The basic rules of Turn-Based Combat dictate that a player can only act in their turn. During one player's turn, all other players are prohibited from taking action, and must wait until it's their turn to take action. This makes combat and strategizing far easier, but reduces the game's interactivity, as one or more players are essentially locked out of the gameplay outside of their turns.
Some turn-based games have thus introduced effects or mechanics that let players take actions outside of their turn. By allowing players to surprise their enemies with actions outside of their turn, this brings in some of the excitement from the rapid back-and-forth interactivity of real-time games, while remaining within the turn-based mechanical structure.
Depending on the game design, there are a few ways to design this sort of interaction:
- Control: Does the owner have free control when the out-of-turn interaction happens, or is it only usable in response to specific conditions set up by the opponent?
- Knowledge: Are the conditions and effects of the out-of-turn interaction only known to its owner, or are they also revealed to the opponent?
The more freely the player can take actions outside of their turn, the more the game leans closer to a real-time game.
Note that this trope is not about automatic actions inherent within the game's combat mechanics, such as random misses. Some level of conscious player input is required to qualify as an example of this trope.
Examples:
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Card Games
- In Duel Masters, breaking a shield with a Shield Trigger ability allows the player to immediately play the shield card at no cost, in the middle of the opponent's attack step. This makes every shield attack a risky move, as one Shield Trigger can easily upset the game state and turn the tide against the attacking player.
- Exploding Kittens features Nope cards, which can be played at any time to stop another player from doing the action on the card they just played. They can regain the ability by playing another Nope card on you, though.
- The Barking Kittens expansion contains Alter the Future NOW cards, which allow you to immediately take the three top cards from the draw pile, and arrange them however you want before putting them back.
- In Magic: The Gathering, Instants spells and Flash effects can all be activated in the opponent's turn.
- Mao is a largely turn-based card game but has a few effects that apply outside of the turn order:
- Any player can give a penalty at any time.
- Laying a Jack allows any player to shout out a new suit to change to.
- A point of order can be called by any player at any time.
- Munchkin: Curses can be played from your hand at any time, including during another player's turn. The rulebook encourages using them to troll your fellow players by using a curse on them right when they think they've won a difficult combat against a monster.
- Several traditional turn-based card games have out-of-turn actions - the most commonly-known one is arguably Snap (players take turns to lay cards, but can call "Snap!" even if it isn't their turn). Slapjack and Egyptian Ratscrew are similar games that allow out-of-turn actions when a certain card configuration occurs.
- Yu-Gi-Oh!:
- Out-of-turn disruptions are extremely common in Yu-Gi-Oh!. All Spell Speed 2 and 3 effects can be activated in the opponent's turn (if the conditions are fulfilled), and these include Trap Cards, Monster Cards' Quick Effects, and Quick-Play Spell Cards. In addition, Trigger Effects by default can activate in the opponent's turn if their conditions are fulfilled, even though they are not Spell Speed 2. These disruptions have significantly shaped the way YGO is played nowadays, as players focus on building boards by creating disruptions for the opponent's turn, and playing through the opponent's disruptions to break the opponent's board.
- Out-of-turn disruptions are still present but far more downplayed in Yu-Gi-Oh! Rush Duel. There is no Spell Speed mechanic, only Trap cards can be activated on the opponent's turn, and all Monsters and Spells now only have Ignition effects, with Quick Effects, Quick-Plays, and Trigger Effects (on Monsters/Spells) all being cut. Meanwhile, Trap cards are now all exclusively Trigger Effects, with conditions based on the opponent's actions, and there are no conditionless trap cards in RD that can be freely activated by the controller on the opponent's turn.
Tabletop Games
- Champions. If a character is attacked by an opponent while it isn't their turn to act, they can abort (use up) their next regularly scheduled action to perform a defensive action and avoid damage. A defensive action includes defensive combat maneuvers like Block or Dodge or something like turning on a force field.
- Chess has a rule that a player may adjust his pieces if needed (the board gets jiggled, for instance) even when it's not his turn. This must be prefaced by "J'adoube," French for "I adjust." Nor can the piece be relocated to another square; it must remain in its place until that player's turn. Some public park hustlers abuse this rule to fiddle with their pieces to confuse an opponent.
- Dungeons & Dragons:
- Third Edition and its descendants (Pathfinder and Starfinder) allow characters to make an attack of opportunity (a free melee attack off-turn) if an opponent takes certain triggering actions (especially spellcasting) while in melee range. More generally, characters can take one "immediate action" (which includes attacks of opportunity) in between their turns, and subject to GM discretion, can take "free actions" (such as talking) at any time.
- Fifth Edition:
- Reactions are things that creatures can do in response to a certain trigger, even if it isn't their turn. The most common ones are Opportunity Attacks (allowing a single melee attack against a creature that leaves your reach) or casting a reactionary spell like shield or counterspell.
- Some monsters have Legendary Actions, which are special actions they can take when it's not their turn. Some of these are abilities or attacks that the monster can't use on their normal turn.
- Monopoly: Although it's turn-based, Monopoly allows trades to be conducted at any time. If Player 3 rolls doubles and completes a color group, it's still 3's turn. However, Players 1 and 2 can make trades to complete a set, or get 2 of 3 in a group, to compete with Player 3.
