D&D (2024) Mike Mearls “…it’s now obvious how to live without Bonus Actions”' And 6th Edition When Players Ask

With all due respect to Mike Mearls, he is wrong. The action economy in 5th Edition is beautifully designed, and I wouldn't change a thing about it.

 

[Zardnaar]

Would it? I've been wondering if I allowed people to use a bonus action instead of an action if it would harm anything. I haven't thought of a single thing that being allowed to use two bonus actions, instead of an action and bonus action would break (especially since you still can't do two bonus action spells and most mundane bonus actions are actions anyways)


Unless you are talking people being able to use five or six bonus action, then yeah, that'd start breaking things right quick

Eldritch blast and hex onteractions come to mind or twf+hunters quarry or crossbow expert and hex and hunters quarry.

Polearm master and great weapon master is even more OP 4 attacks a round potentially +40 damage at level 5 to 10.

 

[Chaosmancer]

Eldritch blast and hex onteractions come to mind or twf+hunters quarry or crossbow expert and hex and hunters quarry.

Polearm master and great weapon master is even more OP 4 attacks a round potentially +40 damage at level 5 to 10.

I find the answer more confusing than before. I think perhaps my question was poorly worded.

I've been thinking on allowing a person to take their action, and instead of their action do a thing that normally requires a bonus action.

For example, A bard might using their inspiration dice and healing word in the same turn, but that would be their entire turn. They could not attack or cast another spell.

Under those circumstances I can't think of anything that begins to break in the game.



Your answer seems more towards the part I agree begins breaking things, which is when someone can do their action and then follow it with 2 or more bonus actions. Like casting Hunter's MArk, Attacking and using a bonus action attack.

Though I don't know what bonus action is associated with Eldritch blast, unless you meant casting hex, blasting something, and then moving hex on the same turn.

No matter though, because I agree once you can use your action and multiple bonus actions, things begin to have problems.

 

[Zardnaar]

I find the answer more confusing than before. I think perhaps my question was poorly worded.

I've been thinking on allowing a person to take their action, and instead of their action do a thing that normally requires a bonus action.

For example, A bard might using their inspiration dice and healing word in the same turn, but that would be their entire turn. They could not attack or cast another spell.

Under those circumstances I can't think of anything that begins to break in the game.



Your answer seems more towards the part I agree begins breaking things, which is when someone can do their action and then follow it with 2 or more bonus actions. Like casting Hunter's Mark, Attacking and using a bonus action attack.

Though I don't know what bonus action is associated with Eldritch blast, unless you meant casting hex, blasting something, and then moving hex on the same turn.

No matter though, because I agree once you can use your action and multiple bonus actions, things begin to have problems.

Sorlock quickening eldritch blast and combining bonus action attacks such as GWM cleave + PAM buttstrike ability.
The little I played of 4E and a lot more played of SWSE convinced me being able to swap actions is a bad idea. Bonus actions are not perfect but better than minor/swift actions imho.

A stationary monk using flurry of blow twice (6 aatacks a round at level 5) or flurry+dodge+standard action also seems good.

 

[clearstream]

Bonus actions in 5E ARE hacky and too decoupled from the fictional world. There's a lot of places in 5E where you get to do something "as a bonus action" but no consideration is given to what you are actually DOING. Bardic Inspiration is a poster child for this kind of ugliness. If bonus actions didn't exist, presumably the bard would have some kind of ability like "When you cast a spell through song, you can weave your words in such a way that [the ally gets bardic inspiration]." That would make it clear that (1) yes, Bardic Inspiration is compatible with spells that have verbal components; (2) you can't inspire others while gagged (even though you can cast spells while gagged, e.g. Hypnotic Pattern, because it has no Verbal components); (3) it would make it clear you can't inspire others with song while you are busy drinking a potion (Action: drink a potion) because your mouth is busy. The ability could be written in such a way as to be compatible or not compatible with other actions like hiding, attacking, or extra object manipulation as desired. The designer would be encouraged to consider in advance what the ability is really doing from a fictional perspective instead of just lazily slapping gamist "bonus action" jargon on the ability and ignoring the fiction, leaving it all for the DM to fix during gameplay.

Also, bonus actions have weird interactions with other rules like Readying actions: technically, you cannot ready Bardic Inspiration or a Misty Step, although it isn't at all clear from a fictional perspective why that should be the case.

I agree with Mearls that bonus actions in 5E are poorly designed. I might not agree with him on a given proposed solution, but he's right about the problem. They encourage lazy and poor design.

At this point I'm not ready to agree with that mechanical analysis. Let's take your Bardic Inspiration example. Forcing Bards to expend a spell slot on every occasion that they want to inspire an ally profoundly reduces the number of times they can influence the narrative per day. And every time they do, it has to be two pronged: they either need to influence the narrative in two ways (the spell effect, the inspiration effect), or they throw away the spell. The potential to cost more resources in turn typically means an effect has to be stronger in order to be as useful in play, leading to spikier game balance. We can colour our mechanical choices with the fluff of our choosing of course, but for me some Bards are not singers, they are musicians, and some are both: whether their mouth is free or not is irrelevant to Bardic Inspiration (and in fact that's what the current rule says in the first sentence).

Mechanically, a structure like Bonus Actions that allows players to combine different effects in the same turn, flexibly, yields richer gameplay at lower design and learning cost. Once we start stitching effects together we pay a greater overhead for fewer usable cases. Where you say "lazy" design I would say "efficient" design. Also potentially more materially costly to players because the more each possible combination is separately cased, the more splatbooks you need to enumerate all the combinations.

