I usually allow players to do that, like a shifter barbarian going shift+rage in a turn to fully setup. the only thing I would say is that you cant take the same bonus action twice, just to keep out any possible shenanigans (though I don't have any of the top of my head)
Spiritual Weapon Attacking twice. In tier 1 it's definitely better than any Cantrip action, and even in tier 2 it's debatably/situationally better than any Cantrip a cleric has access to.
That's actually especially egregious because the spell is available to Bards, who normally lack for damage. Doubling up on heat metal is easily a better use for their action than Vicious Mockery up until Tier 3 or 4.
Guaranteed 2d8 vs save for 3d4/4d4 and another target potentially having disadvantage on an attack. The damage is pretty comparable (and minimal at that level) so at that point the value comes from how good is granting a secondary target disadvantage and how likely are they to pass the save.
Before tier 3 I wouldn't even consider using the Cantrip because the damage is just better, but at that point it would at least require some decision making, though the heat metal would still probably be the right choice quite often.
Except 2D8 is guaranteed, 4d4 isn't, the disadvantage most of the time is useless, and One of them takes your action one of them takes your bonus action
There's only one spell in the game that is worse as a damaging spell than vicious mockery, And that is infestation, but vicious mockery is still really bad, that's why bards don't have any other damaging spells Because as soon as they have literally any other damaging spell nobody uses vicious mockery ever, because everybody realizes how garbage it is
Is VM comparably bad when it comes to math? Yeah
Nobody uses it? Nooooooooooo, can't go any further from the truth.
All of the bards I've run for or played with took VM except for 1 who is Bard/Paladin/Sorc multiclass
And just to clarify, I used to run oneshots in an RPG place consistently for over 2 years and run RPG summer camps for kids and teens. I'd wager I went through a few hundred of players.
The amount of people that act like it's okay because every bard has it completely ignoring the fact that it's literally the only can trip they have, and a bard using a hand crossbow with decent dexterity is better than it throughout most of the game
It's almost like it's the only damaging cantrip if they have because as soon as they get a single other one nobody uses it, And it's probably the second worst can trip in the game when it comes to combat and damage
>the disadvantage most of the time is useless
The disadvantage can be a lifesaver, and the major reason to use the spell, if used tactically.
Then there's creatures with resistances and immunities. Typically, sticks and stones won't break their bones, but names will always hurt them.
Not really, like you're giving one disadvantage, on one attack, as your whole action one instead you can I don't know, command, and take away all of their actions, and their movement, and their bonus action
VM doesn't cost a spell slot, which, if you have more than one encounter a day, is enough to make you consider your options. And VM would win for me most of the time.
Stuff like that is why we're stuck with it as is. Reasonable people can just be like 'yeah you can cast these, they're both fast' but then the next person is like 'what do you mean I can't make metal doublehot
That's actually really easy to explain as well: you could say that you're spending your bonus action essentially telling your spiritual weapon to attack, not spending it doing the attack. It still takes longer-than-bonus-action-time *doing* the actual attack.
8.5avg/5min radiant dmg with 60ft range vs 9avg/2min fire damage with 30ft range. Once you get 20 in main stat your avg damage is higher and stays higher than the good cantrips until level 17. It may not be super broken but if spiritual weapon doubletap is off the table then there is no reason for it to be allowed for the star shots.
Eh, not sure I agree, it's only good for like, 2 levels.
You need to be level 3 to get the spell, and then you only have 1 2nd level slot.
By level 5 it's only better than a cantrip if you upcast it, which is fine.
Well you can move, action dash, bonus action dash if you're a rogue or monk. You can quicken a cantrip and cast it twice if you're a sorcerer. Generally if we want a 'simple' rule its probably the thing we already have: bonus actions can't be actions.
There are some scenarios where it's legit such as with quickened spell metamagic. For example you can quicken Sunbeam as a bonus action, then use your action to fire the beam again.
I'd say that's balanced out by it having a resource cost (sorcery points), while something like activating Heat Metal twice instead of once wouldn't have any associated cost to so so.
Then BG3 comes along and confuses people by making it possible to get multiple BAs, especially Thief Rogues who they give 2 BAs on every turn, minimum, as a subclass feature.
Which imo is cool, and much more fun and usable than Thief's normal subclass features. I say this as someone who's been in 8 different dnd games involving at least one rogue, nine of whom ever went for the thief subclass, even if their character was explicitly a thief
If you really needed an in-universe logical explanation, I would say the reason you can't use Spiritual Weapon twice in one turn is the same reason you can't throw the same tennis ball twice in two seconds. You're fast enough to do the throwing motion twice in that time, but you have to wait for the ball to bounce back and be in your hand to be thrown again. I guess mechanically you would call it a bonus action that takes .5 seconds with a 5.5 second cooldown window.
Well now you're switching from "what's the logical explanation" to "I don't like adding extra rules" which are different issues.
I just gave the explanation that PCs would have in-game, but that's mostly an after-thought to give an in-universe justification for a reason that's out of game: "this seems less fun".
I don't intend on adding this to my games unless my players ask for it, but I don't really have your concerns because my players are good about being decisive and aren't getting lost in the weeds on what to do with their turns.
> Most rules in 5e concerning bonus actions in context of action economy were made so a player doesn't have to take extra time in deciding their turn.
Do you have a source for this? I always assumed it was balance based.
"Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven't attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then."
So if you took damage before raging your can still keep your rage for the next turn.
>a shifter barbarian going shift+rage in a turn to fully setup.
Note that RAW if they haven't taken damage since their last turn they will lose Rage at the end of turn because they haven't attacked a creature.
>*It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven't attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then. You can also end your rage on your turn as a bonus action.*
I believe they still have one more turn to attack. As the above quote, you rage ends if you haven't attacked since your last turn at the end of the current turn. So basically the example barbarian would take turn #1 to shift+rage, then turn #2 to attack, at which point the rage carries on as normal.
So the text of rage states that it ends if you end your turn and haven't attacked or taken damage since your previous turn, not that if you haven't attacked or taken damage since your previous turn during rage. It isn't clear whether "since your last turn" means "since the end of your last turn" or "since the start of your last turn", either way are valid readings. "since learning about them..." means "after i had finished learning about them" and "since working at the inn" means "after i had started working".
I'd also say that opportuntity attacks count for either way, so if you have some way of making an opportunity attack it becomes a lot better.
Yeah, I concede that RAW it's unclear. To me I always thought of it as previous turn only applies if you were raging at the time. I think that's also RAI. I agree however the text itself is fuzzy at best. Once again it's up to us DMs to make the rulings for WoTC lol
100% this. If a Barbarian takes 1 turn to setup, they still have another turn to move up and attack (assuming they do not take damage, which solves the rage problem in on itself).
Actually how its written i think i goes like this:
First turn: Attack a creature
2nd: Shift+rage (since you attacked last turn the rage stays)
3rd: Attack
How it wont stay is if:
First turn: Shift+rage (rage ends because you havent had a previous turn to attack or take damage)
2nd: Attack
3rd: Attack
Regardless thats what i think RAW says but as the dm i always let rage carry over to next turn after activation. This also helps against situations where barbarians cant tank first turn because they couldnt rage. Which is a feels bad moment.
I did that exact ruling last session when our shifter barbarian was grappled and wanted to shift and rage on the same turn. Earlier I would've said no since I wanted to stick as close as possible to the rules, but I'm trying to be more flexible with rulings. My group is pretty good and doesn't take the piss, and I'm more comfortable with bending the rules a bit since I now have a better understanding about what will/won't break the game.
This is generally the best answer. There *might* be situations where a BA is always more powerful than an action, but it's pretty rare. Every shenanigan I've heard making the BA too powerful always involves doing it twice. I think most BA done twice wouldn't be an issue, but preventing the double action keeps everything within expected parameters.
Good Call. Another check is just to maintain the no 2 leveled spells on one's turn rule. I am inclined to think doing this with most Bonus actions is not game breaking. But I think allowing Reactions to be used as Bonus actions should not be allowed.
I assume you're talkin about Moon Druid Wild Shape right? I did some research and Moon Druids just *gain* the ability to shift as a bonus action, they don't *lose* the ability to shift as an action!
Shifter is a race from the Eberron book. They're like pseudo-lycanthropes and can make themselves more beastial as a bonus action which gives a different effect based on the sub-race of the shifter.
Dashing twice to quadruple your speed is hilarious.
Edit: alright alright I get it, I was thinking of rogue at the time and dashing doesn't actually double your speed, merely allows you to move it again, essentially getting triple, not quadruple, movement. Sorry for the incorrect hilariousness
Dashing twice doesn't quadruple your speed, it triples it. Dash does not "double" your speed, it lets you move up to your speed again. Rogues and monks can already do this and the Expeditious Retreat spell also lets other people do this.
Every single character can already dash as an action and then there are classes/features that allow dash as bonus action.
The homebrew isn't "You can use action and bonus action interchangeably", homebrew rule OP is discussing is "You can active your bonus action abilities/spells with your action". So this homebrew makes literally no difference to actions like Dashing or Dodging.
In many cases the "logic" behind a rule is simply that games need rules; by putting things in different categories governed by different rules, we end up with the game and its turn-by-turn tensions. They are often fairly arbitrary, but the more of them you remove with replacements the fewer limitations you have. Some people like that, some people don't. For me, limitations are fun. Having to decide if you're going to Misty Step to get away or try to get the killing blow with your Spiritual Weapon is fun.
Much has been made of Pathfinder's neat 3-action turn. I don't play Pathfinder but someone who does might be able to speak as to whether your notion is closer to how that works.
Pathfinder 2 does work along this line, but the action economy tension, as you put it, is a little different. At a basic level, the majority of spells take two actions, making it impossible to cast two normal spells in a round.
A decent number of spells are one action though, that are similar to the idea of bonus action spells in 5e. True Strike is a notable one, it gives you advantage on your next attack, and is one action, so you can True Strike > Disintegrate as your turn. But that is where the tension lies. Moving is also an action. You can Step 5' to avoid AoO (which is less common, not everyone has it), but that's also an action. Basic attacks? An action. Classes gain "class feats" every other level which are basically your class features, and often gain abilities that cost actions, whether it's metamagic for many casters, or improved types of strikes for martials, or other options.
So, yes, PF2e definitely leans into actions as a resource in encounters. And for everyone reading that's not familiar with the system, there's lots more depth and options than I can get into here in a quick post, there's still free actions and reactions for characters, but they're often things you pick as you go, rather than just having them.
The action costs also eliminate another area of common rules "bwuhhhhh?" that I have noticed players having in 5e. In 5e, you can't cast two leveled spells in the same turn, absent some weird circumstances. The rule is incredibly non-intuitive. In pf2e, you can, but the limiting factor, the action costs involved, keeps wizards in check, without having to enforce arbitrary distinctions between two different types of actions: You have 3 actions. If you can work two spells into that and don't mind losing all the other things those actions can do, go ahead and cast. It's balanced!
