Removing the bonus action - analysis
Okay, so recently Mike Mearls has sparked some controversy and conversation with his comments that 5th edition would work better without the bonus action. At first, I was skeptic, just like a lot of other people on these forums. But then, I started thinking about it. Wouldn’t the game be easier and more fluid, if you didn’t have these weird, unintuitive bonus actions cluttering the playing field? But can it be balanced? Can it actually work?I decided to dig into the source material and attempt to do it. I’ve made an analysis of all features that make use of the bonus action in the PHB, and converted them to a bonus action-less system. My changes are in the attached document, but most of them can be boiled down to the following:
If a feature says ‘as a bonus action on your turn, you can do XX’, it instead says ‘once on your turn, you can do XX’.
And, to my surprise, I actually didn’t find it hard to do at all. The wording doesn't need to be overly complex, and the balance changes to individual features are miniscule. However, it does raise some issues.
There are three main issues that come to mind, when you think about saying goodbye to the bonus action. These are:
- Spellcasting
- Two-weapon fighting
- Stacking bonus actions
Spellcasting
Let’s start with spellcasting, which might sound problematic, but is actually a non-issue. You change the casting time of all bonus action spells from:
Casting Time: 1 bonus action
to
Casting Time: None
Then you change the rules surrounding casting these spells from:
A spell cast with a bonus action is especially swift. You must use a bonus action on your turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven’t already taken a bonus action this turn. You can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action.
to
Some spells don’t have a casting time. They can be cast on your turn without using your action. If you cast a spell with no casting time, you can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a casting time of 1 action.
In effect, this doesn’t change anything at all. You still can’t cast multiple spells of 1st level or higher on the same turn. Easy fix. The only imbalance comes, again, with stacking other things that aren't bonus actions any more, with casting a spell (which we will get into later).
Two-weapon Fighting
This one is a bit trickier. Not because it’s hard to word, but because it has a bigger immediate effect on balance. You change the rule from:
When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can use a bonus action to attack with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand.
to
When you take the Attack action and attack with a light melee weapon that you’re holding in one hand, you can also make an attack with a different light melee weapon that you’re holding in the other hand.
An easy fix, but obviously two-weapon fighting becomes stronger, since you can now use other bonus actions together with the two-weapon attack.
As the rules are before the change, two-weapon fighting is already the strongest choice for characters with only 1 attack (not including feats), and especially so, if they also have the dual wielding fighting style. This change increases that imbalance by not having a bonus action trade-off. However, two-weapon fighting is still inferior in terms of damage output when you consider characters with more than 1 attack.
In the long term, the change is not too significant for classes that gain multiple attacks. It is, however, significant for classes that never get a second attack, and who want to be in melee, such as the cleric and the rogue. The change for the cleric, however, is also neglible because sacred flame will outpace two-weapon fighting from level 5 and onwards. But the rogue does benefit a lot from this change. This leads us to the next issue.
Stacking Bonus Actions
This is probably the biggest change to balance. Where a rogue before would have to choose between dashing, hiding or disenganging, or making that off-hand attack, when deciding how to use their bonus action, they can now do both. And you can easily conjure up situations in your head, where a character might gain the ability to dash or make a bonus attack for free from multiple features, which could make them way too powerful. This can be mitigated with the following general rule:
You can only perform any specific Action once on your turn. For example, you can’t Hide with the rogue’s ‘Cunning Action’ at the start of your turn, and then use the ranger’s ‘Vanish’ action to Hide again at the end of your turn. You can, however, use the ranger’s ‘Vanish’ feature to Hide once during your turn, and the rogue’s ‘Cunning Action’ to also Dash on the same turn. The only exception to this rule is the fighter's 'Action Surge' feature.
Additionally, you can’t benefit from two sources that grant you an extra attack as part of your Attack action. For example, you can’t gain both an extra attack from the berserker’s ‘Frenzy’ feature and the Monk’s ‘Martial Arts’ feature on the same turn. The only exception to this rule is the ‘Extra Attack’ feature.
This rule has the added benefit of not allowing characters to triple dash (which makes a Rogue faster at level 2, than a barbarian at level 5). But wait, you might say, then you can still make some crazy character, like a bard/barbarian/rogue, who would be able to Dash from rogue’s ‘Cunning Action’, go into a rage with the Barbarian’s ‘Rage’, inspire an ally with the bard’s ‘Bardic Inspiration’ make an attack and another attack from berserker’s ‘Frenzy’? The answer is yes, but if you consider a character actually doing all this in six seconds, it is not entirely unrealistic:
The character dashes towards his enemy, while working himself into a murderous rage, emitting a roar that inspires his ally and then throwing himself at the enemy with abandon.
And he wouldn’t be able to do all of it on each of his turns. I don’t think that this would break the game or make that character too powerful, in any way, shape or form. Sure, there might be edge cases where players could concoct some crazy multiclassed builds, but overall the change is not dramatic.
So, to summarize, I think it is actually quite doable to remove the bonus action in 5th edition, and it might even make the game more fluid and easier to keep track off. It does increase the power of some classes, but not in a way that isn’t manageable, if you implement the following (abbreviated) rules:
- You still can only cast one spell of 1st level or higher on your turn.
- You can’t stack features that grant you additional attacks (except from Extra Attack).
- You can’t perform more of the same Actions on your turn (except when using Action Surge).
-----
So, what do you think? I am sure I have missed something, but I don't think Mearls' rule change is actually as gamebreaking as it might have sounded initially. Also, I apologize for making a new thread, when there's already one running, but I hope the work done warrants it.
Happy D&D'ing.
View attachment Goodbye Bonus Action.pdf
NOTE: I haven't come around to the wizard, feats and spells in the attached document, but the mode of change should be fairly apparent from what's already there.
