Making reactions a players turn?

[StaleGoat]

Not sure where to post this exactly, but our DM recently started a new game with a bunch of dumb rules (every time you fail a check of any kind you or your weapon takes damage, adding another pool for dodging based on Dex and having AC go down everytime an enemy misses you...) and we've managed to convince her to not do any of that, but one rule stuck.

Any kind of reaction costs a player a whole turn and they're not allowed movement, including attack of opportunity and dodging. Me and my group members think its really freaking dumb, but he wanted me to ask what other people thought before she wiped it entirely because she feels like we're ganging up on him.

[Cespenar]

Spending your reaction indeed prevents you from using your attack of opportunity.

No offense to your DM, but the rest is total bullcrap. And this is coming from someone who's normally open to houserules.

I'd suggest sticking to the written rules until a specific one chafes you (and your group) time and again in actual gameplay, and then thinking about changing them.

[Ninja_Prawn]

I would expect that making a reaction cost an entire turn would be very unbalancing. Action economy is incredibly important in D&D, which means your DM has basically made reactions (and, by extension, readied actions and opportunity attacks) unusable with this rule. It's a huge change to the way the game is played, and not a good one in my opinion.

[StaleGoat]

Spending your reaction indeed prevents you from using your attack of opportunity.

Yep, we know that. I meant that using a reaction means I can't attack or move.

[djreynolds]

Perhaps your DM is reading it wrong.

If you ready an action, whatever that readied action is uses your reaction to either perform that action or move.

I often have a friend pose questions on sage advice, its the designers answering questions

[ShikomeKidoMi]

Perhaps your DM is reading it wrong.

Given the other house-rules listed, I really doubt it.

[StaleGoat]

Perhaps your DM is reading it wrong.

It's a house rule

[Arkhios]

That house rule is all bonkers.

Reaction is something you do nigh-intuitively (intuition can be practiced, thus readying an action), not something you would pay for by becoming effectively stunned afterwards (unless you have some weird medical condition).

[Cybren]

That house rule is all bonkers.

Reaction is something you do nigh-intuitively (intuition can be practiced, thus readying an action), not something you would pay for by becoming effectively stunned afterwards (unless you have some weird medical condition).

yeah without any compensatory house rule to change how turns work fundamentally i don't see this rule playing well. After a few sessions of no one ever taking reactions at any point for any reasons maybe your DM would get the hint that this rule doesn't work.

[Puh Laden]

Bringing up that this rule would probably hurt enemy NPCs more than the PCs might help.

[Vogonjeltz]

yeah without any compensatory house rule to change how turns work fundamentally i don't see this rule playing well. After a few sessions of no one ever taking reactions at any point for any reasons maybe your DM would get the hint that this rule doesn't work.

It'd be easier to address it before the game, and that way it doesn't ruin all the adventuring in between.

[Cybren]

It'd be easier to address it before the game, and that way it doesn't ruin all the adventuring in between.

Perhaps I misread but it seems like theyve already been playing with the rule

[Mellack]

The proposed change will mess up much of the basics of the system. Just take Opportunity Attacks. They would virtually disappear, as no reasonable creature would give up its entire turn to make a single attack. That means disengage is useless, the mobile feat, much of cunning action, swashbucklers ability, etc. And that is just one part of the change.

[Waterdeep Merch]

It screws with balance, but honestly monsters tend to get more attacks of opportunity than players do. The shield spell, counterspell, the polearm master feat, and UA Blade Master feat are all pretty terrible choices with that change. Nothing too game breaking, honestly.

EDIT: Those abilities mentioned by Mellack as well. I'd still argue they don't influence the game much beyond making them poor character choices, at least not as much as it handicaps enemies.

You know what is, though? Legendary reactions. Boss monsters will get steamrolled for using the only mechanic that makes them work in solo fights. Most of these creatures are already considered extremely weak for their intended role. This rule's doing them no favors.

[coredump]

Seems like a silly rule and not an improvement. But won't break the game. It's effect is to simply remove reactions in almost all cases.

What is her reasoning for the rule? What problem does it solve? What situation does it improve?

[RSP]

One thing I want to point out: Legendary Actions are not Reactions so they would be unaffected by this house rule.

[StaleGoat]

What is her reasoning for the rule? What problem does it solve? What situation does it improve?

Not sure on all of what you asked but she did it to be different, which I appreciate, she's just doing it wrong. She wants the game to be more realistic and in her head reaction = action and you should only get one.

