D&D 5E Additional Bonus Actions / Reactions for Monsters

[Dragonsbane]

Although I have been a DM for decades, I find myself needing advice. I have two players new to my group in the last few months, and they are total pros at using as many bonus actions and reactions as possible. It was almost comical as I would call out the next player and hear "I'm not done" constantly until I got used to them taking multiple actions all the time.

I need some generic bonus actions and reactions monsters can take. Currently I am using things like Parry, Absorb Elements, and Shield on some monsters, but I don't want to overuse them or be a reactionary DM.

QUESTION: Do you use any generic reactions or bonus actions with your monsters or NPCs? Please enlighten me!

 

[Baldurs_Underdark]

I recognize your situation, and I want to make some on-topic and off-topic comments.

On topic

• Legendary actions were invented for this problem. If the monster is a BBEG (end-boss), nothing stops you from inventing your own set of appropriate legendary actions.
• Lair actions can also help. Devious tricks that the inhabitant of whatever house/tower/dungeon has crafted to screw with the intruders. Anything with a half-decent intelligence can build these, and very powerful monsters innately influence their surroundings.
• You can give the Sentinel feat to some of your monsters. I made a soldier with a 10 ft spear (i.e. it has 10 ft reach), and gave it sentinel. Then I put 5 of them onto the board. Players were very restricted, but it was an interesting fight.

Off topic (or rather, related to the topic)

• Balance between PCs. The issue you describe is not a problem as long as everyone is having fun. If there is a serious imbalance between the different PCs (i.e. two are taking up the bulk of the DM's attention, and/or do significantly more damage than the others in combat), and if other players are bothered by this, the solution is to discuss this at the table. An easy solution is to pimp the other PCs with some magic items, or with some pro-tips (maybe from those two players?) how to increase the damage output.
• Monsters die too soon. If you see an imbalance where your monsters are just defeated too soon, there is really no problem. Firstly you have to accept that the PCs are really the heroes of the story. You can discuss with the players if they agree that the combat is too easy. If you all agree that the combat is too easy (or that the PCs are too powerful), then you should discuss how to overcome this. Note that the DM can always just up the CR of a combat. Just add more monsters (or implement any of the on-topic ideas).

 

[Benjamin Olson]

What you've done is fine but avoid handing out lots of reactions, they slow the game down. Higher level enemies already have legendary actions to work outside of their turns, but actually interrupting someone else's turn with a reaction both complicates things and makes life unnecessarily complicated for a DM. 5e reactions are meant to be pretty limited and circumstantial things, your players have just carefully optimized to make wider use of them within the constraints of player action economy, but that does not mean that that is the best place for you to match the arms race given that you can just give an enemies multiattack as many attacks as you want or whatever, as well as throw in legendary actions, lair actions, and any bonus action you can dream up. You have enough to think about when a player says what they are doing without having to think about multiple possible special reactions an enemy might take. Also reactions are important even when they are not used as so long as someone has their reaction still they are an attack of opportunity threat, which defines what mobility is possible on the battlefield.

Bonus actions are a better, easier to handle place to beef up your monsters as they are handled on the monster's turn so you only have to think about them when the monster's turn comes around, and many monster's have no way to use a bonus action as written while virtually all can currently use reactions already for opportunity attacks and held actions when circumstances permit. Some good generic bonus actions to give them are disengage, dash, or if you want to frustrate players hide. Misty step like teleportation on a bonus action is not particularly uncommon, so nobody can complain if you give it to some other monster, particularly if they are some sort of fey or other inter-planar being. Large creatures swallowing players they have grappled is always a pretty good bonus action.

But, once again, remember that you can also just give a monster a stronger action. Players have to build towards making consistant use of bonus actions. I play with a guy who has a Berserker Barbarian War Cleric with Great Weapon master, meaning he can take a bonus action attack while doing a frenzied rage, after a kill, after a crit, and twice a day when he chooses from the War Cleric feature. So he gets his third attack as a bonus actions most turns in combat when he doesn't have to use it to rage. But a DM can just look at a creature stat block with two attack multiattack and just change it to three attack multiattack, because they are not bound by player character creation rules, and that is a lot simpler and achieves the same thing as the player needed to cobble together and keep track of three special abilities for.

 

[Helldritch]

I think a bit more details are needed to better assess your situation.
Character's builds and an example of a problematic encounter might help us in helping you better than to give general advice.

 

[Dragonsbane]

Builds are a Warforged Armor Artificer and a Pala/Hexblade.

An example of an encounter would be the 3rd level group taking down 20+ kobolds including a caster (the only effective one) and barely getting hurt. Another I used hulkified kobolds affected by fey dust (campaign involves fighting fey and a forest takeover) that had AC 18 and 60+ hp, and they still killed them fast. What slowed the group down was traps and a fireball, but using a fireball on 3rd or 4th level PCs can't really happen all that often without killing the non-optimized PCs (again, even with the fireball the Warforged did Absorb Elements reaction).