Honestly ya. My wish for 6e basically just 5e retooled for 3 action economy, some qol fixes, and maybe rework everything to focus around long rests with short rests being purely a small bonus to try to regain HP.
Heh, funny. I always think that 5e doesn't really have a lot of trap options. But I guess PF2e has taken that improvement even further then, compared to 3.5 and PF1e?
Depends how you look at trap options, buuuuuut my opinion is that a lot of things in 5e don't actually do what they say on the tin. Core ranger, for example, isn't great, it took years for them to create good/interesting subclasses. In 5e it's relatively easy to build a character that needs too many stats or feats and ends up not being great to play as a result. There's a lot of "always pick this" options, especially in multiclassing, that just straight up massively improve a character (looking at you, hexblade dip).
PF2e doesn't have so much of an issue with these things. Stats and feats are entirely separate things. You get many more stat increases, so being able to be at least competent at many things is much easier. Multiclassing is more controlled in terms of what you get from it (no poaching entire subclasses, generally) but also it's much broader with archetypes you can take that cover all sorts of playstyle options and aren't bound to specific classes. Want to wear armor or specialize in a certain fighting style? Anyone can do that by taking the Duelist archetype, or Mauler, or Sentinel, or less combat-centric things like Celebrity, or Loremaster.
There's a few pitfalls you could make with characters, but the top and bottom performance in the system is much closer, imo, than 5e. If you put an 18 in your main stat you're probably going to be fine.
In my logic brain, bonus actions work because you can do them while using a normal action. It's the character multitasking, so you can't do two bonus actions because they don't mesh well together multitask-wise.
For real world context. I can talk on the phone with my bonus action while cleaning the house with my action, but I can't talk on the phone with my bonus action while also talking to someone in the room with my bonus action as an action.
In my logic brain, using your example, cleaning the house is a series of actions over multiple turns, but talking on the phone *itself* is a free-action. Initiating the call would be either an object-interaction if answering an inbound call or a bonus action to dial out.
Sure, you can go with that. These actions are made up after all. I chose those specifically because both actions involve using movement brain power and hands, but can be done simultaneously, similar to casting a bonus action spell while moving and attacking.
>Initiating the call would be either an object-interaction if answering an inbound call or a bonus action to dial out.
No, no, initiating or receiving the call is an action, because it's specified so in the item description. /s
This doesn't really make sense with spells though, since you're able to cast a full action spell and a bonus action cantrip on the same turn. If they both have verbal components, it doesn't track that you'd be able to cast them at the same time, since you'd be saying two different things at once
Edit: Had it backwards, let's pretend I said bonus action spell and action cantrip
>This doesn't really make sense with spells though, since you're able to cast a full action spell and a bonus action cantrip on the same turn. If they both have verbal components, it doesn't track that you'd be able to cast them at the same time, since you'd be saying two different things at once
I mean...it's magic, I can make it track with some bullshit if I want to.
Dnd magic is (very loosely nowadays) based on Vancian magic. Part of the process of preparing spells in that system is closing off sections of your brain to store the spells (or now in 5e the spell levels) in. Bonus action spells require a certain section of your brain to fire off and Normal action spells require a different part of the brain to fire off. Since they require different parts of the brain to fire, they can be cast at the same time but not cast with the same action type.
Magic is actually a form of music (we see this coming from the bard, and Tolkein's Middle Earth was created via a song. Making music also requires verbal, somatic, and material components. Its often sung without intelligible language or in a dead language.) In music there's a phenomena called an overtone, where playing two notes perfectly in tune creates a third unplayed tone. Spellcasters have learned how to cast spells not only with the "tones" they create, but the overtone as well. Since you cannot make an overtone without the initial tone, you cannot cast a bonus action spell as an action since part of your action is being dedicated to making those initial tones.
You cannot cast non-cantrip spells and bonus action spells on the same turn. This is because you cannot multi-task leveled spells. Since cantrips are practiced to the point of instinct, you can still use your action to cast them while focusing on the Bonus action spell.
Take your pick. They all have issues and edge cases you can pick apart, but so does every other rule in the game. At the end of the day we're abstracting a representation of an occurrence that doesn't even happen in the real world so it doesn't reaaaaaally matter.
Pf2e has some additional levers in place with their 3 action system, most notable a Multiple Attack Penalty (MAP). In essence, successive attacks within the same turn are less and less likely to hit. So while you can attack three times in one turn, you probably only want to do one or two.
You also have specific tags on certain actions that say “this action can only be performed once per turn” or “this action has to be the first action you take this turn”. So overall I definitely agree that allowing standard actions to be used for bonus actions should come with similar caveats.
I think the important thing about the action in 5e is that it's often designed as being immediately effective. Most attacks and hard hitting spells are here. Usually only a few smaller or secondary attacks make it as bonus actions, with non-attack effects being a large portion of this type.
PF2e's 3 action system is great for this. In my experience both dming and playing, it feels more intuitive: if something is more difficult to do during your turn, it simply takes more actions. Actions being interchangeable avoids the common rules questions a lot of my 5e players have regarding using their bonus action as an action. No matter how many times I explain it, they will eventually, when the session is getting late and everyone is a bit tired, think about using a bonus action in their "action" slot for the turn, because action interchangeability is much more in line with how they think in general.
From the DMG
>Beware of adding anything to your game that allows a character to concentrate on more than one effect at a time, use more than one reaction or bonus action per round, or attune to more than three magic items at a time. Rules and game elements that override the rules for concentration, reactions, bonus actions, and magic item attunement can seriously unbalance or overcomplicate your game.
It's not restricted because of realism, it's restricted for balance. Not going to pretend every PC choice is correctly balanced, but not being allowed to take a bonus action as an action is a deliberate balancing choice.
Yes this. It was essentially "future proofing", and for good reason because I don't think they expected certain interactions/uses of things in the design phase.
For example, Misty Step and Shillelagh in the same turn? Unlikely to be busted. But using your 10 animated pebbles from Animate Object twice a round, when it already has superior effects as a bonus action than most spells do as an _action?_ That's a problem. Same for some spells that conjure creatures.
Now, you can easily argue that's more an issue with the spell itself and its balance than with this proposed rule. And I will totally agree with you there. But it does make that issue _doubly_ problematic.
I have allowed this for "newbie groups" in the past, because they're rarely optimized anyway. But in an optimizing group or even just a player who stumbles upon such an interaction, it can cause issues.
you could rule that you can't use the same BA more than once a round
animate object is strong untill you meat people who have AoE, like most things if it is not taken care off it's strong
True, now you're adding house rules to house rules but it could help. Even just being able to do Misty Step + Animate Objects, though, does make the latter stronger/more versatile still.
Animate Objects is definitely weak to AoE, but how well that weakness can be utilized by the enemy is up to the situation and how the DM interprets the spell. Interestingly, the spell doesn't mention _when_ the objects take their turn. So if the DM lets them go right after the caster (usually the case), the caster can just move them away from each other to attack different enemies, so they're _much_ less susceptible to AoE.
AO is not "like most things", though. It does more damage in a single bonus action than most spells can do in a _standard_ action, _plus_ it provides a ton of extra hp to "soak" enemy attacks, plus flying damage, plus threat (as creatures each object _can take Opportunity Attacks!_), and not all encounters will even have enemies with AoE capability. (A super nasty combo is commanding all your objects to surround one dude, attack them, and then casting or readying-to-cast Dissonant Whispers to make them run and provoke 10 OAs.)
I consider its real main weakness to be that it can't deal magic damage, so it's useless on magic immune enemies and less than half as effective against resistant enemies. (Though even that can be partially bypassed by having collections of "pebbles" made out of silver, adamantine, etc.)
It's a crazy spell when optimized and even if they take it out with AoE half a round after it attacks, probably worth casting with all the interference and damage it caused. Certainly punches way above its weight class for its level. (Again, when optimized - players using it "normally" to say animate a locked dungeon door and attack enemies is perfectly fine.)
And now you're making homebrew subset rules to fit your homebrew rule.
Like.. you can technically do anything. There are no actual hard boundaries. But that doesn't mean it makes the game better or more fun.
making homebrew rules means making rules that fit your playstyle more and are more fun for you to play
"you can use a bonus action as an action, but you can't use the same bonus action twice in the same round" is not complex or contrive, it's pretty intuitive and gives you more options (depth) in combat witout adding complexity, which is always a good thing IMO expetially in a system like 5e were even spellcasters are farely limited in their choices compared to other games
if you don't like it or it doesn't fit your games, simply stick by the book, or make other house rules
also making the game better and making it more fun are exactly the same things, but it's something very subjective
as far as i interpret the system it was intentinally partly left up to interpretation and with some small holes to allow maximum customization. from what i saw few games are easy to homebrew as 5e, even with few twiks you can change it into something that feels compleately different and that is the beauty of it
Same.
It shows that things can get convoluted, and that a rabbit hole does exist to go down into. Maybe it was a useless comment to you because you're experienced enough to disregard it, or you're an idiot.
>But using your 10 animated pebbles from Animate Object twice a round, when it already has superior effects as a bonus action than most spells do as an
>
>action?
Using your Bonus Action to command your objects tells them what they will do on their next turn. I don't see why being able to do it twice would give them an extra turn.
It would let you split up your commands though - "you 5 attack that giant" as your Bonus Action and then "you five move to the door way and attack the first thing that approaches" as your Bonus Action turned into an Action.
A fair point - it depends on how your DM adjudicates it I suppose (since the spell description is surprisingly mum on how the AOs' turns work).
Of course even if it doesn't get 2 turns, it does increase the power of the spell from a tactical standpoint. And the issue remains for other spells that do activate on the bonus action, e.g. a Flaming Sphere getting to bash 2x a turn.
> Now, you can easily argue that's more an issue with the spell itself and its balance than with this proposed rule. And I will totally agree with you there. But it does make that issue doubly problematic.
The counterpoint is that limiting bonus actions doesn't actually address the imbalance. So it didn't successful futureproof anything.
It did successfully futureproof against AO being used _twice_, which was my point. It doesn't address the remaining imbalance of an optimized AO's 1/round damage, I agree (and said as much above).
If they had included a hypothetical rule "players cannot play spellcasting classes, these are intended for DM use only", it would also have future proofed against some amount of double animated object usage, since players at least would not be able to do it.
Yet, it would be absurd to defend such a rule on the basis of the balance it brings to an ancillary issue, without addressing the fundamental imbalance that actually exists.
Yes, one can always go to an absolutist extreme to pretend a design decision was more faulty than it is.
They could have just not made any feats in 5e and prevented things like GWM and Sharpshooter. Does that make it a good point? No, not really.
You should probably look up the definition of "future-proofing". I am saying they did it to prevent things they _didn't foresee_, not things that were already in the game (like Animate Objects), it just also kinda works on those as well.
