D&D 5E 5e actions economy VS other editions and systems

[Li Shenron]

How does D&D 5e actions economy compare against those in previous editions? Is the current edition's actions economy your favourite across all editions of D&D or did you prefer an older one and why?

And beyond D&D, do you prefer the action economy of another RPG? Or is there some key element you'd like D&D to borrow from any of them? (Feel free to post a summary of these action economy to get your point across)

 

[S'mon]

Well I liked 4e minor actions - I think generally the 4e standard/move/minor system was good, though 4e off-turn action stuff was painful, 5e's Reaction-only system is better there.

 

[hastur_nz]

I like 5e, it's certainly cleaner than 4e or 3.x. You could say older editions were even cleaner - move and make an attack - but the trade-off there was you generally needed a lot of discussion and/or house-rules and/or DM rulings to work out exactly what people could and could not do on their turn.

My only problem is that a Bonus Action isn't always clear to people - many seem to get the idea that it's like 4e's minor action i.e. everyone can take a bonus action on their turn, whereas the actual rule is that certain things (classes / feats / spells) grant you the option of using a bonus action to do something on top of your normal action, and you can only ever do a single bonus action (if any) per turn. Which isn't as clean as one might like. So while the Action Economy is fine, IMO, the way its implemented isn't clear to a lot of people up front (although plenty of PC's never really need to bother as they never have any available bonus actions).

 

[Tony Vargas]

How does D&D 5e actions economy compare against those in previous editions?

5e's action economy kinda shakes out to sorting actions into three buckets - OK, 6: move, action, bonus, object-interaction, just no action-economy 'cost' (Second Wind, for instance), and the off-turn Reaction (Ok and concentration is sorta another action type all by itself).

The complexity is ultimately similar to what was in 4e (Standard, Move, Minor, Free, OA, Immediate, not-an-action) or even 3e (Full, Standard, Partial, Move, 5'-step, Swift, Free, Immediate, AoO, not an action), just some of it's brushed into corners where you may not notice it at first. What ends up critically important is not so much how many of each action you get in a round (1), but what all is in each bucket.

So if two completely different and un-related things both use a bonus action, you can't do both of them in the same turn, but if one is an object-interaction and the other an action, you can do them simultaneously (for instance). Thus you have issues like 'needing too many reactions' because you have several things to do that all consume that action-economy resource, while maybe having nothing much to do with you bonus action, say. It's an economy driven more by opportunity cost (if you use your Bonus action for one thing, you can't do any other bonus action things, period), than relative action cost (Actions are 'more' than moves are more than bonus actions).

Even so, it's at least a somewhat defined, not entirely inconsistent sort of complexity. It's better than no action economy at all, which is, arguably, what you had prior to d20.

And beyond D&D, do you prefer the action economy of another RPG? Or is there some key element you'd like D&D to borrow from any of them? (Feel free to post a summary of these action economy to get your point across)

I'm actually excessively fond of the bizarre Hero System 'speed chart.' Anything but simple, but surprisingly elegant once you've grokked it - if you ever did, which with far from certain.

 

[Jester David]

I played enough 4e and Pathfinder to know that people often didn't want to waste their minor/ swift actions. That they'd pause after each turn and consider usage, not wanting to waste it. It also worked well with system mastery: if you could give yourself regular access to a swift/minor action power, it increased what you could do each urn.
To say nothing of action points...

I do prefer the more restrained action economy of 5e.

 

[Shiroiken]

I think 5E has learned to take the best parts of 4E without bogging the game down (which was a common problem). 3E's was just bad, with Swift and Immediate (?) actions being added late in the game and Movement being forced the way it was. AD&D's action economy was okay, but not great by any means.

My only issue with 5E's action economy is object interaction. I felt that it's a bit problematic and should have used the Bonus Action setup instead (or maybe allowing an additional object interaction as a bonus action). Of course, this would weaken Bonus Actions overall, since you're more likely to need to use them for minor things.

 

[cbwjm]

2e seemed pretty simple. Almost everything was an action. You could move half your combat round speed and still make an attack, for missile weapons you could make half your standard rate of fire if you moved. If you use your off-hand for an attack, it is part of your regular attacks instead of being a bonus action attack.

 

[Blue]

I'm torn. 4e had a very clean action economy, but I love the move-whenever of 5e.

Bonus action is sort of a "it's a minor action, but you only get to take it if you have something specific" which is clunky. And 5e is also missing downgradability. If I want to cast two bonus-action spells and nothing else, I can't. In 4e I could easily downgrade my standard or move action to a minor.

Hmm, I also preferred 4e's version of ready, and that it had a delay. I understand why they removed it, but the "I want to do this after them" is stupid that the minimum granularity is a full round.

You know, I came into this liking 5e's action economy, but when I broke it down I find it inferior to 4e in many ways, with the only exception allowing movement at any time including broken up.

 

[Li Shenron]

With regard to bonus actions, I also think their main issue is with their presentation. They deliver the feeling that with a bonus action your are doing something in addition to the rest of your turn. So the overall feel is like you are granted a longer turn. This can trigger discussions on "how many seconds does a bonus action take".

What bonus actions should really say instead, is that they represent doing more things simultaneously. This is for example how Bardic Inspiration really works: the Bard is not first doing an attack and then inspiring the allies, he's doing both things at the same time. Which is by the way very consistent with how movement also works. So the Bard is using her legs to move and her arms to attack and her voice to inspire, which naturally make sense to imagine as simultaneous.

For other cases it's not so easy... additional attacks (e.g. TWF) are always sequential, as are additional spells. So there you can't really enforce the narrative of simultaneity, you can at best imagine that the character is "squeezing" more acts in the same time. Still, I think it's better than presenting bonus actions as a general option in the action economy. And in a way I think this might be what Mearls have in mind: to remove the feeling of bonus actions being a "third building block" of your turn, and instead let special abilities modify your main Action, to enforce the feeling that the turn is always the same length.

My only issue with 5E's action economy is object interaction. I felt that it's a bit problematic and should have used the Bonus Action setup instead (or maybe allowing an additional object interaction as a bonus action). Of course, this would weaken Bonus Actions overall, since you're more likely to need to use them for minor things.

I must say that I have also been unsatisfied with the "object interaction" rule since it was added during the playtest. I usually just either decide that an action is important enough to be using up your turn's Action or otherwise be free. The "maximum one object interaction" rules IMHO gets in the way and still doesn't clear up all cases.

 

[Zardnaar]

5E is better than 3E and 4E and I like how you can't turn a movement action into a minor action.

Its not great due to adding complexity but better than previous attempts.