D&D 5E Deleting Bonus Actions

[fearsomepirate]

Exactly, and that's a long possible of possible things a player could do every turn. (ObviousIy no one PC has all of these options, but even a few adds decision points and extra mechanics.) I don't think resolving 4-5 different activities every turn improves play at the table even if the player is 100% certain of them and doesn't have to decide anything.

RAW, right now, no house rules, an 11th-level Eldritch Knight with a sword in one hand can Move, Cast Spell, Action Surge, Draw Second Sword, Attack, Bonus Attack, Drop Second Sword, Shove, Grapple. That's 9 things. Deleting the bonus action economy, as I propose, might let him spend his Second Wind as well. Hardly game-breaking.

I just personally think you're minimizing the impact at the table of any yes/no decision that could be made, although the magnitude of the impact will depend on the players.

The issue is the way it screws up the mental map by adding a category with no obvious definition and one more resource to use. And for what? Some amount of complexity is necessary to even have a game, but every rule added introduces new failure points that slow down the game, so there needs to be a benefit to the complexity. So far, the sole real benefit to the bonus action economy is it prevents certain absurd multiclass combinations from having very weird turns, a benefit I think is vastly outweighed by the cost in terms of game delays, rules arguments, and trap options.

 

[fearsomepirate]

Sounds very complicated. Far more so than ‘you get one bonus action per round.’

Okay, what are your available bonus actions? As someone who regularly engages with the rules, I'm sure you know. You can probably list, from memory, every bonus action in the PHB. But the Ranger who plays once a month? No. He doesn't know. He knows he can order his Companion around, use Ensnaring Strike, and make an extra weapon attack with his second short sword. But, after a year of play, does he remember which combinations are legal, and which aren't? No. he does not. He never remembers that he can attack three times before telling his companion to Dodge, but if he tells his Companion to Disengage, he can only attack twice.

 

[Xeviat]

The worst part of bonus actions, aside from Two-weapon fighting, was the fiddly "you don't have a bonus action unless an ability gives you one" language. They were trying so hard to avoid the standard, move, minor economy from 3/4 that they confused a ton of my players.

 

[TwoSix]

RAW, right now, no house rules, an 11th-level Eldritch Knight with a sword in one hand can Move, Cast Spell, Action Surge, Draw Second Sword, Attack, Bonus Attack, Drop Second Sword, Shove, Grapple. That's 9 things. Deleting the bonus action economy, as I propose, might let him spend his Second Wind as well. Hardly game-breaking.

I'm not worried about the power level, I'm worried about the time of execution at the table. I'm not a big fan of multiple attacks with one action, either, but that's probably a bridge too far for a 5e hack.

The issue is the way it screws up the mental map by adding a category with no obvious definition and one more resource to use. And for what? Some amount of complexity is necessary to even have a game, but every rule added introduces new failure points that slow down the game, so there needs to be a benefit to the complexity. So far, the sole real benefit to the bonus action economy is it prevents certain absurd multiclass combinations from having very weird turns, a benefit I think is vastly outweighed by the cost in terms of game delays, rules arguments, and trap options.

That might be true, but I guess I'm just not seeing it. My players seem to get "pick a big action from this list, and a little action from that list" pretty easily. As I mentioned above, I find conditional BAs to be a much bigger pain, and would rather house rule those. But I'm interested to see how it tests out for you.

 

[JiffyPopTart]

Okay, what are your available bonus actions? As someone who regularly engages with the rules, I'm sure you know. You can probably list, from memory, every bonus action in the PHB. But the Ranger who plays once a month? No. He doesn't know. He knows he can order his Companion around, use Ensnaring Strike, and make an extra weapon attack with his second short sword. But, after a year of play, does he remember which combinations are legal, and which aren't? No. he does not. He never remembers that he can attack three times before telling his companion to Dodge, but if he tells his Companion to Disengage, he can only attack twice.

If someone can't correctly play their single classed 5e character after a year...then that player isn't going to correctly play their single classed 5e character regardless of what rules are in place.

 

[Xeviat]

I'm not worried about the power level, I'm worried about the time of execution at the table. I'm not a big fan of multiple attacks with one action, either, but that's probably a bridge too far for a 5e hack.

Someone else who might want to work on a Single Attack hack???

 

[jmartkdr2]

I'm not worried about the power level, I'm worried about the time of execution at the table. I'm not a big fan of multiple attacks with one action, either, but that's probably a bridge too far for a 5e hack.

Such a hack sounds nice, but I'd worry that with the current rules for attack accuracy, weapon-users would have too many turns where they make one roll, nothing happen, and then they have to wait ten minutes to go again.

(Spellcaster turns just take longer and are more likely to do something, so I don't see this rule speeding up play all that much by itself.)

You'd need to add degrees of success to the basic attack roll.

 

[TwoSix]

Such a hack sounds nice, but I'd worry that with the current rules for attack accuracy, weapon-users would have too many turns where they make one roll, nothing happen, and then they have to wait ten minutes to go again.

(Spellcaster turns just take longer and are more likely to do something, so I don't see this rule speeding up play all that much by itself.)

You'd need to add degrees of success to the basic attack roll.

Yea, it's not something I'm so overly concerned about that I feel the need to hack it; it's more of a nice-to-have for a future 6e (much like getting rid of BAs).

 

[TheSword]

Okay, what are your available bonus actions? As someone who regularly engages with the rules, I'm sure you know. You can probably list, from memory, every bonus action in the PHB. But the Ranger who plays once a month? No. He doesn't know. He knows he can order his Companion around, use Ensnaring Strike, and make an extra weapon attack with his second short sword. But, after a year of play, does he remember which combinations are legal, and which aren't? No. he does not. He never remembers that he can attack three times before telling his companion to Dodge, but if he tells his Companion to Disengage, he can only attack twice.

Each player has 3-4 bonus actions as options probably. A few more if a spell caster maybe. You write them on your character sheet with a B next to them and pick one. This is not rocket science.

As has been said in other threads. 12 year olds successfully play this game. Suggesting that bonus actions are complicated is exaggeration. 3e Pathfinder lasted 15 years with swift actions. They’re the same thing - except every class has them in some form.

 

[teitan]

It’s not really going to alleviate one of the problems identified in the OP - that players hunt about their sheets for something to do to fill that action slot in the action economy.

Yeah but that's been a thing since 3e and feats, builds and powers are something we are stuck with now for D&D going forward even if Feats are called out as optional rules so simplifying the action economy to two actions is about the best option because it eliminates the need to hunt for "bonus action" specifically.