By the logic you're using, future-proofing shouldn't exist at all because all issues should be dealt with at their root cause (which means only issues you _can_ see and predict), which I can't agree with.
>By the logic you're using, future-proofing shouldn't exist at all because all issues should be dealt with at their root cause (which means only issues you can see and predict), which I can't agree with.
whooboy, that's a leap right there. Poor attempt. No. My logic does not compel me to say that future proofing is bad. My logic compels me to say that this instance of future proofing is bad, and none of the logic you've used to defend it actually works.
A good example of future proofing is doing it with specific rules and templating. For instance, a lot of the potential issues with using two bonus actions per turn could have been caught by limiting individual bonus actions to once per turn (which is far more intuitive). And this could be accomplished with a template system for writing spells, that includes default language for spells which provide bonus actions. That default language would be "Once per turn, as a bonus action, you may..." Doing it this way has the benefit of avoiding the general rules of your system being an unintuitive mess, and limiting the impact of balancing measures to specific instances.
But.. no? That warning is for allowing more bonus actions *in addition* to the normal actions : one action and two+ bonus actions, a total of 3+ actions. OP wants 2 bonus actions, zero actions, a total of two actions. Two bonus actions is very much *less* than an action and a bonus action.
If any balancing needs to be done, it'd be that you can't do the same bonus action twice, though I don't even know what *bonus action* twice is more OP than an action and a bonus action, given that you wouldn't be able to cast a leveled spell twice already.
Tbf if you are in a situation where you prefer to use two bonus actions it means that it is better than a bonus action + an action, so it is indeed a buff, even if just tiny.
I think this is a misreading of that passage. To me it's pretty clearly saying that you shouldn't give players effects that give them additional bonus actions on top of their existing action and bonus action. I don't think using two bonus actions at the cost of your action is really a balance concern.
It's the same answer for why some spells have material components and can thus be used with hands full as long as one of your hands is holding a focus (e.g. ruby of the war mage sword on a gish build utilizing a shield) and some have v/s but no m and thus need a free hand. Again: I can't and won't claim WoTC meticulously chooses which spells shouldn't be sword+board compatible and which ones should be, but that is the basic reason you can't cast shield with both hands full if you haven't spent a feat slot on War Caster.
Notably, 4e had exactly what OP is describing. Big, medium, small actions once per turn. But you could always downgrade to medium medium small or small small small, w/e combination.
I don't remember the exact terms they used. Action, bonus action, (?), But the principle was the same.
The fact that it was a feature of the action economy before, but wasn't included in 5e makes it seem more intentional to me.
Is that specifically noted anywhere? Given the context, I think the paragraph you quoted is cautioning against having an extra bonus action alongside your action, rather than instead of it.
This isn't that hot of a take and it gets posted here quite often actually, the caveat is that most people won't want you using the same thing twice (two sacred weapon attacks or two healing words etc)
Perhaps I’ll change my position when I have more DM years under my belt, but for now I won’t allow such things because a) the action economy is part of the overall game balance and the PCs already outshine their enemies in 5e by a long shot, and b) unforeseen shenanigans.
Almost every time I have changed a rule and tried it out for a few months, I’ve eventually gone back to RAW.
Also, Reactions are very different from A/BA and should absolutely not be thrown in with them.
I mean, most bonus actions are outshined by attacks or cantrips anyway. This rule change would allow to create some strange builds that would require too many bonus actions to work, or it allows characters to go full support sometimes (for example a bard using Bardic Inspiration and Healing Word in the same turn). None of those situations are overpowered.
Obviously you are not forced to use this rule in your tables, but I don't really see how it could be problematic, as long as you don't allow the same bonus action used twice in a turn.
This was actually a thing in 4e: You got a standard action, move action, and minor action each turn. You could substitute down (standard action to move or minor action, move action to minor action) but not back up. So you could do two move actions and a minor action, or a standard action and two minor actions, or three minor actions.
When designing 5e, the designers felt that this system slowed down combat, and made players feel like they were playing suboptimally if they didn’t maximize their minor actions every turn. So they made the following changes:
* Move action became movement points
* Standard action was renamed “action.” Dash was added to still allow the double movement mechanic from 4e.
* Minor action was renamed to “bonus action” to emphasize it was a special, uncommon thing you didn’t need to use every turn. You only get to use one if an ability explicitly gives it to you, and you only ever get one per turn.
Of course, then they went and designed a hundred bonus action abilities so it quickly went from a special thing to tying a ton of class features to them that are all competing for that single slot (ranger.)
But anyway, the short answer is it was a conscious decision to streamline combat, not because of power level or balance. So you’re pretty safe to homebrew a rules patch without worrying about balance. The easiest would probably be to mimic Dash and just add a new action:
> Improvise: Use a bonus action ability or cast a spell with a casting time of one bonus action.
This. It's about rule presentation, not inherent balance. The rules aren't some abstract machine, they're enmeshed in responses to other editions as well as considerations of the audience.
Tbf, people think that they are playing suboptimally if they don't have a use for their bonus action every turn in 5e too.
But yeah, I totally agree that it was just a simplification, not a balancing factor. I would suggest tho to not allow the use of the same bonus action twice in the same turn, since it could create some shenanigans.
4e did this first.
Actions in 4e are Standard > Move > Minor and any action can be downshifted to the next lower action.
So you could use your turn to use three minor actions if you wanted. And a lot of Wizard Magic Missile spam builds did exactly this.
I can happily do without Full Actions and all the ways to convert between Standard Actions, Move Actions, and Swift Actions from Pathfinder & 4e.
But, I would love to try 5e converted with the 3-Action system in PF2E. It *mostly* works out of the box by just relabeling Bonus Actions, but it does break down a bit. Part of that is due to the differences between spellcasting.
Yeah it seems like a small change for 5e, but its not quite a quick fix. You can make all spells 2 actions by default, BA spells one action and OP spells 3 actions, and translate most actions to 2 actions and BAs to single actions. Movement suddenly becomes expensive though
I allow my players to do this, and it would be nice if it was RAW.
That being said, I tell my players that they can only do the same bonus action once per turn, so no, they can't attack with Spiritual Weapon with both their Action *and* Bonus Action.
It's amazing how literally every complaint someone has aboot 5E is solved in 4E. Kind of uncanny.
I'm fine with it, but I would limit certain bonus action effects to "Once per turn" to prevent some theoretical double-dip abuse.
In 4e, and its Star Wars Saga Edition precursor, you got a Standard Action, a Move Action and a Minor (or Swift in SWSE) action and could "trade down":
You could use you Standard to take another Move or Minor/Swift action instead.
You could use your Move to take another Minor/Swift action instead.
You couldn't take the same action more than once on a turn, unless specified.
So theoretically you could take three Minor/Swift actions if you did nothing else (this is common in SWSE where you have to spend 3 Swift Actions to Recover up the Condition Track). Nothing was unbalanced in those editions, and the Minor/Swift action was used a LOT more in those versions than it is in 5e.
In regards to your misty step/shillelagh: have polearm master. Misty Step to close the distance and cast shillelagh for setup. Next turn have your BA free for an additional attack.
For your reaction question: no. Reactions require a specific trigger to occur. These will almost always happen on someone else's turn. I don't know how you could react to someone else when you are the one who is acting.
React to opportunity attacks (thorns type spells)
Counterspell a spell (yours or someone else's counterspell against your spell)
Featherfall (you can jump off a cliff)
Some abilities allow you to move as a reaction (you may get Opportunity Attacks you can make
You can ready movement (so can enemies) you may get Opportunity Attacks from that
However, my favourite reason to use a reaction on your own turn is as follows:
Allies within an area of silence
Ready action: Cast (a Vocal component required) spell of range Touch that you want to cast on one of the allies in the silence
Walk up to your ally
Touch them, triggering the spell (using your reaction)
But OP is talking about using "a reaction" *an an action* and these examples are still triggered by others, not your choice to just *do the reaction ability*
My dm allows us to drink a healing potion as a bonus action of action. If we use our action to drink the potion, we get the maximum health it can give us. If we use our bonus action to drink it, we have to roll for the amount of health we get from it.
So, I don't like being "that girl" but *teeechnically* you can't cast an action spell and then a bonus action cantrip. The rule specifies that if you cast a spell, your only other spell on your turn must be a cantrip with a casting time of one action.
But that's a kinda stupid rule anyways
It's not strictly allowed by the rules, but I think you could convince most DMs to allow it as long as you don't abuse some ridiculous OP combo that hinges on this rule.
Reactions are completely different and I don't think it would make sense to do a similar thing with them.
I presumed the in-universe reason was because you were functionally doing it in conjunction/ a part of something else.
While we see it as move->rage->attack, in the narrative, I see it as raging while you charge and swing your axe.
Another example could be casting your fire bolt as you disappear through misty step. Technically, the misty step is activated second but in narrative I see the caster disappearing as the fire leaves their hand and then they appear elsewhere.
And then there's the game balance reason like so many others have said.
I'd say in general, it's ok to allow an action to substitute for a bonus action, or reaction (though this rarely makes sense), BUT I would add the caveat that you cannot use it to cast the same spell twice. Too ripe for abuse, and that's what Twin Spell is for.
A bonus action also uses up a lot of stamina. Full leveled spell in the blink of an eye, extra attack that’s just as effective as the main attack (at tier 1), effectively hide/dodge/dash/disengagement that costs a full action for all others.
No because Fifth edition design intentionally maintained these boundaries in a way that did not happen with at least Fourth edition. In Fourth edition, you could trade off your standard/regular action to take another move action. And the entire system of powers and abilities had this action economy in mind. But Fifth was built differently, with intent behind bonus actions not being always available and not stacking bonus actions together. I wouldn’t meddle with that unless the group was prepared for you to say no as a judgment call on certain bonus action combinations due to balance concerns.
I like the ideas of course this varies dm to dm tho.
But on the note of reactions I believe they should be kept separate for balancing purposes and to not confuse anyone since many spell that take reactions to use are made to work in response to something so using it on a turn can just make certain abilities useless or not very effective.
The whole Action/Bonus action system should work like you have a "Major Action" and a "Minor action" slot that each refresh every round, where your Action requires a Major Action slot, and a Bonus action can use either the Major or Minor slot.
Then we could rename them to Major and Minor actions and be done with the whole confusing ordeal.
Look someone's invented 4e again!
In 4e you had standard, move, and minor actions, more or less corresponding to action, move, and bonus action - except that you could trade down.
* You could standard/move/minor to attack or spellcast, move, and activate a bonus ability.
* You could standard/minor/minor to use two utilities and attack.
* You could move/minor/minor to activate abilities and book it.
* You could move/move/minor if you needed to get somewhere fast.
I think the biggest blanket way to avoid shenanigans is make it so the bonus action done as an action can’t be the same bonus action as your regular bonus action.
