D&D 5E (2014) Mike Mearls on 5e design he regrets. Bonus Actuons.
- Thread starter darjr
- Start date
Li Shenron
Legend
Yep, we've known about this already for a few years, and I can see his point. There was some beauty and strength in the original 5e underlying idea that all your worth of actions in a turn is happening at once, but long-established practices and ways of thinking from previous editions pulled it back to an economy of actions.
Li Shenron
Legend
To expand a bit...
When Mike is talking about "planning your turn" I see that underlying idea that your turn is a single thing.
One step towards that was splitting up the move: in 3e you had to move either before or after your action, while in 5e you can split your movement. This is conceptually consistent with the fact that maybe you are moving with your legs (or wings) but you are performing your action with your arms, so action & move happen effectively at once.
Even though some things inevitably need to be resolved in order, the idea of simultaneity can be seen also in bonus actions: "Healing Word" could be seen as a bonus action because while you are attacking (or whatever you are using your action for) you can also speak a magic word that heals an ally. The Fighter is two-weapon fighting because she is actually using two hands at once. If you have a free hand, you can gulp that potion while you're still using your other hand for an action. The Barbarian rages as soon as he attacks, and so on.
You can design an edition which still has all those additional things to do, without having "bonus actions" as a game construct. It may be however, that you'll have to spend more words for those descriptions, while codifying "bonus actions" simplifies the job for the game designers who now have a category to rely on.
The drawback of the more traditional sequential actions economy, is that sooner or later it prompts players to think of their turn as a set of boxes to fill: "what am I going to do with my bonus action this turn?" isn't even a question if you see everything as simultaneous, but then it causes some players to be frustrated when they realize they don't have enough bonus action abilities, and may even think they made some wrong character build: "why does she get to use a bonus action every turn and I have no bonus actions? my class sucks!". It also spawns unreasonable and unnecessary discussions like "how many of the 6 seconds round is spent by an action vs a bonus action, and therefore can I swap my action with another bonus action (or two)?".
When Mike is talking about "planning your turn" I see that underlying idea that your turn is a single thing.
One step towards that was splitting up the move: in 3e you had to move either before or after your action, while in 5e you can split your movement. This is conceptually consistent with the fact that maybe you are moving with your legs (or wings) but you are performing your action with your arms, so action & move happen effectively at once.
Even though some things inevitably need to be resolved in order, the idea of simultaneity can be seen also in bonus actions: "Healing Word" could be seen as a bonus action because while you are attacking (or whatever you are using your action for) you can also speak a magic word that heals an ally. The Fighter is two-weapon fighting because she is actually using two hands at once. If you have a free hand, you can gulp that potion while you're still using your other hand for an action. The Barbarian rages as soon as he attacks, and so on.
You can design an edition which still has all those additional things to do, without having "bonus actions" as a game construct. It may be however, that you'll have to spend more words for those descriptions, while codifying "bonus actions" simplifies the job for the game designers who now have a category to rely on.
The drawback of the more traditional sequential actions economy, is that sooner or later it prompts players to think of their turn as a set of boxes to fill: "what am I going to do with my bonus action this turn?" isn't even a question if you see everything as simultaneous, but then it causes some players to be frustrated when they realize they don't have enough bonus action abilities, and may even think they made some wrong character build: "why does she get to use a bonus action every turn and I have no bonus actions? my class sucks!". It also spawns unreasonable and unnecessary discussions like "how many of the 6 seconds round is spent by an action vs a bonus action, and therefore can I swap my action with another bonus action (or two)?".
Bae'zel
Hero
I like 5e, I really do, but I feel that some of the ways that the rules work inhibits some creativity.
Eg. "locking" some narative actions behind Feats.
I wish that Feats just added situational benefits to certain actions instead of "permitting" players from attempting those things in the first place. RAW, I mean.
