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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Li Shenron" data-source="post: 9545348" data-attributes="member: 1465">Actually, it can be very simple: make it so that everything is a regular action.For instance, "two-weapon attack" itself might be an action. Redesign the benefits and the cost so that the choice between a single or a two weapon attack is not trivial.Bonus action spells become regular action spells. Redesign their details appropriately to be on par which spells that already required a regular action.Special abilities that use a bonus action become regular actions, and can either receive a slight compensation or be rewritten as a whole.Some cases may require more attention, for example the Rogue's Cunning Action. It might be possible to make it a non-action that is always usable (for the Rogue to get the benefits of dash, dodge, disengage) unless the character is already using another special ability; or it could be itself made it a special ability that takes an action and allows attacking or spellcasting as part of it.Anyway, the point is that bonus actions didn't always exist, so it is certainly possible to have a game that doesn't use them. I think I understand Mearls' frustration. He and the others originally wanted to have some special abilities that would still allow a character to attack in the same turn, for example the Healing Word spell. They could have made Healing Word a regular action spells that somehow included the possibility to also make an attack, but perhaps someone then brought up "what if the character then wants to do even something else than attack?". This is what I call a typical "give them a hand and they take your arm" attitude and if I had been in charge I would have immediately scrapped Healing Word entirely, because of course next thing you're down in a rabbit hole... they went with the Bonus Action mechanics, and then they had to patch it by saying that if the Bonus Action is a spell then the regular action can't be a spell as well otherwise it's too good. But hang on... we already put combat cantrips in the game because some players wanted pew-pew magic at will instead of physical weapons so now we have to make an exception to the exception of the exception and allow cantrips together with bonus action spells. In addition to having all these unnecessary complications, the game is back to encouraging a heavy action economy mentality that is not necessarily bad but maybe it was not intended at the beginning, when for example the movement rules suggested instead a simultaneity-based way of thinking that Mearls may still wish to see in play.</blockquote>

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