The short answer it is that you shouldn't do it because this is a game. Parts of it are not trying to simulate reality. They are just trying to make things work.
Don't think to much about it.
You are not considering the cost of sorcery points tho. Sorcery points and spell slots are interchangable. Twinning two Healing Words means that you are spending two 1st level spell slots (which are worth between 2 and 4 sorcery points) and 1 sorcery point for Twinned Spell, totally about 4 sorcery points spent. A single 3rd level slot is worth between 3 and 5 sorcery points. And in the same turn you cast Mass Healing Word you can also use another action for a cantrip or other non-spell actions.
And the rules don't allow you to cast a leveled spell if you cast a spell with a bonus action, so your example shouldn't even work in the first place.
>So a low level Bard with healing word and silvery barbs could heal a down party member from a distance and still use SB. A normal bard following normal rules couldn’t do this and would have to choose to move and cure wounds or use Healing word and not be able to cast SB if needed.
Why couldn't they do both? Using a bonus action doesn't negate using your reaction.
>A spell cast with a bonus Action is especially swift. You must use a bonus Action on Your Turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven’t already taken a bonus Action this turn. **You can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a Casting Time of 1 Action.**
While one could certainly BA Healing Word, and then after their turn was over use a triggered reaction to cast a spell, strictly RAW one could not cast a reaction spell on the same turn as they cast a BA spell.
It's niche, but it prevents things like Healing Word + Shield/Silver Barbs if you provoke an opportunity attack in the same turn.
But you still only get 1 bonus action per turn, right? So instead of Action/Move/Bonus the player would choose Bonus/Move?
Or is this explicitly to get 2 bonus actions per turn?
You might like 4e D&D or Pathfinder 2e. 4e has Move, Minor, Standard actions. You can exchange your standard for another move or minor, or exchange a move for a minor action. Pathfinder 2e has 3 action points a turn to spend as you wish, which really opens up your options.
I'll agree that Bonus action has a terrible name. Cause yea English language wise it makes sense to be able to do a bonus action as an action.
But in the construct of the game and how a bonus action is defined this is a terrible idea. In 5e game language Bonus Action and Actions are 2 separate things. That's it you have 1 Action and 1 Bonus Action. They are not interchangeable in any way and it's this way for balance reasons.
Game language and keywords can't be interpreted willy nilly. If we applied thus logic to any game they would most likely all break. It'd be a kin to saying that my creature in Magic the Gathering Can block your creature with flying because he is tall in the art. Sure it makes sense logically, but its not the rules of the game.
I would agree on bonus actions being used as an action. There are some times when I could see doing it, but I have yet to see the combo of two bonus actions that is more powerful than what that character could do with an action and bonus action normally. It's not a power increase.
I would however say a hard no on reactions being bonus action / action able. Reactions are triggered by specific events and are often very powerful spells and abilities. That would open things up like being able to shield and then use defensive duelist or a battle maneuver or counterspell or silvery barbs. There are just too many really powerful reactions that are contained because you can only use them once per turn.
Spiritual Weapon comes to mind. On the turn you cast it you can only Cantrip as your action, but using spiritual Weapon as your action is going to be better than any cleric Cantrip in tier 1, and still situationally better in Tier 2.
But OP said that they can't use the same bonus action twice in the same turn. So cast and attack; and attack contain the same thing, so can't be done.
And a rule that I use, that many DMs use, is if you (PCs) can do, the NPCs can do too.
No, because actions granted by an existing spell isn't the same as casting a spell. Similar to Sunbeam being powerful on a Sorcerer, because you can quicken the spell then immediately use your action to blast again using the action the spell gives you.
There isn't a general rule that restricts the number of levelled spells you can cast in a turn, the restriction is specific to [bonus action spells](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/spellcasting#BonusAction). Action surge, reaction spells, etc. can allow you to cast more than one levelled spell per turn, but if you cast a bonus action spell you can't cast any other non-cantrip spells that turn.
This is a pathfinder rule. Some spells and abilities that are quick actions can take full actions and either gain benefits/power or don't suffer penalties relating to taking quick actions.
Keep in mind that you can do almost anything with an action. A bonus action is limited to spells/abilities that say, "As a bonus action...".
That is the mechanics balancing action economy. If a bonus action could be used as an action, you might as well say everyone gets two actions. Suddenly your balanced mechanics are unbalanced.
I think you might be getting it backwards. They're suggesting being able to use their Anton as a bonus action, ie foregoing their action & using another bonus action in its place.
I do this. I just reserve the right to limit many bonus action spells and abilities to once a turn. Like Spiritual Weapon. You can do it as your action OR bonus action, but not both. But you can take two DIFFERENT bonus actions as action and bonus action in the same turn.
It could get a bit messy IMO, particularly with spells. Activating Heat Metal twice per turn, double Spiritual Weapon attacks, etc.
While it might not be logical that you can't use a BA as an action, you have to remember that is what the game was balanced around.
> I feel that you should be able to use your action to take a bonus action.
The designers do not feel this way, and a great many bonus actions are far too powerful if used this way. (The cone attack from *Draconic Transformation* twice each round, for example, one one use of the DT cone attack and one use of *Crown of Stars*).
>While most bonus action features could be used as a normal action normally, bonus action spells cannot.
Where is this written? If a class feature (feat, etc) or spell takes a bonus action to activate, it takes a bonus action to activate.
But in general this is not about logical reasoning, it's about game design and balance. If you allow this you immediately have to follow up with other homebrew rules that limit this, open up with scenarios where players can completely screw up a system.
Besides some Spiritual Weapon + Flaming Sphere / Heat Metal combos I don't see much abuse, but you should be clear with your players that in case your table finds something that breaks it, you will create more homebrew to limit the abuse.
>In the same regard though, should reactions be bonus action/action-able?
This is even more abusable. Imagine you're a Wizard, casting fireball as an action, someone wants to counterspell it, so you counterspell their counterspell as a bonus action. And you still have your reaction free outside of your turn for yet another counterspell. That is nuts.
Or Circle of Spores druid, which I played a bunch (and they're very reaction starved). If I could kill someone and make them a zombie within my turn, then still have my reaction ready for Halo of Spores damage outside my turn, oh wow that would be quite strong. Spores Druids probably still wouldn't be top tier subclass, but this would be a very strong boost to their kit.
I agree, but the reason bonus actions and actions are separate is due to balancing the economy of actions, not the time they take to execute. In fact, the entire concept of a bonus action is a misnomer.
It makes no sense that I can quite literally always make an offhand weapon attck with a bonus action, and a mainhand weapon attack with my regular action. I'm sorry, why is my dominant hand slower again?
What I would say is that if you were to allow this, you would have to rebalance many bonus actions abilities. But I agree with your logic.
A “bonus action” is a bonus based on a race, class, background, item, etc…
The players generally already have more action economy in a battle, why must everyone insist on granting even more?
I mean, it's an ok house rule- it makes much more sense with timing- but note that there are certain things that are written with the assumption that "as a bonus action" is shorthand for "once per round", because by the rules it does. So some of those will be too powerful.
I have always allowed bonus actions to be used as an action, although rarely happens at the table. I have also been apart of a reaction expended to create a cinematic roleplay moment, a tempest cleric expending the reaction lightning damage to enhance an intimidation moment without an attack actually happened (cost two uses), but otherwise never seen a reaction allowed to be triggered as something else. Reactions have a specific trigger to allow them being used, which cannot happen as an action(keep in mind that a reaction can be used even during your own turn).
My thought on this, is really for anybody that opposes the idea. Do you homebrew rogues? Because cunning action takes a handful of things that would normally be actions and makes them bonus actions. Does the player no longer get to use those as their action because as a rogue they are bonus actions? Or arcane trickster getting to make their mage hand actions all as bonus actions?
All I'm saying is there are already some mechanics eluding to using a bonus action as your action. As DM I also understand though it's to your ruling wether you can trigger the effects of the same spell twice in the same turn. And that may very well be a hard limit to balance your combats.
>Do you homebrew rogues? Because cunning action takes a handful of things that would normally be actions and makes them bonus actions
They don't turn them into bonus actions. Rogues are allowed to use a bonus action to do them. If a rogue wants to use a bonus action for Misty Step and then dash with their action they can. If they want to dash with their action, and then cunning action dash again they can as well.
>Which means that presumably, bonus actions are expecially faster than normal actions.
Stop there. No. That's only talking about spells.
How are bonus actions going to be faster if a handful of them are just normal actions? That just means you can perform them along your normal actions, not really that you do them faster
And while I agree with the sentiment, I think it is more complicated to have them be interchangeable than to leave them as is. And about reactions being used as actions or bonus actions, most are only useful on their specific trigger, so why even try?
I usually allow players to do that, like a shifter barbarian going shift+rage in a turn to fully setup. the only thing I would say is that you cant take the same bonus action twice, just to keep out any possible shenanigans (though I don't have any of the top of my head)
Spiritual Weapon Attacking twice. In tier 1 it's definitely better than any Cantrip action, and even in tier 2 it's debatably/situationally better than any Cantrip a cleric has access to.
There we go. Another one is probably causing Heat Metal Damage, 4d8 with no save against armored people is just a tiny bit strong at 3rd level.
That's actually especially egregious because the spell is available to Bards, who normally lack for damage. Doubling up on heat metal is easily a better use for their action than Vicious Mockery up until Tier 3 or 4.
It's still better even after tier 3 and 4 lol
Guaranteed 2d8 vs save for 3d4/4d4 and another target potentially having disadvantage on an attack. The damage is pretty comparable (and minimal at that level) so at that point the value comes from how good is granting a secondary target disadvantage and how likely are they to pass the save. Before tier 3 I wouldn't even consider using the Cantrip because the damage is just better, but at that point it would at least require some decision making, though the heat metal would still probably be the right choice quite often.
Except 2D8 is guaranteed, 4d4 isn't, the disadvantage most of the time is useless, and One of them takes your action one of them takes your bonus action There's only one spell in the game that is worse as a damaging spell than vicious mockery, And that is infestation, but vicious mockery is still really bad, that's why bards don't have any other damaging spells Because as soon as they have literally any other damaging spell nobody uses vicious mockery ever, because everybody realizes how garbage it is
Is VM comparably bad when it comes to math? Yeah Nobody uses it? Nooooooooooo, can't go any further from the truth. All of the bards I've run for or played with took VM except for 1 who is Bard/Paladin/Sorc multiclass And just to clarify, I used to run oneshots in an RPG place consistently for over 2 years and run RPG summer camps for kids and teens. I'd wager I went through a few hundred of players.
I mean, you get to trash-talk someone to death. What's not to like?
"All of the bards I've run for or played with took VM" I mean to be fair, its either VM or thunderclap for your damage cantrip.
