D&D 5E Mike Mearls - Reddit AMA

Kurotowa said:

My take is that the problem with Bonus Actions is that you can easily get competing options for them. One issue from this is that it can confuse new players or lead them intro traps. Another issue is that while it's sometimes clear that the design intent is to force you to choose between them, other times it feels like it's unintended and simply a side effect of only having the one option to plug non-Action actions into the game.

As an example of the first, Rogues really don't want to dual wield because it doesn't synergize with Sneak Attack and competes with Cunning Action. Nowhere is this directly explained by the PHB and more than once I've had to tell people that you want Fighter or Ranger for a dual wielding character, not Rogue.

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Actually dual wielding synergizes extremrlubwell with Sneak Attack, because it gives the rogue twice as many opportunities per turn to proc Sneak Attack, which is a the Rogue’s primary means of damage scaling. Fighter and ranger are better off going for a two-handed weapon, and rogue’s are really one of the only classes where going duse-wield actually improves your DPR. Additionally, Cunning Action is really there to give the Rogue something to do with his Bonus Action on turns where he lands Sneak Attack with the first Attack.

Kurotowa said:

As an example of the second, my Hexblade Warlock currently has the spell Hex, the class feature Hexblade's Curse, and the feat Shield Mastery all competing for the Bonus Action slot. Was that the intended result? Probably not, but with the current design that's how it has to end up.

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Hex isn’t really competing with Hexblade’s Curse and Shield Mastery for your Bonus Action any more than Eldritch Blast is competing with the Attack Action and the Help Action for your Action. The point is very explicitly to limit how many extra things you can do on your turn. Yeah, the name Bonus Action does kind of obfuscate that fact, but that is very much the intent. Or at least it was originally; I think Mearls has kind of lost sight of that.

Mearls' proposal to combine a bonus action with another ability is essentially identical to 4E powers.

neobolts said:

AMA has more hints of revisiting classic settings or a multi-setting book.

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Yep. I covered those in a later post. Mike stopped answering questions about 5 hours ago, but he says he'll revisit the thread over the rest of the week.

THEMNGMNT said:

Mearls' proposal to combine a bonus action with another ability is essentially identical to 4E powers.

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Not sure how... I mean, except in the sense that Powers are also an example of exceptions-based design. But so are spells, and spells are much closer to Powers (or vice versa, spells came first).

Charlaquin said:

Not sure how... I mean, except in the sense that Powers are also an example of exceptions-based design. But so are spells, and spells are much closer to Powers (or vice versa, spells came first).

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His example of allowing you to make an attack with healing word is straight out of the 4e cleric powers.

THEMNGMNT said:

Mearls' proposal to combine a bonus action with another ability is essentially identical to 4E powers.

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This is what I was how I was reading that as well. Essentially making double weildling a separate thing/ power.

I am not sure why this is a problem. Bonus actions are not a problem at my table. The different mechanics for spells with roll to hit/save/hp thresholds cause more confusion.

Mearls said:

On Changing 5e:
I'd remove bonus actions, rebuilding specific abilities to capture what they are trying to do. For instance, healing word could let heal someone and include a melee or ranged attack as part of the spell.

Bonus actions add complexity that doesn't need to be there. I like keeping things streamlined when I can.

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I agree that in general bonus actions aren't strictly needed in the game, but I am concerned about whether they can really remove them and maintain backward compatibility.

The main benefit of bonus actions is that they provide a simple rule to prevent using multiple special abilities in the same turn.

But of course, if each and every one of those special abilities became a new specific "action" (in the standard sense of the word), then you'd still be prevented to use more than one in the same turn. What you would lose, is the ability to combine the special ability with other basic actions.

Let's see the case for a bonus action spell.

In 5e you can:

1- attack and cast a bonus action spell
2- cast a cantrip and cast a bonus action spell
3- dash/dodge/disengage/help/hide/use an object/else and cast a bonus action spell

If Healing Word was changed to use a regular action, but to include a weapon attack, then the only thing you would still be able to do is 1.

To be honest, I wouldn't mind if that was the case. Sure it would be tactically more limited, but it would also be more simple, like in 3.0 and older editions where spells were always at least a standard action (except maybe Feather Fall and other reactive spells, but that's another matter). It would also get rid of the "cantrip only" additional rule, which frankly always slightly bothered me.

What about non-spell special abilities using a bonus action?

There is for example the Rogue's Cunning Action or the Bard's Inspiration. I am afraid they would all need to be addressed one by one, and decide whether each one should be turned into a non-action and thus stack with everything (this might be fine for single-classed PC, but may become overpowered in multiclassed PC), or an action and thus stack with nothing (but then it would become underpowered, so the current version of the ability would need a bump), or something more unique and thus stack with something only.

Then there are also some non-special abilities which use a bonus action.

Notably two-weapon fighting: maybe this should simply become a new regular combat "action", that allows a secondary attack in addition to your normal number of attacks.

neobolts said:

AMA has more hints of revisiting classic settings or a multi-setting book.

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This is what I'm hoping for at the very least!

He's basically just trying to sell us on a glacial expansion rate as if that was a good thing...

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Bonus actions aren't complicated - the exceptions surrounding them are.

I don't feel dual weilding should ever have been part of bonus actions. It should be almost exclusively for class based options. That way, you can attack once and do a class nased thimg once. Simple.

I do not at all the the simplified single action explanation. If i have 5 things i can do as a bonus actio and 5 main actions i can do for example, that gives me a combination of 15 different options i woukd have to list. So instead of 2 5 option lists i have a single 15 option list (shove and dash, attack and dash, shove and withdraw, etc ). This is not more simple.

No I'd argue that the implimentation of bonus actions could have been done in a moree clear fashion, but bonus actions themselves are a good thing.