D&D 5E Does anyone else feel like the action economy and the way actions work in general in 5e both just suck?

Son of the Serpent said:

Do you have any actions-related houserules? I'd be interested in hearing them.

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Best I can give to you is talk with your group about what you think is a problem and see if anyone comes with an idea that satisfy everyone. Then test in real play and agree beforehand that if the house rule breaks something you can always go back.

Of course you need a good group to make such changes/discussions without too much problem and it's not the case for everyone. If you often change group and/or gm then there's no easy solution for you...

Son of the Serpent said:

From jeremy crawford himself. You can use a bonus action to put on full plate heavy armor. You cannot use a bonus action to chug a potion.

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Cite, please. It take 10 minutes to put on heavy armor - doing so is not generally part of the action economy.

Not to pile on, but I don't see the problem. I've been playing this edition with more than one group off & on since it came out and haven't once had an issue with how actions work. It's unfortunate you do, but hopefully you find a solution that works for you.

I understand this doesn't contribute much to the thread, but since it hasn't been an issue for me or my play groups I've never considered a "fix". I guess I feel the need to say something because of your intense hyperbole. Instead of just saying "this has been an issue for me, does anyone want to work on some solutions" you start out saying the system sucks and call the designers airheads.

So, you know what, I take my first statement back... I do mean to pile on. Still hope you find a solution, but being overly negative in the process seems counterproductive, good luck to you.

Pinpoint the things you don’t like, and address them. Tweak their rules so they’re a better fit for what you want. Let your players know, and take their input into consideration, and then make a change.

If there’s one positive about 5E it’s that it’s easily modified. So modify it.

Don’t like wizards being able to cast two spells in a round? Don’t allow it. Don’t like the Concentration limit if one active ongoing spell? Allow two...or more, if you want to go nuts.

I don’t think you’re at all right about donning armor, but you can declare it takes whatever amount of time you want.

Make the changes you want in the game. If you need some ideas, ask....people here have plenty of hacks and tweaks that they’ll offer. But I think you need to get specific in what you want to change other than a kind of vague complaint about action economy.

I think 5e’s action economy works fine, but is more confusing than it needs to be because of its insistence on trying to pretend it doesn’t have one. How it actually works is you have three types of actions: one standardaction, one minorbonus action, and one swift actionobject interaction. Additionally, you have one reaction and an amount of a resource called movement equal to your Speed that you can spend to move your character, as well as to do other things like mounting creatures and standing up from Prone. Unfortunately, all of this is obfuscated by the game’s language.

The name “bonus action” is confusing because the natural assumption when you have multiple abilities that say “you can use a bonus action to...” is that you can use them all, because they’re bonuses to what you could otherwise do. But no, you only get to use up to one bonus action on your turn, and allegedly “you don’t have a bonus action to spend” unless you have an ability that lets you do something as a bonus action. This would be so much more intuitive if they were called minor actions and the game didn’t try to act like they don’t exist until they have to.

Object interactions are weird because it’s unclear when interacting with an object counts as this and when it requires the Use an Object action. Saying that you take them “as part of your action” or “as part of your movement” is also unnecessarily confusing and seemingly done only to try and maintain the illusion that they aren’t an independent type of action.

Reactions and movement I think are great. Making movement a more granular resource rather than a single “move action” is a cool piece of design tech that allows for interesting things like breaking up your movement with your attack, and movement as a cost for things like mounting and standing up. I think this is a bit under-utilized; for example, I feel like you could make the old “shift” a thing you can do by spending movement equal to your speed instead of making Disengaging an action. Reactions aren’t as innovative as movement, but they are still solid design; they’re clear and they work well.

And then there’s Extra Attack, and things that cost one of your attacks to do... This is probably the aspect of 5e’s action economy I like the least. You just have to memorize what things only cost one attack instead of a whole action. And it’s only relevant for martial characters of 5th level or higher. Ick.

EDIT: Oh, and the part where if you cast a spell as a bonus action you can’t cast a spell as an action unless it’s a cantrip. That’s a pretty awful rule.

People are always less satisfied than I am in general. See it all the time...

Somehow the rules don’t get in the way of my fun. I see this as a game and the parameters are what they are.
We could really get in the weeds with what hit points represent, speed and lifting vs. regular human limits, so on.

but if you go in just accepting abstractions and unknowns, it’s easy to get into.

I could grouse about only one object interaction sure, but I could also see trying to unpack gear as being time consuming too. There are straps and ties and things spilling about if you are trying not to get stabbed!

I recommend that people don’t pull at the thread too hard. That way lies madness and a lack of immersion.

atanakar said:

Yet, another discontent thread about how a portion of the rules in 5e work. This is getting old. Play another version of D&D or another RPG that does what you want.

