D&D 5E (2024) Bonus Action Conversion

[DrJawaPhD]

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.

If using a Spiritual Weapon or Flaming Sphere twice is better than using your Action like a normal person, you have a realllllllly bad character build and ought to rethink things

 

[W'rkncacnter]

honestly if my players asked if they could take a bonus action as an action i'd probably allow it so long as they're aware it's a house rule.

 

[Stormonu]

When I first started playing 5E, I let players convert bonus actions to actions. Didn't have any problem with it in our game.

 

[Sword of Spirit]

A while ago I made a house rule that you may be able to take a bonus action in place of an action with DM approval. Yeah that's pretty wishy-washy for a "rule", but I think it will usually be perfectly fine--except for the rare occasion it isn't--so I didn't want it just to be allowed by default.

 

[James Gasik]

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.

Given how overloaded some characters are with bonus actions anymore, it's crazy that they weren't intended to be ubiquitous.

 

[James Gasik]

A while ago I made a house rule that you may be able to take a bonus action in place of an action with DM approval. Yeah that's pretty wishy-washy for a "rule", but I think it will usually be perfectly fine--except for the rare occasion it isn't--so I didn't want it just to be allowed by default.

This is probably what I should have done, just allow it until it causes problems. That would have solved a lot of issues I have with other things, like the "no leveled spell if you use a bonus action spell rule", which, as near as I can tell, mostly seemed to exist to nerf Quickened Spell.

 

[DrJawaPhD]

Given how overloaded some characters are with bonus actions anymore, it's crazy that they weren't intended to be ubiquitous.

It honestly does seem pretty crazy that it wasn't obvious at the time that the importance of action economy would dictate that any build without a consistent use of their Bonus Action would get left in the dust compared to builds that do get value from their Bonus Action. That's easy to say now though with hindsight always being 20/20

 

[Charlaquin]

A while ago I made a house rule that you may be able to take a bonus action in place of an action with DM approval. Yeah that's pretty wishy-washy for a "rule", but I think it will usually be perfectly fine--except for the rare occasion it isn't--so I didn't want it just to be allowed by default.

Yeah, this is honestly the best way to handle it.

 

[EzekielRaiden]

Which seems like a wild stance to me, but

I'd say there's no "seems" about it. It is a wild stance. Bonus actions serve a vital function, just as their predecessors, Minor and Swift actions, did. Sometimes, you want to be able to do a thing as a ride-along thing people can attempt to do, but you don't want to allow 17 different ride-along effects. It's extremely useful to be able to say "this is something that happens around your Proper Action, but doesn't take up your whole ability to do stuff."

Doing it any other way creates enormous headaches and needless complexity. Are Bonus Actions more complicated than simply not having them at all, and nixing anything that would need such a thing? Yes, of course, doing something is always going to be more complex than not doing anything at all. But it is a very small step up in complexity, in exchange for simplifying a BAZILLION other things that would've been horribly clunky and ugly.

This just gets to the heart of my criticisms of the hyperminimalist design stance. That is, just as it is true that "less is more" sometimes--that is, you can occasionally make gains by making do with fewer components--it's also true that sometimes more is less, that is, by adding just a little bit of complexity in one space, you can eliminate ENORMOUS amounts of complexity in a bunch of other places. Removing the Bonus/Minor/Swift action would be penny-wise, pound-foolish design--and if Mearls cannot recognize that, I need to re-evaluate my already not-super-great opinion of his design chops.

Incidentally, I personally think the preoccupation with bending over backward to emphasize that Bonus Actions aren't required is silly. The simpler way is to give everyone a really obvious, basic, but useful Bonus Action they can always fall back on if they don't have any other option. BG3's "Prepare" action (specific to greataxes) is a solid option, just make it add (say) half your proficiency bonus to damage on one single damage roll you inflict during the turn, rather than every hit. Instant useful bonus action, modest but clear benefit, very straightforward. "When in doubt, Prepare; but if you have some other use for your Bonus Action, you probably want to use it."

 

[EzekielRaiden]

It honestly does seem pretty crazy that it wasn't obvious at the time that the importance of action economy would dictate that any build without a consistent use of their Bonus Action would get left in the dust compared to builds that do get value from their Bonus Action. That's easy to say now though with hindsight always being 20/20

I genuinely sometimes wonder whether WotC is actually designing a game meant to be played by people who will look at the rules and do what the rules demonstrate is useful.....or if they're designing a game expecting some hypothetical player which completely ignores what the rules reward and just does whatever random thing they feel like, every moment, without forethought.