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Mike Mearls - Reddit AMA
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<blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 7304591" data-attributes="member: 1465"><p>It is not complex, it is just <em>more</em> complex than not having bonus actions at all. Mearls' point is that there is fundamental need for bonus actions for the game to work fine, they are essentially redundant, and eliminating them would decrease the complexity a little bit.</p><p></p><p>But notice how their existence creates a cascade of small but yet additive complexity increases: </p><p></p><p>- they could have just stopped with bonus actions being in addition to everything else on your turn</p><p>- immediately there's the problem: what if I have 2 special abilities that use bonus actions? hence the need to specific "maximum one per turn"</p><p>- then next issue is: what if the bonus action is a spell and I also cast a spell as my main action? so you need another patch i.e. require that the other spell be a cantrip to avoid it being too much in one turn</p><p>- then you have other unforseen consequences and corner cases such as when the PC has already cast a spell that was not a cantrip, and can't cast another bonus action spell, or when using Action Surge or other abilities that grant more actions, and you have characters with special abilities for bonus actions...</p><p></p><p>So they are not "complex" for the average seasoned RPGer who learned to play with the pointless redundancy of certain older editions, but these complication can certainly put off a lot of beginners and casual gamers, many of which can't stand the nonsense and the triviality of rules minutia.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>He probably just answered on the top of his head, but this is not as good as it could be. For example it's quite unfair to Arcane Tricksters because with this change they can only either cast a spell or benefit from the improved mobility granted by Cunning Action (which is the whole point behind its design).</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Li Shenron, post: 7304591, member: 1465"] It is not complex, it is just [I]more[/I] complex than not having bonus actions at all. Mearls' point is that there is fundamental need for bonus actions for the game to work fine, they are essentially redundant, and eliminating them would decrease the complexity a little bit. But notice how their existence creates a cascade of small but yet additive complexity increases: - they could have just stopped with bonus actions being in addition to everything else on your turn - immediately there's the problem: what if I have 2 special abilities that use bonus actions? hence the need to specific "maximum one per turn" - then next issue is: what if the bonus action is a spell and I also cast a spell as my main action? so you need another patch i.e. require that the other spell be a cantrip to avoid it being too much in one turn - then you have other unforseen consequences and corner cases such as when the PC has already cast a spell that was not a cantrip, and can't cast another bonus action spell, or when using Action Surge or other abilities that grant more actions, and you have characters with special abilities for bonus actions... So they are not "complex" for the average seasoned RPGer who learned to play with the pointless redundancy of certain older editions, but these complication can certainly put off a lot of beginners and casual gamers, many of which can't stand the nonsense and the triviality of rules minutia. He probably just answered on the top of his head, but this is not as good as it could be. For example it's quite unfair to Arcane Tricksters because with this change they can only either cast a spell or benefit from the improved mobility granted by Cunning Action (which is the whole point behind its design). [/QUOTE]
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