BTW 6e is not going to happen any time soon the way sales keep going up.

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I still play other editions of d&d and other ttrpgs presently. I spend the majority of the time i play during playing systems i enjoy. And to some extent i enjoy 5e. Sometimes. So im at no loss for getting to play in a preferential scenario. That is majority of the time spent.

The point is, if you consider the latest edition of a game sub par, its perfectly acceptable to attempt the next iteration to be better.

Anyone who doesnt think so is actually the stubborn one.

Im trying to be proactive you see.

Oh sure. I could just not attempt to fix anything. Why though? Nah. I think id rather influence the future. Thanks.

JeffB said:

There are plenty of great games out there, life's too short to get angry about game rules. I may "argue" til the wee hours of the morning here about game rules and my preferences, but I don't get angry or lose sleep over a make believe game of faeries and dragons.

5E is not my main game or my personal favorite iteration of the game but we still have fun playing it when we do I get my D&D fix mainly through 13th Age and O/TSR games, but I'd rather play Dungeon World than any of those. My players are not always up to the investment DW takes though (and some days, neither am I)

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Nah. The majority of time ive spent playing ttrpgs has been rewarding. And life is too short. Which is why it makes sense to enfranchise oneself in what is around the corner and affect it so you can keep usong that tme the way you enjoy if you so choose to play something current. Id rather be proactive rather than just lazily see if what happens next happens to be an improvement (which is in no way a guarantee)

vincegetorix said:

So the game is bad because action are calculated in in-game seconds? wow.

People alrealdy have a hard time figuring out how to maximize their action economy and you want to add things like '' you turn is 45 second, this cantrip use 6 second, this full spell use 21 seconds and each 5 ft of move use 2 seconds. Now what do you do on your turn? '' What a mess it would be


uhhhh no? It takes like 10 minutes to don a heavy armor.

Is it me or most of your posts on 5e from the last few months have been how this game sucks? Maybe its just a a bad fit, because what you seem to want out of the game is totally the opposite of what 5e propose now and will propose in the future.

I'm on the team that would like an even simpler 6th edition, but when I get tired of 5e (which is often) I play more basic games, such as tiny dungeon or the black hack. You may prefer a game that is built for the level of crunch you'd like.

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Im well aware that heavy armor shouldnt take a bonus action.

Its jeremy crawford's words (the head desigb dude) not mine. Pay attention.

He was talking about a rogue using the "quick hands feat" to reduce the time necessary down to a bonus action.

Yeah. I know its absurd and that it takes 10 minutes. Thats why i said it made no sense. facepalm

Son of the Serpent said:

There are logical inconsistancies in the classifications of actions and scenarios in which one is faster than another.

Further, its implied that there are actions that require different amounts of time but reside within the same action length class. Example: non cantrip spells of 1 action time length and cantrip spells of 1 action time length. They actually take different amounts of time, which is what makes it possible to cast one (cantrips) twice on your turn and the other (non cantrip spell) only once plus a cantrip. Is there a classification for an action that is short enough it could occur in tge difference of time between the two clearly different time length standards of 1 standard action? There should be a classified brief time length for that but there doesnt directoy seem to be. If not, sloppy. If there is one though, also sloppy. Why? Because if there is then there should have been a differentiation between what is functionally two different action types that got lumped into "standard action". But there isnt.

From an objective point of view there are functionally two different action types (or lengths) that are lazily never differentiated and are lumped under the same umbrella.

There is an example. There are others. But just look at that one first. Its sloppy.

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WotC only failure here was not making it clear that isn't exactly an action economy in the same strict sense of the previous 2 editions.

The way a turn works in 5e is rather a simultaneity of everything you do. It starts with the fact that you can "split" your movement as you wish. That's because you mostly act with your arms and move with your legs after all. Similarly, many bonus actions are augmentations of the main action (e.g. smites and other spells intended to boost the subsequent attacks) or of the movement (the Rogue's Cunning Action). Have you noticed that the majority of bonus action spells have verbal components only? That means you are casting them literally by speaking, which is simultaneous with everything else. Even two-weapon fighting might be seen as smacking a foe with both weapons at once, although that's quite a bit of a stretch of the imagination.

The fact that the resolution of the actions is sequential is more for obvious practical reasons, and to give a player the chance of choosing them one at a time instead of declaring everything in advance, but from a character POV everything is hectic (and even simultaneous with everyone else's turn).

There are some details that frustrate me too: how Ready works with spells (i.e. it doesn't, forget about it) and the hard limit on the free interaction with one object (too hardcoded, I'd leave it up to the DM). But if you manage to get used to thinking of actions more simultaneously than a set of finite "slots" that fill your turn, I guarantee that it'll stop bothering you.