TBH it isn't those encounters or the optimized builds really, it is just the action economy, it seems out of balance with these particular PCs, although it seems there are more and more bonus actions and reactions with additional splat books these days.

I like the advice on bonus actions like the Rogue bonus actions or the Misty Step already. I guess I will make a list or generic bonus actions for use with any monsters.

 

[Guest User]

5e is the "Tucker's Goblins" edition, precisely due to this.

Terrain is always important. Flatland style terrain usually advantages the players.
Adding level changes, and including difficult terrain that also serve as traps,( and has features both the PCs and opposition can use), can wildly change an encounter.

A Rogue that is using their Bonus Action to Dash due to terrain constraints, I find, is less disruptive, (in general), than the rogue that is using their BA to Hide every round.

AC 18 and 60 HP is a Yakfolk wearing Plate Mail armor...so it is conceivably equivalent to a top Tier, CR 2 creature. The question I have, is what was the custom creatures damage output?

A greatsword wielder with a +6 total attack modifier is going to hit AC 18 about 45% of the time. The hit percentage jumps to about 70% with Advantage.
DPR-Wise, base damage output is between 16 points per round up to 25 points with Advantage. (Str 16, +1 Greatsword).

So a single Kobold Hulk, would last around 4 rounds against this non-optimized set of assumptions. Against your two optimized PC's...a Kobold Hulk is probably lasting 2 rounds.

Grapples severely disrupt action economy. At 4th level no one has extra attack.
Also Nets, are overpowered in 5e, have the Kobolds throw some nets.

 

[Randomthoughts]

I need some generic bonus actions and reactions monsters can take. Currently I am using things like Parry, Absorb Elements, and Shield on some monsters, but I don't want to overuse them or be a reactionary DM.

QUESTION: Do you use any generic reactions or bonus actions with your monsters or NPCs? Please enlighten me!

Besides the ones that all creatures have (like AoO or Ready Action), not really. For a "named" NPC who served as a body guard type, I gave him the equivalent of the Sentinel feat. For run-of-the-mill monsters, I usually don't add additional BAs or reactions. However, I am contemplating importing some 4e "signature abilities" like Kobold's Shiftiness that would be a BA.

I think you have to identify what problem you want to solve. The fact that PC use their bonus actions and reactions isn't a big deal IME as they need to use those for spells or abilities (like spiritual weapon or hunters mark) or set up other actions like Hide or Disengage for a rogue.

If you're concerned about action economy (i.e., monsters have too few actions), you can always add more of them. That's what I tend to do since I usually run Hard - Deadly encounters and prefer set piece battles.

If you're concerned about action economy for a single monster, Legendary and Lair Actions provide an answer. I think the problem is that Legendary Actions (as currently used) are reserved for a select few (and always involve 3 LA). I've used a lesser version of 1-2 Legendary Actions for what I call "Elite" and "Solo" versions (borrowing from 4e parlance). There's rules on the internet and DMGuild on this so they are readily available. I find LA to be a better solution than reactions since they don't interrupt a PC's turn (and I don't have to remember if I used that creature's reaction earlier that round).

You don't mention this, but your concern could be more about "finding something interesting that monsters can do" beyond their typical bite/claw/melee attack pattern. To that end, I've used 4e monster abilities to liven things up (but again, they tend not to be reactions or bonus actions).

 

[Odysseus]

What I do is
For Solos lair/legendary actions.
For boss monsters I'll add Boss monster actions, something similar to lair/legendary actions, to make the Boss a little bit more interesting.
And in general for all monsters I try and optimize them a little. Give them more relevant skills/powers for their situation. Give them some sort of reaction and bonus power. At the moment these tend to be a bit adhoc. Examples are parry, disengage, dodge ,trample, grab, blind ,trip, intimidate, push,help another, heal, hide, disarm, spit, gouge, etc

 

[Weiley31]

Don't forget class levels/features. Imagine a Kobold that has reckless attack AND a +3 to damage rolls due to rage bonus damage? Or an undead Warlock casting Eldritch Blast at the party and it has a high CHA AND the Agonizing Blast Invocation?

Or a Red Dragon with Meta Magic and spells? Or your humanoid party encounters a group of Bounty Hunters and their Favored Enemy/Foe is Humanoid? Etc, etc.

 

[RangerWickett]

I like adding some complexity to monsters, sure, but not through more actions. I like to make monsters pose dilemmas. I really like finding ways to telegraph a threat, which changes the parameters of the fight and makes it advantageous for the PCs to change tactics. That can be hard to do with multiple people all taking actions, though, since folks might lose track of what the danger is.

But, like, have a troll that hits with two of its attacks also grab the victim's limbs and start to tug. Tell the player that at the start of the troll's next turn, if the PC is still grabbed, he'll have to make a Str save or have one of his limbs ripped off. That suddenly motivates the party to respond, but it leaves options.

Do they try to free him by shoving the troll? Aid him so he can try to escape the grab? Attack the troll to try to kill it? Do something to give the PC a bonus to his save?