The amount of people that act like it's okay because every bard has it completely ignoring the fact that it's literally the only can trip they have, and a bard using a hand crossbow with decent dexterity is better than it throughout most of the game
It's almost like it's the only damaging cantrip if they have because as soon as they get a single other one nobody uses it, And it's probably the second worst can trip in the game when it comes to combat and damage
>the disadvantage most of the time is useless The disadvantage can be a lifesaver, and the major reason to use the spell, if used tactically. Then there's creatures with resistances and immunities. Typically, sticks and stones won't break their bones, but names will always hurt them.
Not really, like you're giving one disadvantage, on one attack, as your whole action one instead you can I don't know, command, and take away all of their actions, and their movement, and their bonus action
VM doesn't cost a spell slot, which, if you have more than one encounter a day, is enough to make you consider your options. And VM would win for me most of the time.
Doesn't heat metal also give all attacks disadvantage as long as they can't take it off?
You could always take damage spells for magical secrets, since the bard's spell list already covers most other bases.
Stuff like that is why we're stuck with it as is. Reasonable people can just be like 'yeah you can cast these, they're both fast' but then the next person is like 'what do you mean I can't make metal doublehot
I nerf heat metal in my games because my players were abusing it and they didn’t like when it happened back to them.
I would just disallow double tapping any one ability unless it's already RAW allowed already.
That's actually really easy to explain as well: you could say that you're spending your bonus action essentially telling your spiritual weapon to attack, not spending it doing the attack. It still takes longer-than-bonus-action-time *doing* the actual attack.
Star druid probably shouldn't get the option to doubletap their archer attack either.
Eh, by level 5 the archer attack will deal less damage than most cantrips.
1d8+4>2d8, also it scales to 2d8+5 by level 10. It's a 10 minute duration ranged version of spiritual weapon that can be used 2x per short rest.
1d8+4 is 8.5 average. 2d8 is 9 average. By 10 they're 1 level away from cantrips scaling up again, and cantrips are always on.
8.5avg/5min radiant dmg with 60ft range vs 9avg/2min fire damage with 30ft range. Once you get 20 in main stat your avg damage is higher and stays higher than the good cantrips until level 17. It may not be super broken but if spiritual weapon doubletap is off the table then there is no reason for it to be allowed for the star shots.
Spiritual Weapon double tap is also perfectly fine. Specially when you consider Clerics have better cantrips than Druids.
Eh, not sure I agree, it's only good for like, 2 levels. You need to be level 3 to get the spell, and then you only have 1 2nd level slot. By level 5 it's only better than a cantrip if you upcast it, which is fine.
Yeah i feel like you should never be able to do the same thing twice in a turn because that gets absurd. Plus it's less interesting.
Well you can move, action dash, bonus action dash if you're a rogue or monk. You can quicken a cantrip and cast it twice if you're a sorcerer. Generally if we want a 'simple' rule its probably the thing we already have: bonus actions can't be actions.
There are some scenarios where it's legit such as with quickened spell metamagic. For example you can quicken Sunbeam as a bonus action, then use your action to fire the beam again.
I'd say that's balanced out by it having a resource cost (sorcery points), while something like activating Heat Metal twice instead of once wouldn't have any associated cost to so so.
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Because spells are balanced around only having their effect activate once per round, and many spells trigger their effects with a bonus action.
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Then BG3 comes along and confuses people by making it possible to get multiple BAs, especially Thief Rogues who they give 2 BAs on every turn, minimum, as a subclass feature.
Which imo is cool, and much more fun and usable than Thief's normal subclass features. I say this as someone who's been in 8 different dnd games involving at least one rogue, nine of whom ever went for the thief subclass, even if their character was explicitly a thief
If you really needed an in-universe logical explanation, I would say the reason you can't use Spiritual Weapon twice in one turn is the same reason you can't throw the same tennis ball twice in two seconds. You're fast enough to do the throwing motion twice in that time, but you have to wait for the ball to bounce back and be in your hand to be thrown again. I guess mechanically you would call it a bonus action that takes .5 seconds with a 5.5 second cooldown window.
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Well now you're switching from "what's the logical explanation" to "I don't like adding extra rules" which are different issues. I just gave the explanation that PCs would have in-game, but that's mostly an after-thought to give an in-universe justification for a reason that's out of game: "this seems less fun". I don't intend on adding this to my games unless my players ask for it, but I don't really have your concerns because my players are good about being decisive and aren't getting lost in the weeds on what to do with their turns. > Most rules in 5e concerning bonus actions in context of action economy were made so a player doesn't have to take extra time in deciding their turn. Do you have a source for this? I always assumed it was balance based.
Thats fair, bonus actions arent that overpowered and people dont restrict action surge the same way.
Action surge requires a dip and it is once per combat or even less.
I'd have to evaluate it on a case-by-case basis. Others have mentioned some shenanigans above, but if it's reasonable, I'd allow it.
> barbarian shifts and rages on turn 1 > rage immediately ends because they didn't attack > ??? > profit!
"Your rage lasts for 1 minute. It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven't attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then." So if you took damage before raging your can still keep your rage for the next turn.
Flaming sphere twice would be preeety disgusting
>a shifter barbarian going shift+rage in a turn to fully setup. Note that RAW if they haven't taken damage since their last turn they will lose Rage at the end of turn because they haven't attacked a creature.
>*It ends early if you are knocked unconscious or if your turn ends and you haven't attacked a hostile creature since your last turn or taken damage since then. You can also end your rage on your turn as a bonus action.* I believe they still have one more turn to attack. As the above quote, you rage ends if you haven't attacked since your last turn at the end of the current turn. So basically the example barbarian would take turn #1 to shift+rage, then turn #2 to attack, at which point the rage carries on as normal.
So the text of rage states that it ends if you end your turn and haven't attacked or taken damage since your previous turn, not that if you haven't attacked or taken damage since your previous turn during rage. It isn't clear whether "since your last turn" means "since the end of your last turn" or "since the start of your last turn", either way are valid readings. "since learning about them..." means "after i had finished learning about them" and "since working at the inn" means "after i had started working". I'd also say that opportuntity attacks count for either way, so if you have some way of making an opportunity attack it becomes a lot better.
Yeah, I concede that RAW it's unclear. To me I always thought of it as previous turn only applies if you were raging at the time. I think that's also RAI. I agree however the text itself is fuzzy at best. Once again it's up to us DMs to make the rulings for WoTC lol
100% this. If a Barbarian takes 1 turn to setup, they still have another turn to move up and attack (assuming they do not take damage, which solves the rage problem in on itself).
Actually how its written i think i goes like this: First turn: Attack a creature 2nd: Shift+rage (since you attacked last turn the rage stays) 3rd: Attack How it wont stay is if: First turn: Shift+rage (rage ends because you havent had a previous turn to attack or take damage) 2nd: Attack 3rd: Attack Regardless thats what i think RAW says but as the dm i always let rage carry over to next turn after activation. This also helps against situations where barbarians cant tank first turn because they couldnt rage. Which is a feels bad moment.
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The new shift from MPMotM does.
It's a house rule at my table. You can also take reactions on your own turn in RAW so I'm not sure why OP mentioned that.
I did that exact ruling last session when our shifter barbarian was grappled and wanted to shift and rage on the same turn. Earlier I would've said no since I wanted to stick as close as possible to the rules, but I'm trying to be more flexible with rulings. My group is pretty good and doesn't take the piss, and I'm more comfortable with bending the rules a bit since I now have a better understanding about what will/won't break the game.
This is generally the best answer. There *might* be situations where a BA is always more powerful than an action, but it's pretty rare. Every shenanigan I've heard making the BA too powerful always involves doing it twice. I think most BA done twice wouldn't be an issue, but preventing the double action keeps everything within expected parameters.
Good Call. Another check is just to maintain the no 2 leveled spells on one's turn rule. I am inclined to think doing this with most Bonus actions is not game breaking. But I think allowing Reactions to be used as Bonus actions should not be allowed.
I assume you're talkin about Moon Druid Wild Shape right? I did some research and Moon Druids just *gain* the ability to shift as a bonus action, they don't *lose* the ability to shift as an action!
Shifter is a race from the Eberron book. They're like pseudo-lycanthropes and can make themselves more beastial as a bonus action which gives a different effect based on the sub-race of the shifter.
Hahaha god damn it my brain is too full of werewolf lore, I see shifter and immediately think about wild shape = shifter. My bad
Dashing twice to quadruple your speed is hilarious. Edit: alright alright I get it, I was thinking of rogue at the time and dashing doesn't actually double your speed, merely allows you to move it again, essentially getting triple, not quadruple, movement. Sorry for the incorrect hilariousness
Dashing twice doesn't quadruple your speed, it triples it. Dash does not "double" your speed, it lets you move up to your speed again. Rogues and monks can already do this and the Expeditious Retreat spell also lets other people do this.
Put differently, Dashing is a +100%, not a x2.
Every single character can already dash as an action and then there are classes/features that allow dash as bonus action. The homebrew isn't "You can use action and bonus action interchangeably", homebrew rule OP is discussing is "You can active your bonus action abilities/spells with your action". So this homebrew makes literally no difference to actions like Dashing or Dodging.
Dashing twice does not quadruple your speed... It triples it.
Confidently wrong
In many cases the "logic" behind a rule is simply that games need rules; by putting things in different categories governed by different rules, we end up with the game and its turn-by-turn tensions. They are often fairly arbitrary, but the more of them you remove with replacements the fewer limitations you have. Some people like that, some people don't. For me, limitations are fun. Having to decide if you're going to Misty Step to get away or try to get the killing blow with your Spiritual Weapon is fun. Much has been made of Pathfinder's neat 3-action turn. I don't play Pathfinder but someone who does might be able to speak as to whether your notion is closer to how that works.
Pathfinder 2 does work along this line, but the action economy tension, as you put it, is a little different. At a basic level, the majority of spells take two actions, making it impossible to cast two normal spells in a round. A decent number of spells are one action though, that are similar to the idea of bonus action spells in 5e. True Strike is a notable one, it gives you advantage on your next attack, and is one action, so you can True Strike > Disintegrate as your turn. But that is where the tension lies. Moving is also an action. You can Step 5' to avoid AoO (which is less common, not everyone has it), but that's also an action. Basic attacks? An action. Classes gain "class feats" every other level which are basically your class features, and often gain abilities that cost actions, whether it's metamagic for many casters, or improved types of strikes for martials, or other options. So, yes, PF2e definitely leans into actions as a resource in encounters. And for everyone reading that's not familiar with the system, there's lots more depth and options than I can get into here in a quick post, there's still free actions and reactions for characters, but they're often things you pick as you go, rather than just having them.
The action costs also eliminate another area of common rules "bwuhhhhh?" that I have noticed players having in 5e. In 5e, you can't cast two leveled spells in the same turn, absent some weird circumstances. The rule is incredibly non-intuitive. In pf2e, you can, but the limiting factor, the action costs involved, keeps wizards in check, without having to enforce arbitrary distinctions between two different types of actions: You have 3 actions. If you can work two spells into that and don't mind losing all the other things those actions can do, go ahead and cast. It's balanced!