And the ambiguity in the use of the Advantage / Disadvantage mechanism. At first, it seemed like a nice, simple way for DMs to make a ruling on whether or not the PC had some situational benefit or drawback to a given task, but it's confusing when specific rules make it clear that this should only happen in specific circumstances (eg, with the right Feat or class ability).
And then the crazy way Advantage / Disadvantage doesn't stack, meaning that you can make things easier for yourself by making it harder (the old sillyness of standing in a zone that obscures vision (disadvantage to attacks) shooting someone outside of it who can't see you (advantage to your attacks), meaning it is easier to hit someone when you can't see them in this situation).
Eg. "locking" some narative actions behind Feats.
I wish that Feats just added situational benefits to certain actions instead of "permitting" players from attempting those things in the first place. RAW, I mean.
And the ambiguity in the use of the Advantage / Disadvantage mechanism. At first, it seemed like a nice, simple way for DMs to make a ruling on whether or not the PC had some situational benefit or drawback to a given task, but it's confusing when specific rules make it clear that this should only happen in specific circumstances (eg, with the right Feat or class ability).
And then the crazy way Advantage / Disadvantage doesn't stack, meaning that you can make things easier for yourself by making it harder (the old sillyness of standing in a zone that obscures vision (disadvantage to attacks) shooting someone outside of it who can't see you (advantage to your attacks), meaning it is easier to hit someone when you can't see them in this situation).
billd91
Not your screen monkey (he/him) 🇺🇦🇵🇸🏳️⚧️
I think this is pretty much inevitable. And it's going to happen whether you're explicit about the "extra things you do" being a specific type of bonus action or not. As soon as you can only do one of those extra things a round, particularly if you have a choice of which one to do, you've defined an economy for it. And that means that players are going to try to optimize their use of it.
I don't think there's anything really wrong with bonus actions as a concept. There's nothing particularly inelegant about it. I think some specific bonus actions may not be great ways of handling things (like 2-weapon fighting), but the concept as a whole works for me because they're great for defining how one class differs from another in how they play (rogues and monks shine a lot here). And I'm OK with some classes not getting much in the way of bonus actions if they have other powers that well-define them (like clerics). That's nothing to be jealous about.
I'm of the belief that the existence of bonus actions is entirely our fault as players.
Too many players in the past 50 years have tried to "game" the game by attempting to cram so many things that aren't game-defined "actions" into their turns... and the DMs have had to deal with all that crap and have to keep making rulings and tell players 'No' that they can't attack AND do 'U', 'V', 'W', 'X', 'Y', & 'Z', that's too many things they are trying to do in a single turn. And then arguments ensue.
As a result, designers have tried to quantify as many possible things players want their PCs to do by putting all that stuff into buckets and then letting players only take one thing out of each bucket each turn. But as a result, now that we have these buckets... other players have become conditioned to keep rummaging in these buckets looking for ideas for other things they can do that they might not otherwise had thought about if those buckets weren't there.
If some players hadn't been spotlight-hogging, greedy jerks over the last 50 years we might not have had this problem.
Too many players in the past 50 years have tried to "game" the game by attempting to cram so many things that aren't game-defined "actions" into their turns... and the DMs have had to deal with all that crap and have to keep making rulings and tell players 'No' that they can't attack AND do 'U', 'V', 'W', 'X', 'Y', & 'Z', that's too many things they are trying to do in a single turn. And then arguments ensue.
As a result, designers have tried to quantify as many possible things players want their PCs to do by putting all that stuff into buckets and then letting players only take one thing out of each bucket each turn. But as a result, now that we have these buckets... other players have become conditioned to keep rummaging in these buckets looking for ideas for other things they can do that they might not otherwise had thought about if those buckets weren't there.
If some players hadn't been spotlight-hogging, greedy jerks over the last 50 years we might not have had this problem.
Yup, exactly. Not important enough to give up your action for... but if the game doesn't put it into a smaller-action bucket then certain players will try to guzzle 7 potions in one turn and say "Well, the rules don't say I CAN'T do that!"
The game has to create these rules because certain players can't be trusted not to try and take advantage of the game without them.
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