Divinity Mechanics
The 5e "Divinity" system is inspired by the action economy from Divinity Original Sin 2.
Premise
Combat works the same as before, but instead of 1 action, 1 bonus action, and 30ft of movement, players now have 4 Action Points (AP) to spend as they wish, plus an additional 2 Reaction Points (RP) for use between turns.
Cost Structure
Action and Reaction costs within Divinity 5e are shown below:
| Actions | Bonus Actions | Movement | General Reaction Readied Action |
Class/Feature Reaction |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 AP | 1 AP | 1 AP per halved movement speed |
2 RP | 1 RP |
All action- and reaction points refresh at the start of players' rounds
Action Points
For a list on actions you can do during combat, see Crobi's Quick References.
In Divinity Combat, anything you can use an action on, such as Attacking, Dashing and Disengaging costs 2AP to be used
Bonus Actions, however, can be done using just 1 AP, making them cheap and versatile. However, for balancing purposes, each different bonus action can only be used once each turn. This means, that taking a bonus action on things such as an Offhand Attack can only be done once, though it is possible to do multiple different bonus actions per turn.
Movement in Divinity Combat takes 1 AP per half of your movement speed. This includes moving, climbing, swimming, crawling, and flying. On effects that reduce the player's speed, the movement using 1 AP is calculated using the new speed, rounding down to the nearest 5ft
Example: Crawling halves a player's speed from 30 to 15, 1 AP of movement equals half, i.e. 7.5ft, which then rounds down to the closest 5, making the distance a player with 30 speed can crawl to be 5 ft using a single action point.
What this all means for players, is that they get more they can do on their turns. Using their full movement and and doing an attack in 5e Combat would constitute burning 4 AP, which is what this combat system is based on. Of course, this system effectively removes one bonus action from play, but it offers more variety in combat as a compromise.
Inspiration Burn
A feature this combat system adds, is the possibility to use Inspirations to acquire more AP in combat, a Heroic Inspiration can be expended for 2 AP, whereas a bardic inspiration can be exchanged for 1 AP.
Reaction Points
Each turn, players get 2 RP to react to events outside their own turns.
Typically, players only get one reaction per turn, such as an attack of opportunity, the only difference here is that now if you have an ability or feature that lets you perform different kinds of reactions, their cost is reduced to 1 RP, letting you use them twice in-between rounds.
These are different from Readied Actions or Attacks of opportunity, that still require 2 RP to be performed.
Examples of reactions that take 1 RP are spells such as Counterspell, Shield or the monk's Deflect Missiles.
Ready Action
Using the Ready action costs 2 AP and can be used to do one of two things:
- Ready 2 AP for use on your next round.
- Ready 1 RP for use in-between rounds.
Readying a reaction also allows you to specify a trigger for an action to occur in-between rounds, taking 2 RP should it be triggered.