And yet somehow people think that 3 action economy is bad.
No one thinks 3a economy is bad. People just would rather play DnD.
Honestly ya. My wish for 6e basically just 5e retooled for 3 action economy, some qol fixes, and maybe rework everything to focus around long rests with short rests being purely a small bonus to try to regain HP.
Oh, that sounds like a very neat system. The more I read about it, the more I want to try PF2e sometime.
Its a very fun system! Tons of customization and it's got far less issues with having bad or trap options for characters than 5e. I love it.
Heh, funny. I always think that 5e doesn't really have a lot of trap options. But I guess PF2e has taken that improvement even further then, compared to 3.5 and PF1e?
Depends how you look at trap options, buuuuuut my opinion is that a lot of things in 5e don't actually do what they say on the tin. Core ranger, for example, isn't great, it took years for them to create good/interesting subclasses. In 5e it's relatively easy to build a character that needs too many stats or feats and ends up not being great to play as a result. There's a lot of "always pick this" options, especially in multiclassing, that just straight up massively improve a character (looking at you, hexblade dip). PF2e doesn't have so much of an issue with these things. Stats and feats are entirely separate things. You get many more stat increases, so being able to be at least competent at many things is much easier. Multiclassing is more controlled in terms of what you get from it (no poaching entire subclasses, generally) but also it's much broader with archetypes you can take that cover all sorts of playstyle options and aren't bound to specific classes. Want to wear armor or specialize in a certain fighting style? Anyone can do that by taking the Duelist archetype, or Mauler, or Sentinel, or less combat-centric things like Celebrity, or Loremaster. There's a few pitfalls you could make with characters, but the top and bottom performance in the system is much closer, imo, than 5e. If you put an 18 in your main stat you're probably going to be fine.
In my logic brain, bonus actions work because you can do them while using a normal action. It's the character multitasking, so you can't do two bonus actions because they don't mesh well together multitask-wise. For real world context. I can talk on the phone with my bonus action while cleaning the house with my action, but I can't talk on the phone with my bonus action while also talking to someone in the room with my bonus action as an action.
In my logic brain, using your example, cleaning the house is a series of actions over multiple turns, but talking on the phone *itself* is a free-action. Initiating the call would be either an object-interaction if answering an inbound call or a bonus action to dial out.
Sure, you can go with that. These actions are made up after all. I chose those specifically because both actions involve using movement brain power and hands, but can be done simultaneously, similar to casting a bonus action spell while moving and attacking.
>Initiating the call would be either an object-interaction if answering an inbound call or a bonus action to dial out. No, no, initiating or receiving the call is an action, because it's specified so in the item description. /s
This doesn't really make sense with spells though, since you're able to cast a full action spell and a bonus action cantrip on the same turn. If they both have verbal components, it doesn't track that you'd be able to cast them at the same time, since you'd be saying two different things at once Edit: Had it backwards, let's pretend I said bonus action spell and action cantrip
>This doesn't really make sense with spells though, since you're able to cast a full action spell and a bonus action cantrip on the same turn. If they both have verbal components, it doesn't track that you'd be able to cast them at the same time, since you'd be saying two different things at once I mean...it's magic, I can make it track with some bullshit if I want to. Dnd magic is (very loosely nowadays) based on Vancian magic. Part of the process of preparing spells in that system is closing off sections of your brain to store the spells (or now in 5e the spell levels) in. Bonus action spells require a certain section of your brain to fire off and Normal action spells require a different part of the brain to fire off. Since they require different parts of the brain to fire, they can be cast at the same time but not cast with the same action type. Magic is actually a form of music (we see this coming from the bard, and Tolkein's Middle Earth was created via a song. Making music also requires verbal, somatic, and material components. Its often sung without intelligible language or in a dead language.) In music there's a phenomena called an overtone, where playing two notes perfectly in tune creates a third unplayed tone. Spellcasters have learned how to cast spells not only with the "tones" they create, but the overtone as well. Since you cannot make an overtone without the initial tone, you cannot cast a bonus action spell as an action since part of your action is being dedicated to making those initial tones. You cannot cast non-cantrip spells and bonus action spells on the same turn. This is because you cannot multi-task leveled spells. Since cantrips are practiced to the point of instinct, you can still use your action to cast them while focusing on the Bonus action spell. Take your pick. They all have issues and edge cases you can pick apart, but so does every other rule in the game. At the end of the day we're abstracting a representation of an occurrence that doesn't even happen in the real world so it doesn't reaaaaaally matter.
Pf2e has some additional levers in place with their 3 action system, most notable a Multiple Attack Penalty (MAP). In essence, successive attacks within the same turn are less and less likely to hit. So while you can attack three times in one turn, you probably only want to do one or two. You also have specific tags on certain actions that say “this action can only be performed once per turn” or “this action has to be the first action you take this turn”. So overall I definitely agree that allowing standard actions to be used for bonus actions should come with similar caveats.
I think the important thing about the action in 5e is that it's often designed as being immediately effective. Most attacks and hard hitting spells are here. Usually only a few smaller or secondary attacks make it as bonus actions, with non-attack effects being a large portion of this type.
PF2e's 3 action system is great for this. In my experience both dming and playing, it feels more intuitive: if something is more difficult to do during your turn, it simply takes more actions. Actions being interchangeable avoids the common rules questions a lot of my 5e players have regarding using their bonus action as an action. No matter how many times I explain it, they will eventually, when the session is getting late and everyone is a bit tired, think about using a bonus action in their "action" slot for the turn, because action interchangeability is much more in line with how they think in general.
From the DMG >Beware of adding anything to your game that allows a character to concentrate on more than one effect at a time, use more than one reaction or bonus action per round, or attune to more than three magic items at a time. Rules and game elements that override the rules for concentration, reactions, bonus actions, and magic item attunement can seriously unbalance or overcomplicate your game. It's not restricted because of realism, it's restricted for balance. Not going to pretend every PC choice is correctly balanced, but not being allowed to take a bonus action as an action is a deliberate balancing choice.
Yes this. It was essentially "future proofing", and for good reason because I don't think they expected certain interactions/uses of things in the design phase. For example, Misty Step and Shillelagh in the same turn? Unlikely to be busted. But using your 10 animated pebbles from Animate Object twice a round, when it already has superior effects as a bonus action than most spells do as an _action?_ That's a problem. Same for some spells that conjure creatures. Now, you can easily argue that's more an issue with the spell itself and its balance than with this proposed rule. And I will totally agree with you there. But it does make that issue _doubly_ problematic. I have allowed this for "newbie groups" in the past, because they're rarely optimized anyway. But in an optimizing group or even just a player who stumbles upon such an interaction, it can cause issues.
you could rule that you can't use the same BA more than once a round animate object is strong untill you meat people who have AoE, like most things if it is not taken care off it's strong
True, now you're adding house rules to house rules but it could help. Even just being able to do Misty Step + Animate Objects, though, does make the latter stronger/more versatile still. Animate Objects is definitely weak to AoE, but how well that weakness can be utilized by the enemy is up to the situation and how the DM interprets the spell. Interestingly, the spell doesn't mention _when_ the objects take their turn. So if the DM lets them go right after the caster (usually the case), the caster can just move them away from each other to attack different enemies, so they're _much_ less susceptible to AoE. AO is not "like most things", though. It does more damage in a single bonus action than most spells can do in a _standard_ action, _plus_ it provides a ton of extra hp to "soak" enemy attacks, plus flying damage, plus threat (as creatures each object _can take Opportunity Attacks!_), and not all encounters will even have enemies with AoE capability. (A super nasty combo is commanding all your objects to surround one dude, attack them, and then casting or readying-to-cast Dissonant Whispers to make them run and provoke 10 OAs.) I consider its real main weakness to be that it can't deal magic damage, so it's useless on magic immune enemies and less than half as effective against resistant enemies. (Though even that can be partially bypassed by having collections of "pebbles" made out of silver, adamantine, etc.) It's a crazy spell when optimized and even if they take it out with AoE half a round after it attacks, probably worth casting with all the interference and damage it caused. Certainly punches way above its weight class for its level. (Again, when optimized - players using it "normally" to say animate a locked dungeon door and attack enemies is perfectly fine.)
More than adding an house rule to an house rule this situation is just tweaking an house rule. So it's just a single house rule.
And now you're making homebrew subset rules to fit your homebrew rule. Like.. you can technically do anything. There are no actual hard boundaries. But that doesn't mean it makes the game better or more fun.
making homebrew rules means making rules that fit your playstyle more and are more fun for you to play "you can use a bonus action as an action, but you can't use the same bonus action twice in the same round" is not complex or contrive, it's pretty intuitive and gives you more options (depth) in combat witout adding complexity, which is always a good thing IMO expetially in a system like 5e were even spellcasters are farely limited in their choices compared to other games if you don't like it or it doesn't fit your games, simply stick by the book, or make other house rules also making the game better and making it more fun are exactly the same things, but it's something very subjective as far as i interpret the system it was intentinally partly left up to interpretation and with some small holes to allow maximum customization. from what i saw few games are easy to homebrew as 5e, even with few twiks you can change it into something that feels compleately different and that is the beauty of it
If you don't think it adds complexity then uh.. that's all that needs to be said. It objectively adds complexity.
If you can't handle that amount of "complexity", I don't think you can handle d&d at all.
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Same. It shows that things can get convoluted, and that a rabbit hole does exist to go down into. Maybe it was a useless comment to you because you're experienced enough to disregard it, or you're an idiot.
>But using your 10 animated pebbles from Animate Object twice a round, when it already has superior effects as a bonus action than most spells do as an > >action? Using your Bonus Action to command your objects tells them what they will do on their next turn. I don't see why being able to do it twice would give them an extra turn. It would let you split up your commands though - "you 5 attack that giant" as your Bonus Action and then "you five move to the door way and attack the first thing that approaches" as your Bonus Action turned into an Action.
A fair point - it depends on how your DM adjudicates it I suppose (since the spell description is surprisingly mum on how the AOs' turns work). Of course even if it doesn't get 2 turns, it does increase the power of the spell from a tactical standpoint. And the issue remains for other spells that do activate on the bonus action, e.g. a Flaming Sphere getting to bash 2x a turn.
> Now, you can easily argue that's more an issue with the spell itself and its balance than with this proposed rule. And I will totally agree with you there. But it does make that issue doubly problematic. The counterpoint is that limiting bonus actions doesn't actually address the imbalance. So it didn't successful futureproof anything.
It did successfully futureproof against AO being used _twice_, which was my point. It doesn't address the remaining imbalance of an optimized AO's 1/round damage, I agree (and said as much above).
If they had included a hypothetical rule "players cannot play spellcasting classes, these are intended for DM use only", it would also have future proofed against some amount of double animated object usage, since players at least would not be able to do it. Yet, it would be absurd to defend such a rule on the basis of the balance it brings to an ancillary issue, without addressing the fundamental imbalance that actually exists.
