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.
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.
Agreed, abolishing the move action was one of 5E's big improvements.I dont want move being turned into an action type again.
We like the "you have X movement, use it whenever you want" concept.
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.
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.
I also wrote <<The ability could be written in such a way as to b compatible or not compatible with other actions like hiding, attacking, or extra object manipulation as desired.>> Key point: you shouldn't assume from what I wrote that there is a concrete proposal which makes spellcasting the ONLY way to inspire allies. Indeed, if you're going to assume anything, you should assume that the Bard has at least two choices: (1) cast a spell while inspiring others; (2) inspire others. There should not be any throwaway spells.
That isn't really a statement about Bonus Actions: you're just saying you want extra actions to be orthogonal to each other, which is specifically the thing that I object to. 5E designers like to just slap "bonus action" on a thing to make them compatible from a gamist point of view (all consuming a shared resource though), without actually considering whether the actual actions are in fact compatible with each other. What you call "richer gameplay" I call "poorer gameplay." "Everything and the kitchen sink all plugged into the same power cord [bonus action]" isn't good design OR efficient design, it's just lazy design.
If combinations were considered separately you could have sensible combinations like Rogue/Shadow Monks who can Shadow Step and also Cunning Action (Hide) while they are doing so (try to tell me that doesn't make 100% logical sense), or Valor Bards who fight with two weapons while still inspiring their comrades, instead of being forced to use greatswords for the same effect. You're trying to paint that design work as pure waste, an unnecessary cost obviated by the existence of bonus actions--but I think the game would be better off if that design work had occurred.
Clearly you disagree.
I think you may be letting some 4E conventions creep into your thinking about 5E if you assume you can't do this. In 4E, it wasn't an "action", it was a "standard action", which was a clearly separate category than "minor action". But in 5E, it's just an "action". By my reading, a "bonus action" is a type of "action", and can be performed whenever you could perform an "action". It simply has the the added property that it can be performed as a bonus on your turn on top of another action. There's no need for a rule explicitly allowing you to trade actions for bonus actions because the typology is different.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 think you may be letting some 4E conventions creep into your thinking about 5E if you assume you can't do this. In 4E, it wasn't an "action", it was a "standard action", which was a clearly separate category than "minor action". But in 5E, it's just an "action". By my reading, a "bonus action" is a type of "action", and can be performed whenever you could perform an "action". It simply has the the added property that it can be performed as a bonus on your turn on top of another action. There's no need for a rule explicitly allowing you to trade actions for bonus actions because the typology is different.
Lauciann said:@JeremyECrawford hi! i have a question. can i use a bonus action as an actual action? like cast healing word as my action, or a barb rage?
JeremyECrawford said:@Lauciann No.
This thread is fun, because I see my entire career as a designer flashing before me.
"Hey, I think we can make this thing simpler. I'll show a design later."
The game would be worse off in at least two concrete ways.That isn't really a statement about Bonus Actions: you're just saying you want extra actions to be orthogonal to each other, which is specifically the thing that I object to. 5E designers like to just slap "bonus action" on a thing to make them compatible from a gamist point of view (all consuming a shared resource though), without actually considering whether the actual actions are in fact compatible with each other. What you call "richer gameplay" I call "poorer gameplay." "Everything and the kitchen sink all plugged into the same power cord [bonus action]" isn't good design OR efficient design, it's just lazy design.
If combinations were considered separately you could have sensible combinations like Rogue/Shadow Monks who can Shadow Step and also Cunning Action (Hide) while they are doing so (try to tell me that doesn't make 100% logical sense), or Valor Bards who fight with two weapons while still inspiring their comrades, instead of being forced to use greatswords for the same effect. You're trying to paint that design work as pure waste, an unnecessary cost obviated by the existence of bonus actions--but I think the game would be better off if that design work had occurred.
Clearly you disagree.