- The Order of the Stick Adventure Game: The Dungeon of Dorukan includes "Screw This!" cards with special actions and conditions for how and when they can be used. Some, like the card enabling Ninja Looting, can be played when it isn't the player's turn.
- Res Arcana:
- "React" powers can be used out of your turn as long as the required situation happens (such as an attack or a victory check) and you can pay the cost.
- The Perlae Imperii Expansion Pack introduces pearls, which can be converted into other resources out of turn when using a React power or when responding to a React power condition.
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay:
- By default, creatures with melee weapons get a free out-of-turn attack against an enemy who moves outside their melee range.
- In 2nd Edition, a character can spend a half-action to "delay", then cut in at any time before the beginning of their next turn to perform their second half-action.
- Wingspan: Several birds have abilities that activate once per round when it isn't your turn: most of them are some variant of giving you food if your opponent performs a certain action. A stranger one is the Common Cuckoo, whose ability lets it lay an egg in another bird's nest when another player lays eggs.
Video Games
- Square Enix's Bravely games:
- Bravely Default: The Bravely Second mechanic allows the player take an action at any point during a battle, even during animations of other actions, whether they're the player's or the enemy's. It's limited by costing one SP to use, up to three of which can be gradually accumulated by leaving the 3DS in Sleep Mode with the game still running, or you can spend real money to buy an SP Drink.
- Bravely Second:
- The Bravely Second mechanic returns from the first game, again allowing the player take an action at any point during a battle, limited by costing one SP to use, with a maximum stock of three. But in this game, SP accumulates whenever the game is running, without needing to put the 3DS in Sleep Mode, though you can still spend real money to buy SP Drinks.
- The second form of the final boss has a move called New World Order that it can use while the player is choosing commands. It only does mild damage to the party and it's not used often, but new players definitely get surprised the first time they see it.
- In Divinity: Original Sin and Original Sin II, creatures with the Talent "Opportunist" automatically make an out-of-turn attack when an enemy in melee range moves away from them. It works once per turn of combat.
- In The Final Fantasy Legend, combat is normally divided into rounds where you commit all of your characters' actions before it plays out those actions, enemies included. The final boss, God, can randomly attack between rounds, during the selection process.
- For the King:
- Player characters can swap out their equipped items and pass inventory items to each other at any time, although they can only use consumables during their turn — potentially a major boost, given the Equipment-Based Progression.
- "Encourage" is a passive ability that has a chance to trigger during an ally's turn and grant the ally a successful skill roll. "Distraction" is its opposite, forcing a failure on an enemy's turn.
- In Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, the Mario Bros. have special abilities (Hero Sight and Steely Stare) that allow them to attack out-of-turn, similar to X-Com's Overwatch.
- Prayer of the Faithless: Counter Attacks, which trigger immediately when an enemy attempts to hit the counterer, usually work this way, because most characters have a Counter Chance of 0%, and need equipment or special moves to bring it to a positive number. Amalie is an exception, with her percentage starting at a base of 5%, due to a passive ability.
- Shin Megami Tensei:
- The recurring passive skills Counter and "Retaliate may cause the user to attack during the enemy's turn if they're hit with a physical attack. Shin Megami Tensei IV introduces Ally Counter and Ally Retaliate, which cause this to happen if an ally is hit with a physical attack.
- In Shin Megami Tensei Liberation: Dx2, some skills allow the user to activate a Chain Effect, which occurs when certain conditions are met, and don't affect the user's Press Turns, even if they miss or are blocked in some way.
- Worms WMD adds a crafting system that is accessible even out of turn. It doubles as an anti-frustration feature since WMD allows for massive online multiplayer battles, with up to 8 teams.
- X-COM: UFO Defense allows any soldier with enough time units at the end of their turn a chance (based on the unit's Reaction skill) to shoot on an enemy they can see while that enemy is moving. This is called reaction fire, and is a key tactic for ambushes, as it allows units the chance to interrupt and hopefully kill an enemy before the enemy can attack. It's not as good as shooting on your turn, however: reaction fire has an innate penalty to accuracy, and can only use the Snap Shot attack, which is generally the lowest accuracy single shot attack available.
- In XCOM: Enemy Unknown, Overwatch is an activated ability that ends a unit's turn. During the enemy turn, if an enemy moves within range of the Overwatch, the unit will attempt to shoot that enemy. There are also a number of abilities that improve on Overwatch, such as activating Overwatch automatically if the unit spends their entire turn moving, and allowing multiple Overwatch attacks per turn (normally, only one Overwatch attack is possible). There's also Suppression, which does not damage and consumes a lot of ammunition, but greatly lowers the target's accuracy and grants a free attack on the target if it does anything but shoot at the Suppressing soldier.
- The sequel gives even more out-ot-turn actions, such as Bladestorm (automatically attack any unit that walks into melee range), Return Fire (shoot at any enemy that shoots at you but doesn't hit you), and Sustain (automatically survive a lethal wound and become immune to damage until your next turn). The Alien Hunters DLC adds the Alien Rulers, who are walking, talking, dangerous Out Of Turn Action beasts: after every action by your soldiers, the Alien Ruler will get an actionnote . This means that moving a soldier to get out of range of an Alien Ruler's attack may result in the Alien Ruler immediately moving back into range, for example, or worse, just straight up attacking the unit that moved anyway, making them exceedingly dangerous.