[StaleGoat]

Perhaps I misread but it seems like theyve already been playing with the rule

Not quite yet, we're playing in an hour though. The other party members tested the other rules in a one-off campaign though that didn't go too well

[mephnick]

These are the kind of decisions that made me stop playing and switch purely to DMing. I hate it when people who don't even understand the system try to change it dramatically.

If your DM wants "realistic" combat, she needs to research other gaming systems.

[ad_hoc]

She might as well remove reactions entirely.

D&D is not the game for realism, esp. 5e. 3.x makes an attempt at it but suffers because of it.

5e is all about story logic.

Even without this house rule my feeling is that the game itself will be terrible if she runs it. She really needs to run a different game for her playstyle.

[Spiderguy24]

This house ruling is a pretty bad one that severely limits what a players character can do for that round, especially when some spells, abilities and feat work off of your reaction, which renders them completely useless. I understand that your DM wants to make things more realistic, but a quick instinctive move like a reaction wouldn't make sense to make it a full round action, in fact it makes it even more unrealistic and it makes the character seem incompetent in a fight.

Now I will say that the durability house rule can work if managed properly. But she shouldn't make it where a failed check damages the said weapon. Armor is a maybe, depending on the check that is implied. To keep it simple, you could make it where an item with 100% durability would get a bonus to certain stats, such as a weapon with 100% durability would get an advantage on attack and damage rolls, while armor gives enemies a disadvantage to hit you. With each successful hit from the weapon, the durability would go down a bit and it would need to be repaired in order to stay effective. Armor would be the same but it wouldn't lower your AC at all, it would just gives enemies an advantage to hit you if the armor is too badly damaged.

Magic items wouldn't need as much repairing due to the magical nature, unless they hit or are hit by magical attacks or creatures, etc etc. It would need a lot of work, but I think it would add an interesting layer of depth without making it too complex or limiting. Think of spells like Heat Metal applied to a suit of armor. The durability of it going down down down, while cooking the baddie wearing it.

[tieren]

Now if you want to use your reaction for a readied action, then you had to waste your main action on the prior turn taking the "Ready" action, and then if the trigger occurs you use your reaction to do whatever you readied.

You don't get to attack on your turn (with your main action) and ready an attack for your reaction. And as mentioned using your reaction prevents you from taking more reactions like an AoO.

[Cybren]

Not sure on all of what you asked but she did it to be different, which I appreciate, she's just doing it wrong. She wants the game to be more realistic and in her head reaction = action and you should only get one.

Sometimes to increase verisimilitude abstract rules that don't quite make 100% sense are better than strict rules based in 'realism'. Opportunity attacks represent that since combat is turn based and rounds last 6 seconds, you would theoretically be able to exploit an enemy turning and fleeing as their guard is down. Changing this rule to give up your next turn may make some kind of sense, if you squint your eyes on a rainy day, but the net effect of the rule is that people just stop taking reactions. Why bother with an opportunity attack when you can just walk over and hit them on your next turn, where you'll possibly have access to extra attack or bonus actions etc? Thus the goal of 'increased realism' defeats itself, making it nearly universally disadvantageous to try to exploit the opening a fleeing enemy gives you

[Grixis]

This rule is great if it also applies to the DM's controlled enemies. You can then move in and out, on purpose, of their threat range, provoke OA, and if they use it, can't perform any of their actions. Imagine how much easier it would be to beat high level CR monsterse if they had to choose between their actions and legendary reactions.

[Vogonjeltz]

Perhaps I misread but it seems like theyve already been playing with the rule

I mean, deal with the problem immediately, don't let it continue.

[Larpus]

Not sure on all of what you asked but she did it to be different, which I appreciate, she's just doing it wrong. She wants the game to be more realistic and in her head reaction = action and you should only get one.

OTOH, there's nothing realistic about reactions spending your action.

First, you can only react to a certain number of specific situations, it is that split second decision that, if you linger on it one moment too long, your window has closed and you no longer can do it.

Like when an enemy moves out of your threatened square, they're not dumb, they don't just turn around and leave cool guy not looking at explosion style, they know they're in combat and engaged with you, the reaction you get is for that instant they look away to see where they want to go next or their weapon/shield hand moving an inch too far away from their body completely destroying their defensive stance.