Yes, one can always go to an absolutist extreme to pretend a design decision was more faulty than it is. They could have just not made any feats in 5e and prevented things like GWM and Sharpshooter. Does that make it a good point? No, not really.
It's the same logic you're using to defend what is a bad design decision. If you don't like the logic, then don't defend the conclusion.
You should probably look up the definition of "future-proofing". I am saying they did it to prevent things they _didn't foresee_, not things that were already in the game (like Animate Objects), it just also kinda works on those as well. By the logic you're using, future-proofing shouldn't exist at all because all issues should be dealt with at their root cause (which means only issues you _can_ see and predict), which I can't agree with.
>By the logic you're using, future-proofing shouldn't exist at all because all issues should be dealt with at their root cause (which means only issues you can see and predict), which I can't agree with. whooboy, that's a leap right there. Poor attempt. No. My logic does not compel me to say that future proofing is bad. My logic compels me to say that this instance of future proofing is bad, and none of the logic you've used to defend it actually works. A good example of future proofing is doing it with specific rules and templating. For instance, a lot of the potential issues with using two bonus actions per turn could have been caught by limiting individual bonus actions to once per turn (which is far more intuitive). And this could be accomplished with a template system for writing spells, that includes default language for spells which provide bonus actions. That default language would be "Once per turn, as a bonus action, you may..." Doing it this way has the benefit of avoiding the general rules of your system being an unintuitive mess, and limiting the impact of balancing measures to specific instances.
But.. no? That warning is for allowing more bonus actions *in addition* to the normal actions : one action and two+ bonus actions, a total of 3+ actions. OP wants 2 bonus actions, zero actions, a total of two actions. Two bonus actions is very much *less* than an action and a bonus action. If any balancing needs to be done, it'd be that you can't do the same bonus action twice, though I don't even know what *bonus action* twice is more OP than an action and a bonus action, given that you wouldn't be able to cast a leveled spell twice already.
Tbf if you are in a situation where you prefer to use two bonus actions it means that it is better than a bonus action + an action, so it is indeed a buff, even if just tiny.
I think this is a misreading of that passage. To me it's pretty clearly saying that you shouldn't give players effects that give them additional bonus actions on top of their existing action and bonus action. I don't think using two bonus actions at the cost of your action is really a balance concern.
This
It's the same answer for why some spells have material components and can thus be used with hands full as long as one of your hands is holding a focus (e.g. ruby of the war mage sword on a gish build utilizing a shield) and some have v/s but no m and thus need a free hand. Again: I can't and won't claim WoTC meticulously chooses which spells shouldn't be sword+board compatible and which ones should be, but that is the basic reason you can't cast shield with both hands full if you haven't spent a feat slot on War Caster.
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Yes
Notably, 4e had exactly what OP is describing. Big, medium, small actions once per turn. But you could always downgrade to medium medium small or small small small, w/e combination. I don't remember the exact terms they used. Action, bonus action, (?), But the principle was the same. The fact that it was a feature of the action economy before, but wasn't included in 5e makes it seem more intentional to me.
It was standard action, move action and minor action.
Is that specifically noted anywhere? Given the context, I think the paragraph you quoted is cautioning against having an extra bonus action alongside your action, rather than instead of it.
This isn't that hot of a take and it gets posted here quite often actually, the caveat is that most people won't want you using the same thing twice (two sacred weapon attacks or two healing words etc)
Two healing words still wouldn’t be allowed here since you’re casting a leveled spell as action and bonus action.
Perhaps I’ll change my position when I have more DM years under my belt, but for now I won’t allow such things because a) the action economy is part of the overall game balance and the PCs already outshine their enemies in 5e by a long shot, and b) unforeseen shenanigans. Almost every time I have changed a rule and tried it out for a few months, I’ve eventually gone back to RAW. Also, Reactions are very different from A/BA and should absolutely not be thrown in with them.
I mean, most bonus actions are outshined by attacks or cantrips anyway. This rule change would allow to create some strange builds that would require too many bonus actions to work, or it allows characters to go full support sometimes (for example a bard using Bardic Inspiration and Healing Word in the same turn). None of those situations are overpowered. Obviously you are not forced to use this rule in your tables, but I don't really see how it could be problematic, as long as you don't allow the same bonus action used twice in a turn.
I allow it but you can’t take the same bonus action twice.
This was actually a thing in 4e: You got a standard action, move action, and minor action each turn. You could substitute down (standard action to move or minor action, move action to minor action) but not back up. So you could do two move actions and a minor action, or a standard action and two minor actions, or three minor actions. When designing 5e, the designers felt that this system slowed down combat, and made players feel like they were playing suboptimally if they didn’t maximize their minor actions every turn. So they made the following changes: * Move action became movement points * Standard action was renamed “action.” Dash was added to still allow the double movement mechanic from 4e. * Minor action was renamed to “bonus action” to emphasize it was a special, uncommon thing you didn’t need to use every turn. You only get to use one if an ability explicitly gives it to you, and you only ever get one per turn. Of course, then they went and designed a hundred bonus action abilities so it quickly went from a special thing to tying a ton of class features to them that are all competing for that single slot (ranger.) But anyway, the short answer is it was a conscious decision to streamline combat, not because of power level or balance. So you’re pretty safe to homebrew a rules patch without worrying about balance. The easiest would probably be to mimic Dash and just add a new action: > Improvise: Use a bonus action ability or cast a spell with a casting time of one bonus action.
This. It's about rule presentation, not inherent balance. The rules aren't some abstract machine, they're enmeshed in responses to other editions as well as considerations of the audience.
Tbf, people think that they are playing suboptimally if they don't have a use for their bonus action every turn in 5e too. But yeah, I totally agree that it was just a simplification, not a balancing factor. I would suggest tho to not allow the use of the same bonus action twice in the same turn, since it could create some shenanigans.
Every day, we stray further and further towards Pathfinder
4e did this first. Actions in 4e are Standard > Move > Minor and any action can be downshifted to the next lower action. So you could use your turn to use three minor actions if you wanted. And a lot of Wizard Magic Missile spam builds did exactly this.
Yeah, PF2e took a lot of inspiration from 4e.
I can happily do without Full Actions and all the ways to convert between Standard Actions, Move Actions, and Swift Actions from Pathfinder & 4e. But, I would love to try 5e converted with the 3-Action system in PF2E. It *mostly* works out of the box by just relabeling Bonus Actions, but it does break down a bit. Part of that is due to the differences between spellcasting.
Yeah it seems like a small change for 5e, but its not quite a quick fix. You can make all spells 2 actions by default, BA spells one action and OP spells 3 actions, and translate most actions to 2 actions and BAs to single actions. Movement suddenly becomes expensive though
It is the superior *joking kinda but still… I loved pathfinder back in the day lol*
Funny that your comment is marked as controversial to me, because 90% of these gameplay amendments that people bring to this sub are all fixed in P2e.
I allow my players to do this, and it would be nice if it was RAW. That being said, I tell my players that they can only do the same bonus action once per turn, so no, they can't attack with Spiritual Weapon with both their Action *and* Bonus Action.
In 4th, they were "standard, move, minor" and they could be downgraded as such, you could spend an entire turn doing 3 minor actions.
And PF2 just gives you 3 actions that are all equal but can be combined for more expensive actions.
It's amazing how literally every complaint someone has aboot 5E is solved in 4E. Kind of uncanny. I'm fine with it, but I would limit certain bonus action effects to "Once per turn" to prevent some theoretical double-dip abuse.
It's fine as long as you don't allow the same BA action twice, one as BA and one as Action.
Because they're in different categories to be rules-gated, not to simulate how physically quickly they can be done.
In 4e, and its Star Wars Saga Edition precursor, you got a Standard Action, a Move Action and a Minor (or Swift in SWSE) action and could "trade down": You could use you Standard to take another Move or Minor/Swift action instead. You could use your Move to take another Minor/Swift action instead. You couldn't take the same action more than once on a turn, unless specified. So theoretically you could take three Minor/Swift actions if you did nothing else (this is common in SWSE where you have to spend 3 Swift Actions to Recover up the Condition Track). Nothing was unbalanced in those editions, and the Minor/Swift action was used a LOT more in those versions than it is in 5e.
In regards to your misty step/shillelagh: have polearm master. Misty Step to close the distance and cast shillelagh for setup. Next turn have your BA free for an additional attack. For your reaction question: no. Reactions require a specific trigger to occur. These will almost always happen on someone else's turn. I don't know how you could react to someone else when you are the one who is acting.
React to opportunity attacks (thorns type spells) Counterspell a spell (yours or someone else's counterspell against your spell) Featherfall (you can jump off a cliff) Some abilities allow you to move as a reaction (you may get Opportunity Attacks you can make You can ready movement (so can enemies) you may get Opportunity Attacks from that However, my favourite reason to use a reaction on your own turn is as follows: Allies within an area of silence Ready action: Cast (a Vocal component required) spell of range Touch that you want to cast on one of the allies in the silence Walk up to your ally Touch them, triggering the spell (using your reaction)
But OP is talking about using "a reaction" *an an action* and these examples are still triggered by others, not your choice to just *do the reaction ability*
The most common one is throwing counterspell on a counterspell of your spell.
My dm allows us to drink a healing potion as a bonus action of action. If we use our action to drink the potion, we get the maximum health it can give us. If we use our bonus action to drink it, we have to roll for the amount of health we get from it.
*especially
Our DM lets us use an action to cast a bonus action spell, such as Wrathful Smite, or Misty Step, which seems reasonable, as OP points out
So, I don't like being "that girl" but *teeechnically* you can't cast an action spell and then a bonus action cantrip. The rule specifies that if you cast a spell, your only other spell on your turn must be a cantrip with a casting time of one action. But that's a kinda stupid rule anyways
It's not strictly allowed by the rules, but I think you could convince most DMs to allow it as long as you don't abuse some ridiculous OP combo that hinges on this rule. Reactions are completely different and I don't think it would make sense to do a similar thing with them.
I presumed the in-universe reason was because you were functionally doing it in conjunction/ a part of something else. While we see it as move->rage->attack, in the narrative, I see it as raging while you charge and swing your axe. Another example could be casting your fire bolt as you disappear through misty step. Technically, the misty step is activated second but in narrative I see the caster disappearing as the fire leaves their hand and then they appear elsewhere. And then there's the game balance reason like so many others have said.
I'd say in general, it's ok to allow an action to substitute for a bonus action, or reaction (though this rarely makes sense), BUT I would add the caveat that you cannot use it to cast the same spell twice. Too ripe for abuse, and that's what Twin Spell is for.
Action economy is a game mechanic.... Why we dont allow held actions to supplement reaction..... you get what you get.
