there are usually 10+ enemies, a bunch of summons, a bunch of henchmen, a bunch of mounts... it just takes forever and once you do your thing, that's it.
It's even worse when someone dies. Yesterday our Bard died in the first round of combat, so he just sat on his phone for 2 or 3 hours. Meh. :smallfrown:

I've been wondering how I can give players more things to do outside their turn and while they cannot act so people stay invested, here is a bunch of random ideas I brainstormed. Yeah, they're untested, I've been hoping that maybe you guys can help me come up with more stuff and give me some feedback.


Bonus Reactions:
Each player character has a pool of 'Bonus Reactions' equal to their proficiency bonus. They regain all their Bonus Reactions when they finish a long or short rest. A player can use a Bonus Reaction whenever its conditions are met, without expending a reaction. All options are available to all player characters from the start.

1. Tactical Re-positioning. When you take damage from an area of effect attack and you fail your saving throw, you can use a Bonus Reaction to move up to half your movement speed away from the source of the area of effect attack.

2. Desperate Retreat. When you are take damage equal to half or more of your maximum hit points from a single source, you can use a Bonus Reaction to immediately move up to half your movement speed away from the source of the damage. This movement does not provoke opportunity attacks.

3. Avalanche. When you reduce a creature to 0 hit points with an Attack action, you can use a Bonus Reaction to make an additional attack against another creature within 5 feet of your initial target, within your attack range. You have disadvantage on this attack roll.

4. Avenge. When an ally other than you is reduced to 0 hit points, you may expend a Bonus Action to gain advantage on all attack rolls against the source of that damage until the end of your next turn.

5. Last Stand. When you take damage, you can use a Bonus Action to gain temporary hit points equal to your level. Your movement speed until the end of your next turn is halved.

Yeah, these do make players more powerful, but I feel like it may be fun to have more stuff to do, especially outside your turn. What do you think?
Maybe enemies could have 1 Bonus Action each, but I feel like this would complicate things too much... maybe only bosses could have them.

[MrStabby]

This is a tough problem and I think you are going down the right lines to solve it by looking at reactions. A few general thoughts, then specifics.

1) You WILL change the balance with this. Simply giving PCs more options and more reactions will make encounters easier. It's obvious and easily fixed but worth a mention.

2) You will change the balance between different classes. Not all classes have their power distributed in the same way and some of these reactions only affect certain types of character - if a character is unlikely to ever take an attack action then Avalanche has not use. Similarly if you have a cleric that is mainly using sacred flame for damage then Avenge is not much use.

3) Your problem is rounds of combat are too slow. Whilst this gives players more to do between their rounds it will slow combat further.

Specifics:

Avalanche happens on the PCs turn - so gives nothing for them to do between turns. Whether it is good or not, it does little to solve the problem.

Number equal to proficiency bonus - keeping track of these is an extra piece of bookkeeping, I would be tempted to say everyone gets one bonus action per round so people don't have to spend time deliberating whether to use one or not.


Finally, I would suggest looking to other means to speed up combat. In a small group slow players are fine, in a big group they are a nightmare. Get an egg timer/stopwatch and give every player a minute for their turn in combat (stop the clock for giving PCs new information) and combat for any creatures they conjured. Failure to finish means either no action or the dodge action. Quickly players will get into the habit of planning their actions in other's turns and will get to know their spell lists. In a group this size clogging up the game with summons is also a little antisocial, so you may want to generally discourage it. Schedule a couple of breaks in a session as you may need a little bit less intense periods.

[JellyPooga]

Tactical Repositioning (1) and Desperate Retreat (2) don't sit well with me, especially (1); only getting to use it when you fail doesn't seem right and penalises those with good Dexterity Saves compared to those with poor ones, especially the Rogue and Monk, who are supposed to be AoE avoiding experts with Evasion. Triggering off of a successful Dex Save would make more sense to me, as a bonus for success rather than a consolation for failure.

Similarly, having the ability to get out of dodge with no repercussions with number (2) when you've taken a hard hit just doesn't make sense and really downplays the strength of critters with multiple attacks like the Marilith.

As MrStabby says, though, this will bog combat down further. You need a mechanic that will streamline combat, not slow it.

[Contrast]

I agree with the above, giving players extra abilities (particularly ones which interupt other players/creatures turns) might help keep your players more engaged but its certainly not going to speed things up.

Have a chat with your players and check if they also think its a problem. One solution if your players are amenable is to sometimes replace the combats with cinematic combats. If its a combat that the players are going to win its just a case of how they go about it, maybe just ask the players what they're doing (I'll cast entagle, I'll body block charges against the casters, I'll dodge around finishing enemies off as the Barbarian strikes them down, etc.) and then describe how the combat goes in broad terms and allocate some damage and tell players to mark off expended resources. You obviously need your players to sign up to it (you don't want to get into an argument where you're telling them to expend a spell slot they don't think they would have expended) and its certainly not how you want to run every combat but hopefully it'll alleviate some of the pressure.

Also re the bard dying in the first round and twiddling his thumbs - I was once playing in a one off session in a sci-fi prison break game and died almost immediately. Rather than faffing about trying to quickly create a new character and shoehorn them in the DM just gave me the main antagonist to control and let me terrorise the party which resulted in quite a memorable session. If a similar thing happens again definately encourage the DM to give them some of the NPCs to control.

[HammeredWharf]

Get an egg timer/stopwatch and give every player a minute for their turn in combat (stop the clock for giving PCs new information) and combat for any creatures they conjured. Failure to finish means either no action or the dodge action.

This is what I'd recommend. A while ago I DMed some high-level 3.5 games for a big group. Rounds took well over an hour each, but putting my players on the clock sped the game up dramatically. Also, this isn't quite as applicable in 5e, but it made the players' actions less perfect, making DMing easier.