Do they work as a team, or not?
See, now I feel like we need to decide what is mean by “team”.
Because my first thought is “They aren’t killing each other, and they all want to take out the PCs… so yes, they do work as a team.”
However, you could be referring to the level of tactics they use. Do the brutes shove their targets back into the dangerous terrain created by the spellcaster or do all the enemies rush in and fight individually.
Tactically, yeah, most monsters have terrible teamwork, but they still work towards the same goals most of the time and generally don’t kill each other.
Honestly, not that often...but for a different reason than you might think. I'd have the opponents - particularly the dumber ones - get in each others' way more often if they'd only flippin' live long enough to do so!
See, but you want that to happen. Your players probably don’t want to get in each others way. Now, I’m picturing different players than you are, my group is… well, I’ve actually seen people complain about kill-stealing and had people calling dibs on killing certain enemies.
So, with that in mind, if your players get into each others way, they might find a humorous situation out of it and laugh. Mine, are going to get upset, some of them really upset, and that isn’t the sort of drama I want at the table.
I think it is this perspective that has me wondering. I mean, as a GM, I don’t like the system but I don’t hate it, but when I think about it working for a group of players, the problems just multiply and it seems to cause problems instead of solving them.
Yeah, well... if you get annoyed to no end that some of us just won't take your word for it that bonus actions are brilliant design and that Mike is apparently stupid for even considering thinking about how they could have designed the game differently... then I guess you just have to be annoyed. So be it.
Feel free to continue putting words in my mouth, but I have never said either of those things, here or anywhere else.
Bonus Actions are the best mechanic for what they do that I have seen, that is true. Brilliant might be stretching it, but if someone wanted to make that argument I won’t fight them on it.
And Mearls thinking about how to improve them isn’t a problem. Improve the game, why would I ever argue against that. But, what people are declaring will “improve the game” isn’t always something that improves anything. I’ll argue whether or not a fix is necessary or if it does what it claims to do, but I will never call someone names (unless they really deserve it which Mearls does not) or tell someone they are wrong for even trying to improve something.
Earlier I asked the question of whether the main action is also delayed by the use of the bonus action, or whether they happen on two different initiative counts. I couldn't tell from the text, and there were no bonus actions in the example. I'd much prefer it to happen on two different counts, even though that would add a bit of complexity. It's possible, for example, that you would make your main attack, then your opponent would move, and when your bonus action came up your target would be out of range. Problematic, but actually kind of cool and cinematic, in my opinion. It means you might want to intentionally delay your main action until your bonus action comes up.
That isn't how it works per RAW.
RAW for these rules is you roll all your dice and do all your actions when your initiative comes up. So bonus actions can add either an extra attack, move or spell die to your roll and make you act later in the initiative.
This is why people are saying Rogues and Monks will now be more likely to act last in the turn, they often move, attack, and use a bonus action, so they will be rolling three dice most turns.
Actually, anybody with any possible bonus action is going to want to roll three dice, because if they don't and something triggers is, they lose out on their ability to use it.
Two different examples of clunk:
1.) Cunning action vs shadow step. Logically rogue training should only increase your ability to confuse your opponent as to your whereabouts after teleporting; but because they were written in the bonus action paradigm they wind up being incompatible instead.
A more tailored design which allowed some combinations of compatible actions (like recent UAs for e.g. bard college with blade dancing, or whatever it's called) would be able to accommodate logical combinations like shadow stepping QUIETLY.
2.) Also, Bardic Inspiration vs. Healing Word. For some reason, even though you can inspire allies while mocking enemies with Vicious Mockery, and you can heal allies from a distance while mocking enemies with Vicious Mockery, you cannot inspire allies while healing allies from a distance. There's no good reason from a fictional perspective why you shouldn't be able to do two quick things (bonus actions) instead of one quick thing and one slow thing (regular action), and yet you cannot.
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See, I'm a big proponent of trading an action for a bonus action these days. It doesn't seem to break a single thing in the game and I love the extra freedom of being able to do two bonus actions.
As for shadow step and cunning action... yeah it doesn't work well, but I think it is more on shadow step than anything else. It feels like it should assist in you hiding period, so I like the idea of giving a player advantage on stealth after using it. But, yeah, it is a combo that makes sense and should work, but is restrained by the rules