Some spells can also be used and their main worth come from being cast as a reaction, such as Healing Word, which in game is closer to, when an ally falls from too much damage, the cleric screams from the top of his lungs, "For the love of [deity]!! Stand up and finish your mission!!" or the such to heal them up.

Don't forget, hit points aren't necessarily "life", "blood" or the such, it can very well be akin to "morale" in some situations and be very dramatic, like a rush of adrenaline that allows you to swing your weapon just one extra time.

Edit: sorry, I was wrong, HW is a bonus action, which means that the "planning" window for a reaction is even slimmer than a bonus action, enforcing the idea that it's a split-second decision to act or not in response to some external trigger.

But the point stands, it's very different from a full-on and planned action, hell, you can't even cast most spells without a feat on a reaction, that alone shows that a reaction is not only a different beast entirely, but also a good deal shorter as far as time goes.

And second, if it does spend your action, how does it make sense to have a character strike an enemy who was turning tail and then stand stupid for a full 6 seconds?

If realism is what your DM want, this change will not only not address it, but also help to further break it.

If she wants to be "different", a better way would be to expand the reaction mechanics in interesting ways, such as using deception to bait an attack either giving a reaction AOO to the deceptive party or maybe create more opportunities where a reaction might occur (in my experience, they're pretty damn rare without forcing the situation or grabbing some feats).

[EvilAnagram]

Some spells can also be used and their main worth come from being cast as a reaction, such as Healing Word, which in game is closer to, when an ally falls from too much damage, the cleric screams from the top of his lungs, "For the love of [deity]!! Stand up and finish your mission!!" or the such to heal them up.

Healing Word is not a reaction spell.

EDIT: My new phone has not yet capitulated to D&D terms yet.

[JakOfAllTirades]

Not sure where to post this exactly, but our DM recently started a new game with a bunch of dumb rules (every time you fail a check of any kind you or your weapon takes damage, adding another pool for dodging based on Dex and having AC go down everytime an enemy misses you...) and we've managed to convince her to not do any of that, but one rule stuck.

Any kind of reaction costs a player a whole turn and they're not allowed movement, including attack of opportunity and dodging. Me and my group members think its really freaking dumb, but he wanted me to ask what other people thought before she wiped it entirely because she feels like we're ganging up on him.

I'm slightly confused by your use of different pronouns above; is your GM a she or a he? Not that it matters.

You have every right to gang up on a GM who makes house rules this dumb. Tell her (him?) to run by the rules as written until she (he?) figures out how things work in this system. Also, house rules that ruin everyone's fun will result in players voting with their feet and finding another game to play.

[Rynjin]

This is a rule with zero redeeming qualities. You SHOULD be ganging up on them over it.

[WhosAGoodBoy]

Not sure on all of what you asked but she did it to be different, which I appreciate, she's just doing it wrong. She wants the game to be more realistic and in her head reaction = action and you should only get one.

I think coredump is on the right track. If you haven't yet, talk to the DM about what problem this rule seeks to fix. My bias is twofold: a) ultimately any game mechanic should function such that prevents some sort of unwanted behavior, and b) action economy is already pretty slim as it is, and letting your players have fewer options is a quick way to have less fun.

There's a lot to unpack in how much more 'realistic' it makes the game to choose between actions and reactions. Without thinking about it more, I can't even say I understand the motivation to make a high fantasy game more realistic. Emphasis on 'high fantasy' and 'game'. While I understand realism helps immerse people (which can in turn make it more fun), is realism really why people play D&D? (as a datapoint, 'realism' is matched twice in my PDF of the PHB, whereas 'imagination' is mentioned 7 times)

If they're insistent to keep the 'reaction = action and you should only get one' rule, wait for the DM to ask a favor of you (e.g, 'can you get me a soda from the kitchen' or whatever). On your reply, say "I can't. I already used my action to play this game so I don't have a reaction to spend getting you a soda" (heh ;P)

[Larpus]

Healing Word is not a reaction spell.

EDIT: My new phone has not yet capitulated to D&D terms yet.

Whoops, correcy you are, I got it mixed up, but further shows that a reaction's "planning" time is shorter than even a bonus action.

[Dudu]

Truly pointless houserulling.

They add no fun, no realism, and also slow everything down.

So I ask, why?

[MeeposFire]

I am having real trouble coming to grips with the DM saying this was for realism by saying you should only be able to take 1 action and your reaction is like your action as if "actions" as the game calls them actually exist (especially in 6 second intervals).