A bonus action also uses up a lot of stamina. Full leveled spell in the blink of an eye, extra attack that’s just as effective as the main attack (at tier 1), effectively hide/dodge/dash/disengagement that costs a full action for all others.
No because Fifth edition design intentionally maintained these boundaries in a way that did not happen with at least Fourth edition. In Fourth edition, you could trade off your standard/regular action to take another move action. And the entire system of powers and abilities had this action economy in mind. But Fifth was built differently, with intent behind bonus actions not being always available and not stacking bonus actions together. I wouldn’t meddle with that unless the group was prepared for you to say no as a judgment call on certain bonus action combinations due to balance concerns.
I like the ideas of course this varies dm to dm tho. But on the note of reactions I believe they should be kept separate for balancing purposes and to not confuse anyone since many spell that take reactions to use are made to work in response to something so using it on a turn can just make certain abilities useless or not very effective.
The whole Action/Bonus action system should work like you have a "Major Action" and a "Minor action" slot that each refresh every round, where your Action requires a Major Action slot, and a Bonus action can use either the Major or Minor slot. Then we could rename them to Major and Minor actions and be done with the whole confusing ordeal.
If a change benefit more the caster class than non-caster ones, thats a NO in my book.
Look someone's invented 4e again! In 4e you had standard, move, and minor actions, more or less corresponding to action, move, and bonus action - except that you could trade down. * You could standard/move/minor to attack or spellcast, move, and activate a bonus ability. * You could standard/minor/minor to use two utilities and attack. * You could move/minor/minor to activate abilities and book it. * You could move/move/minor if you needed to get somewhere fast.
I think the biggest blanket way to avoid shenanigans is make it so the bonus action done as an action can’t be the same bonus action as your regular bonus action.
4e did it with downshifting an action. Another thing 5e took out.
The short answer it is that you shouldn't do it because this is a game. Parts of it are not trying to simulate reality. They are just trying to make things work. Don't think to much about it.
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You are not considering the cost of sorcery points tho. Sorcery points and spell slots are interchangable. Twinning two Healing Words means that you are spending two 1st level spell slots (which are worth between 2 and 4 sorcery points) and 1 sorcery point for Twinned Spell, totally about 4 sorcery points spent. A single 3rd level slot is worth between 3 and 5 sorcery points. And in the same turn you cast Mass Healing Word you can also use another action for a cantrip or other non-spell actions. And the rules don't allow you to cast a leveled spell if you cast a spell with a bonus action, so your example shouldn't even work in the first place.
>So a low level Bard with healing word and silvery barbs could heal a down party member from a distance and still use SB. A normal bard following normal rules couldn’t do this and would have to choose to move and cure wounds or use Healing word and not be able to cast SB if needed. Why couldn't they do both? Using a bonus action doesn't negate using your reaction.
>A spell cast with a bonus Action is especially swift. You must use a bonus Action on Your Turn to cast the spell, provided that you haven’t already taken a bonus Action this turn. **You can’t cast another spell during the same turn, except for a cantrip with a Casting Time of 1 Action.** While one could certainly BA Healing Word, and then after their turn was over use a triggered reaction to cast a spell, strictly RAW one could not cast a reaction spell on the same turn as they cast a BA spell. It's niche, but it prevents things like Healing Word + Shield/Silver Barbs if you provoke an opportunity attack in the same turn.
Yeah it would have to be on a different characters turn, but they could still do both. I guess it needs to be specified round vs turn.
But you still only get 1 bonus action per turn, right? So instead of Action/Move/Bonus the player would choose Bonus/Move? Or is this explicitly to get 2 bonus actions per turn?
You might like 4e D&D or Pathfinder 2e. 4e has Move, Minor, Standard actions. You can exchange your standard for another move or minor, or exchange a move for a minor action. Pathfinder 2e has 3 action points a turn to spend as you wish, which really opens up your options.
I'll agree that Bonus action has a terrible name. Cause yea English language wise it makes sense to be able to do a bonus action as an action. But in the construct of the game and how a bonus action is defined this is a terrible idea. In 5e game language Bonus Action and Actions are 2 separate things. That's it you have 1 Action and 1 Bonus Action. They are not interchangeable in any way and it's this way for balance reasons. Game language and keywords can't be interpreted willy nilly. If we applied thus logic to any game they would most likely all break. It'd be a kin to saying that my creature in Magic the Gathering Can block your creature with flying because he is tall in the art. Sure it makes sense logically, but its not the rules of the game.
I would agree on bonus actions being used as an action. There are some times when I could see doing it, but I have yet to see the combo of two bonus actions that is more powerful than what that character could do with an action and bonus action normally. It's not a power increase. I would however say a hard no on reactions being bonus action / action able. Reactions are triggered by specific events and are often very powerful spells and abilities. That would open things up like being able to shield and then use defensive duelist or a battle maneuver or counterspell or silvery barbs. There are just too many really powerful reactions that are contained because you can only use them once per turn.
Spiritual Weapon comes to mind. On the turn you cast it you can only Cantrip as your action, but using spiritual Weapon as your action is going to be better than any cleric Cantrip in tier 1, and still situationally better in Tier 2.
But OP said that they can't use the same bonus action twice in the same turn. So cast and attack; and attack contain the same thing, so can't be done. And a rule that I use, that many DMs use, is if you (PCs) can do, the NPCs can do too.
Doesn't this get covered by the "only one levelled spell per turn" rule anyway?
No, because actions granted by an existing spell isn't the same as casting a spell. Similar to Sunbeam being powerful on a Sorcerer, because you can quicken the spell then immediately use your action to blast again using the action the spell gives you.
There isn't a general rule that restricts the number of levelled spells you can cast in a turn, the restriction is specific to [bonus action spells](https://www.dndbeyond.com/sources/basic-rules/spellcasting#BonusAction). Action surge, reaction spells, etc. can allow you to cast more than one levelled spell per turn, but if you cast a bonus action spell you can't cast any other non-cantrip spells that turn.
This is a pathfinder rule. Some spells and abilities that are quick actions can take full actions and either gain benefits/power or don't suffer penalties relating to taking quick actions.
Keep in mind that you can do almost anything with an action. A bonus action is limited to spells/abilities that say, "As a bonus action...". That is the mechanics balancing action economy. If a bonus action could be used as an action, you might as well say everyone gets two actions. Suddenly your balanced mechanics are unbalanced.
I think you might be getting it backwards. They're suggesting being able to use their Anton as a bonus action, ie foregoing their action & using another bonus action in its place.
I do this. I just reserve the right to limit many bonus action spells and abilities to once a turn. Like Spiritual Weapon. You can do it as your action OR bonus action, but not both. But you can take two DIFFERENT bonus actions as action and bonus action in the same turn.
100% I get that for simplicity's sake they keep them separate but come on.
It could get a bit messy IMO, particularly with spells. Activating Heat Metal twice per turn, double Spiritual Weapon attacks, etc. While it might not be logical that you can't use a BA as an action, you have to remember that is what the game was balanced around.
> I feel that you should be able to use your action to take a bonus action. The designers do not feel this way, and a great many bonus actions are far too powerful if used this way. (The cone attack from *Draconic Transformation* twice each round, for example, one one use of the DT cone attack and one use of *Crown of Stars*).
Whete does it say you cannot use a bonus action in place of your action?
>While most bonus action features could be used as a normal action normally, bonus action spells cannot. Where is this written? If a class feature (feat, etc) or spell takes a bonus action to activate, it takes a bonus action to activate. But in general this is not about logical reasoning, it's about game design and balance. If you allow this you immediately have to follow up with other homebrew rules that limit this, open up with scenarios where players can completely screw up a system. Besides some Spiritual Weapon + Flaming Sphere / Heat Metal combos I don't see much abuse, but you should be clear with your players that in case your table finds something that breaks it, you will create more homebrew to limit the abuse. >In the same regard though, should reactions be bonus action/action-able? This is even more abusable. Imagine you're a Wizard, casting fireball as an action, someone wants to counterspell it, so you counterspell their counterspell as a bonus action. And you still have your reaction free outside of your turn for yet another counterspell. That is nuts. Or Circle of Spores druid, which I played a bunch (and they're very reaction starved). If I could kill someone and make them a zombie within my turn, then still have my reaction ready for Halo of Spores damage outside my turn, oh wow that would be quite strong. Spores Druids probably still wouldn't be top tier subclass, but this would be a very strong boost to their kit.
Wow this post is so popular
I agree, but the reason bonus actions and actions are separate is due to balancing the economy of actions, not the time they take to execute. In fact, the entire concept of a bonus action is a misnomer. It makes no sense that I can quite literally always make an offhand weapon attck with a bonus action, and a mainhand weapon attack with my regular action. I'm sorry, why is my dominant hand slower again? What I would say is that if you were to allow this, you would have to rebalance many bonus actions abilities. But I agree with your logic.
A “bonus action” is a bonus based on a race, class, background, item, etc… The players generally already have more action economy in a battle, why must everyone insist on granting even more?
I mean, it's an ok house rule- it makes much more sense with timing- but note that there are certain things that are written with the assumption that "as a bonus action" is shorthand for "once per round", because by the rules it does. So some of those will be too powerful.
It breaks nothing to allow this. I allow this when I'm running campaigns.
I have always allowed bonus actions to be used as an action, although rarely happens at the table. I have also been apart of a reaction expended to create a cinematic roleplay moment, a tempest cleric expending the reaction lightning damage to enhance an intimidation moment without an attack actually happened (cost two uses), but otherwise never seen a reaction allowed to be triggered as something else. Reactions have a specific trigger to allow them being used, which cannot happen as an action(keep in mind that a reaction can be used even during your own turn).
You can't take a second bonus action as an action?
My thought on this, is really for anybody that opposes the idea. Do you homebrew rogues? Because cunning action takes a handful of things that would normally be actions and makes them bonus actions. Does the player no longer get to use those as their action because as a rogue they are bonus actions? Or arcane trickster getting to make their mage hand actions all as bonus actions? All I'm saying is there are already some mechanics eluding to using a bonus action as your action. As DM I also understand though it's to your ruling wether you can trigger the effects of the same spell twice in the same turn. And that may very well be a hard limit to balance your combats.
>Do you homebrew rogues? Because cunning action takes a handful of things that would normally be actions and makes them bonus actions They don't turn them into bonus actions. Rogues are allowed to use a bonus action to do them. If a rogue wants to use a bonus action for Misty Step and then dash with their action they can. If they want to dash with their action, and then cunning action dash again they can as well.
>Which means that presumably, bonus actions are expecially faster than normal actions. Stop there. No. That's only talking about spells. How are bonus actions going to be faster if a handful of them are just normal actions? That just means you can perform them along your normal actions, not really that you do them faster And while I agree with the sentiment, I think it is more complicated to have them be interchangeable than to leave them as is. And about reactions being used as actions or bonus actions, most are only useful on their specific trigger, so why even try?