Note: This discussion does not focus on the action economy of reactions in Pathfinder Playtest, but rather how they’re used to implement special abilities meant to create gameplay with combat-oriented characters and monsters.

Deep tactical combat in tabletop games often arise from a variety of game mechanics that influence player decisions. One such influence lies with retaliation mechanics, which affect a player’s decision making by allowing enemies to punish certain actions. Attacks of Opportunity from Pathfinder and D&D 3rd Edition represent an example of this by allowing any melee combatant to gain a free attack on an enemy performing certain actions.

How was I supposed to know this seemingly ordinary orc gets a free critical hit every time I quote Monty Python?

The Pathfinder Playtest tries to test a replacement for attacks of opportunity for the upcoming release of Pathfinder 2nd Edition at Gen Con 2019. This replacement removes attacks of opportunity from almost all characters, and introduces specialized “reactions” to combat characters. The assumed goal is to add more variety in ways combat characters and monsters can retaliate against certain actions and, therefore,  provide greater variance in player tactics against enemies.

Unfortunately, my analysis and playtest experiences show otherwise. The martial reaction paradigm not only fails to fill the purpose of attacks of opportunity, but also struggles to create tactical decision-making because an enemy’s available reactions are not adequately conveyed to players to allow them to change tactics.

In other words, you cannot preemptively react to reactions. You cannot change your decision-making in response to a retaliation ability that the game provides little to no way for you to anticipate or learn about. Often in playtests, a player doesn’t learn about a reaction until they accidentally trigger it and get punished for something they could not anticipate.

Below, I go into further detail why and how this is a problem and suggest possible solutions.

Attacks of Opportunity in Pathfinder 1st Edition

To understand the problem, we have to understand the goals of attacks of opportunity from Pathfinder 1st Edition.

When any creature performs certain actions within melee range of an opponent, that opponent has the ability to perform an attack of opportunity (a free melee attack). Characters can typically only perform one attack of opportunity per round. An attack of opportunity can not only punish actions, but also interrupt certain actions such as spellcasting. Actions that provoke attacks of opportunity include spellcasting, ranged attacks, disengaging from melee combat, and tactical options such as picking up items and drinking potions.

This simple system accomplishes a number of goals.

1. Creates interesting dynamics between melee and ranged combat. Attacks of opportunity primarily punish actions that otherwise counter melee fighters. High mobility, spellcasting, and ranged attacks counter melee combatants by affecting them in ways that the melee fighters cannot defend or retaliate against. It’s no coincidence that these are the primary actions that provoke attacks of opportunity. Attacks of opportunity ensure the melee combatants have a significant advantage in melee range. It rewards melee combatants for overcoming their range disadvantage and punishes ranged combatants for failing to exploit their range advantage.
2. Facilitates melee combatants as a crowd control role. By having melee combatants be threatening outside their turn, the game allows melee fighters to control the battlefield with their positioning. This functions as a cornerstone of gameplay for a player with a melee characters.

These goals seek to create gameplay.

The key enabler for these goals lies with the fact that all characters are aware of attacks of opportunity. Any character with a melee weapon can perform an attack of opportunity. Thus, players can make decisions to either take advantage of attacks of opportunity or avoid them. The threat of the attack creates gameplay, not necessarily the attack itself.

In fact, gamemasters typically warn players when a decision will provoke an attack of opportunity, because presenting tough tactical choices is the ultimate goal of attacks of opportunity. Not tricking players with “gotcha” moments where they take damage for no anticipated reason.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with Pathfinder Playtest’s martial reactions.

Reactions in Pathfinder Playtest

The Pathfinder Playtest removes attacks of opportunity as a universal ability. Instead, many monsters and combat character classes gain combat reactions, which are special abilities that trigger based on some criteria. While great for adding variety, it has some critical problems observed from playtesting.

