If the enemy attacks my character (or any other action happens), while the animation plays, I can press the button (space for example) and the animation stops. Then a pop up menu comes down with all the options for reactions.
Then, I do not have to click away a smite (y/n) pop up menu after every single hit, but only if I choose to smite. Bards do not have to click away a reaction menu after literally anything that happens, but rather, they can flexibly decide what ability check, attack roll etc they want to apply their inspiration to.
I can understand where you're coming from, sort of, but the issue here is that you're suggesting that the actual combat flow itself - the animations as taken - would need to be slowed down sufficiently enough to allow a reasonable window for players to
see what is happening and react to whether they wish to prompt for a reaction or not.
You'd be doing this
Universally. If you don't slow everything down enough, then it doesn't provide a sufficient window for players to react, and is a brutally unfriendly system that punishes players for taking a moment to think, or for not knowing the rules by heart. You're basically suggesting that they slow down the entire game
substantially, in order to avoid a prompt that could be resolved much more quickly, and only shows up when it's relevant - even if that's often it won't be as often as a universal slow down of all situations that
could be reacted to in some way.
What you're suggesting
Would slow do the game down immensely.
What you're suggesting is that the game give a window of opportunity for a player to react - but without telling them if they actually can, or what they can react with - as opposed to doing that exact same thing when only when it is relevant and with the necessary supporting information supplied.
With the discourse that discusses how a prompting system might work and what options may be available, a strong suggest has been that one of the options be that the prompts have a time window; that they appear while the animation plays, slowing down to a terminus point, and either (depending on player option preference) times out and continues with no reaction, or pauses and waits for a decision. People who pick quickly would experience no slow down at all, and those who wish to think can. this sounds to match mostly what you want, or are suggesting, but it comes as part of an actual prompted reaction system.
