D&D 5E (2024) Bonus Action Conversion

[James Gasik]

Note: this applies to 2014 and Tales of the Valiant as well.

For a long time, I've wondered as to the exact reasons why you cannot perform a Bonus Action ability as an Action. I've had players ask me about doing this from time to time, and I never could figure out a reason why not to allow it, but I refrained from doing so because I was worried that it might break something by accident.

Recently, Tales of the Valiant released the Player's Guide 2, which has a Talent (ToV-speak for Feats) that has no other function than to allow you to take a bonus action with your action (in contrast to many other Talents which have multiple bullet-pointed abilities), so once again I'm left with the question-

Why doesn't 5e allow you to do this, exactly, and would it really be worth a hypothetical Feat to gain the ability?

 

[Tigris]

I think its just a "simplification" in some form, to keep it simple there is no rule for action conversion and everything costs exactly what is written.


4th edition allowed full action conversion. Standard Action -> Movement Action -> Minor Action (Bonus) and this was never a problem.


Of course this makes things also slightly better to balance, because in theory there could be at some point 2 really strong bonus actions when combined, so one can also prevent this case, but I dont think this is at the moment the case that its needed for anything.

 

[Charlaquin]

Because even the existence of bonus actions in 5e was a compromise. Mike Mearls didn’t want them to exist at all, but apparently there must have been enough demand for them that he was convinced to include them in the most unobtrusive way he could manage. That’s also why they’re called “bonus” actions instead of “minor” actions or “swift” actions or whatever. They wanted bonus actions to be treated as something outside the action economy, that you are sometimes given as a bonus, instead of a normal inclusion among the things you can always do on your turn.

 

[aco175]

This is what Mike Mearls said about them on YTube.

 

[...m...]

...bonus actions are not junior actions: they're special features limited to exactly one per turn, on your turn only (and only if available), and their design space is based upon hard choices between mutually-exclusive options...if you allow bonus actions to be performed as an action, you break that action-economy balance for special mechanical features...

(oh, wait, i just noticed that this was tagged 2024, so nevermind: my information is limited to fifth edition, not whatever the new books are doing)

 

[Charlaquin]

This is what Mike Mearls said about them on YTube.

View attachment 428447

Which seems like a wild stance to me, but

 

[billd91]

Which seems like a wild stance to me, but

I think it's kind of a bizarre position as well since they're really effective at giving different classes different feels. They're not particularly elegant and, for a designer, that may chafe. But functional trumps elegant, as far as I'm concerned.

 

[Charlaquin]

I think it's kind of a bizarre position as well since they're really effective at giving different classes different feels. They're not particularly elegant and, for a designer, that may chafe. But functional trumps elegant, as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, they’re only inelegant because the designers insisted in trying to pretend they’re an extra thing you only get sometimes instead of properly integrating them into the action economy. 4e’s action economy was elegant AF. 5e’s action economy is just 4e’s action economy wearing Groucho Marx glasses. They aren’t an effective disguise and the lenses don’t have 5e’s prescription, but at least they make it look stupid for no reason.

 

[Shiroiken]

Personally I feel that so long as you can't duplicate a bonus action, there's no major issue. Being able to use the same BA twice might cause issues, especially an attack feature like Spiritual Weapon or Flaming Sphere.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Why doesn't 5e allow you to do this, exactly, and would it really be worth a hypothetical Feat to gain the ability?

That would be a worthless feat that no one would ever take. I'm convinced that the only reason 5e doesn't allow you to use a Bonus Action as your Action is that it was designed assuming that no one would ever want to do this since Bonus Actions are generally always weaker than whatever optimal option you have available as your Action.

I would allow players to use a Bonus Action ability as their Action if they asked, but it's never come up since it's generally just not a good idea to do.