 

[Edwin Suijkerbuijk]

I Personaly think naming it Bonus action was a bad choice, it sounds like something you can do extra for free but are still limited to 1.
They should have called them minor actions keeping the rules axactly the same.
The word bonus action would refer to things that could be considered a action but to not interact with the action economy ((like a paladin using his smite)) and your not limited to one per round

To me the only reason they changed the wording from minor action to bonus action is that whey wanted to get rid of as much of the 4th edition wording as they could.

 

[Argyle King]

Sorlock quickening eldritch blast and combining bonus action attacks such as GWM cleave + PAM buttstrike ability.
The little I played of 4E and a lot more played of SWSE convinced me being able to swap actions is a bad idea. Bonus actions are not perfect but better than minor/swift actions imho.

A stationary monk using flurry of blow twice (6 aatacks a round at level 5) or flurry+dodge+standard action also seems good.

...which further convinces me that maybe I actually am ready for a new edition.

(Edit: or that maybe my tastes would be better served by a different game)

There seems to be a growing list of conversations I follow which get to a point where I think the underlying core assumptions that the game is built upon need to change for any of the "fixes" which make sense to me to work without causing more problems. Granted, that might also mean that what I have in mind consists of bad ideas; I'm admittedly not a game a designer.

I like a lot of 5E's general concepts. However, as I've said in some other threads, I'm unsure how to make some of the changes I would like to make without causing more problems. I think it's cool that products are (supposedly) being created to add more things to the game, but more options -while likely very cool- still do not help me.

In a way, I feel much like I did during some of 4E. I felt like changes needed to be made, but Essentials and the changes which came to 4E went in a different direction than I had hoped and never actually addressed the issues I had with that edition.

But, I'm just one guy. In the grand scheme of things, my opinion doesn't have much weight; I don't expect it to. I'm aware that my tastes tend to be quite different than what most people want. The common consensus seems to be that most people think 5E is the best edition of D&D. Much of the time, I enjoy playing it too. There are just a few things about it that bug me, and I'm currently unsure how to change those things. That being said, if the majority of people are enjoying it as-is, that is a positive thing, and I'm thankful for a healthy environment for ttrpgs.

 

[Zardnaar]

...which further convinces me that maybe I actually am ready for a new edition.

(Edit: or that maybe my tastes would be better served by a different game)

There seems to be a growing list of conversations I follow which get to a point where I think the underlying core assumptions that the game is built upon need to change for any of the "fixes" which make sense to me to work without causing more problems. Granted, that might also mean that what I have in mind consists of bad ideas; I'm admittedly not a game a designer.

I like a lot of 5E's general concepts. However, as I've said in some other threads, I'm unsure how to make some of the changes I would like to make without causing more problems. I think it's cool that products are (supposedly) being created to add more things to the game, but more options -while likely very cool- still do not help me.

In a way, I feel much like I did during some of 4E. I felt like changes needed to be made, but Essentials and the changes which came to 4E went in a different direction than I had hoped and never actually addressed the issues I had with that edition.

But, I'm just one guy. In the grand scheme of things, my opinion doesn't have much weight; I don't expect it to. I'm aware that my tastes tend to be quite different than what most people want. The common consensus seems to be that most people think 5E is the best edition of D&D. Much of the time, I enjoy playing it too. There are just a few things about it that bug me, and I'm currently unsure how to change those things. That being said, if the majority of people are enjoying it as-is, that is a positive thing, and I'm thankful for a healthy environment for ttrpgs.

We stress tested it a lot when it landed and have recently changed the way we play it and let some 3pp be used.

AD&D and retroclone talk has started up again, some of the players want to try 1E as they never played it and I have never DMed it. They bought some of the DMguild bundles and real books in a few cases. We have a 5E game on Sunday, might run an OSR one off on Monday (public holiday).

Main problem with bonus actions is complexity, they work better than say minor actions and the only 1 hard limit is a good thing IMHO. I did not like how they added extra attacks as a bonus action though via feats and some class abilities.

 

[SkidAce]

I feel like the way 4E's action economy was broken down would fit 5E pretty well.

Instead of bonus actions, bring back Minor actions. Then allow trading actions down, but not up. For example, an action can be turned into either a move or a minor. A move can be turned into a minor. A minor cannot be turned into a move. A move cannot be turned into an action.

I dont want move being turned into an action type again.

We like the "you have X movement, use it whenever you want" concept.

 

[Warpiglet]

So if we get 6e "When we ask for it," can we also just keep 5e a long time "if we ask for it?"

There are a lot of people asking for the latter.

I will sweeten the pot. If WOTC grants this request, I will keep buying and recommending my friends buy the actual product. I will give 5e as gifts. I will support it with my loving little hands for a long time.

Deal?

If everyone who is "asking for this" did this they might get their wish.

Mearls and other have some interesting rules ideas. How about a whole book of optional rules you can tack on or IGNORE without invalidating your whole library? It would be extra nice.

 

[hejtmane]

I have no problems with the bonus actions yes it takes new players a while to grasp it some times but so would most anything. People call it cluncky and I read why I just do not agree with that stance. I have no problems with the bonus action it self sometimes I wonder why they made some things bonus actions. I get the spell bonus action and yes it makes being a cleric more fun to play instead of feeling like a heal bot.

I will say some of the decisions on bouns action baffle me like two weapon fighting; I always thought it should be you get one off hand attack per turn much like colossus slayer.

Me personally I do not see an issue with the bonus action itself but with some of what they made bonus actions. That is what needed to be cleaned up