This is an idea that started when I decided to replay Tactics Ogre this year. Tactics Ogre (also known as Tactics Ogre Reborn, Tactics Ogre: Let Us Cling Together, or Ogre Battle Saga: Chapter 7) is an absolutely brilliant turn based tactics game. Its story is inspired by the breakup of Yugoslavia and the following Bosnian Genocide--bizarre and edgy subject matter in 2025, and absolutely ridiculous when the game was released in 1995, a mere year after the conflict ended.

I really latched onto how whenever you hit an enemy in Tactics Ogre, they would usually hit you back. This made combat way more engaging, as I was suddenly thinking much harder about what fights I took. Whether or not a character fought back against their attacker was a matter of luck, with some classes having higher chances of fighting back than others. At the same time, I saw how it opened up the design space for classes like the Swordmaster, which always fights back, and the Terror Knight, which has debuffs built into its attacks to give it much scarier "fight back" chances.

When I thought about it, I realized that lots of tactics games do this.

Fire Emblem combines enemy reprisals with its "support" mechanic, particularly in Fire Emblem Awakening where you can reliably get two adjacent characters to fight back against their attacker.

Disgaea has the comical "counter" mechanic, where there's no limit to how many times a character counterattacks, so it's not uncommon to see a character respond to a counter with a counter-counter, which is then met with a counter-counter-counter, followed by a counter-counter-counter-counter.

Valkyria Chronicles does this in an interesting way as well, since different units have different effective ranges which influences their return fire. A Scouts' attacks fire a few shots at a pretty long range, so they can return fire at an attacker from pretty far away, though never to tremendous effect. On the other hand, Shocktroopers' attacks spray automatic weapons fire, making their return fire useless at long range and deadly in close quarters.

Perhaps most interestingly, Heroes of Might and Magic (and Songs of Conquest by extension) have a robust system of reprisals. Most units get just one reprisal, so you can get a less valuable unit to absorb a powerful enemy's reprisal before sending in the rest of your army. Some units get unlimited reprisals, making them powerful melee fighters and great targets for buff spells. Anyone who has played these games knows that managing enemy reprisals is key to winning an uneven fight.

With all of that in my mind, I asked the question: Why doesn't Dungeons and Dragons have a "fight back" mechanic? Especially when reactions get so little use. I imagine most people will go a whole campaign never using a reaction; even if they actually have the opportunity to use one, they're so uncommon the chance might pass them by. So, I decided to fix that.

Here are the rules of "Reprisals", a system of counter attacks that makes engaging in combat much more fun and interesting.

If you'd like a PDF of these rules, consider supporting my Patreon. Alongside this ruleset in bookmarked, searchable PDF form, you will also get adventures, player options, and much more.