1. Lack of transparency. Monsters and PCs have no means of finding out an opponent’s reaction unless they accidentally trigger it. This has always been the case with my players, leading to frustrating moments where the players felt they were punished for not knowing something that’s impossible for their characters to learn. The playtest also has surprisingly vague rules for identifying monsters and their abilities despite each monster having a discrete list of special abilities.
2. Opponents cannot play around them without metagaming. Martial reactions have inconsistent influences on gameplay and tactics because characters cannot “read” or anticipate reactions. Many monsters don’t have reactions. Monsters that do have reactions have wildly varying triggers.As a result of this consistency, most players simply use tactics as if each monster did not have any reactions, defeating one of the key purposes of having martial reactions. Players that encountered a monster before then feel compelled metagame.

3. Do not fulfill the same purpose as Attacks of Opportunity. As discussed before, attacks of opportunity in Pathfinder 1st Edition fulfilled several key goals in creating ranged/melee dynamics and facilitating melee fighters as a form of battlefield control by virtue of the threat of retaliation. A system of giving each combat character a different reaction that cannot be anticipated does not fill the gap of removing attacks of opportunity.
4. Reactive rather than proactive. Most martial reactions are meant to protect allies by punishing enemies for certain actions. As a subject better elaborated in a future article, protection mechanics tend to feel most satisfying and healthy for a game when they are proactive rather than reactive.For example, casting mirror image feels satisfying even if an enemy never attacks you because it could dissuade them from engaging you. The Pathfinder Playtest’s Retributive Strike (where the paladin gets a free attack on enemies that damage allies) feels less satisfying for playtesters because it feels more incidental when it triggers rather than the consequence of a deliberate tactic. (There are also other problems with this ability, such as the fact that it only triggers when the character fails in her role as a protector).Previous editions of D&D, Pathfinder, and other roleplaying games show that proactive abilities tend to make for more fun, healthier gameplay.

5. PC reactions are not engaging. Most martial reactions that players receive feel very bland and situational where monsters get very interesting ones. Thus, the mechanic feels more like it’s meant to punish players rather than give them options to fulfill battlefield roles.

Proposed Solutions

As an engineer, I never like pointing out problems without considering or suggesting ways to fix them. I propose one or more of the following solutions to remedy the above issues without requiring unreasonable overhaul of the Pathfinder Playtest so far.

Stances or Readying Reactions. Martial characters could “ready” or prepare reactions like how wizards prepare spells. Alternatively, martial characters could have reactions that are only available when the character enters a combat stance. This has a number of benefits.

1. It fixes problems #1 and #2 by having a visual hint that a character gains access to reaction ability when they ready them or enter a stance.
2. It lessens the impact of #3 by having clearer purposes and roles that the reactions fulfill.
3. It fixes #4 by having these reactions available when a player makes a proactive choice.
4. It creates a larger design space for interesting class features. This not only fixes #5 but also helps martial classes feel more fun. Martial classes like the paladin and fighter have felt underwhelming and lacking identity in the playtest.
5. It allows martial characters to have more reactions since most are mutually exclusive in their availability.

Marking. D&D 4th Edition had mechanics where a character could “mark” an enemy and punish them whenever they perform an undesired. A less metagamey version of this mechanic could work in Pathfinder 2nd Edition where a character or monster could challenge or focus on a particular opponent, gaining special reactions against them. Like with my previous suggestion, this fixes problems with martial reactions by having descriptive hints, creating proactive gameplay, and expanding design space.

Better identification. Pathfinder Playtest has vague rules on how a GM adjudicates characters identifying monsters and their abilities. Providing more concrete rules for this would help with the opacity of martial reactions.

Giving attack of opportunity to all characters. I put this bottom on the list due to the widespread impact it would have on the game and defeating the design space of the martial reaction paradigm. However, it would help restore some of the dynamics that were lost from the transition from 1st Edition to 2nd Edition in the playtest.

Conclusion

Information hiding has its place in games, but can undermine gameplay arising from mechanics that rely on characters and players having knowledge to make tactical decisions. This is the case with martial reactions as implemented in the Pathfinder Playtest. The playtest seems to make a bold stride towards streamlining combat while also adding depth. However, there are a number of issues from the current implementation in the playtest that hinder that path. I hope to see those issues addressed as I look forward to the release of Pathfinder 2nd Edition!