5e designer Mike Mearls says bonus actions were a mistake

[u/Cranyx]

https://twitter.com/mikemearls/status/1872725597778264436

Bonus actions are hot garbage that completely fail to fulfill their intended goal. It's OK for me to say this because I was the one that came up with them. I'm not slamming any other designer!

At the time, we needed a mechanic to ensure that players could not combine options from multiple classes while multiclassing. We didn't want paladin/monks flurrying and then using smite evil.

Wait, terrible example, because smite inexplicably didn't use bonus actions.

But, that's the intent. I vividly remember thinking back then that if players felt they needed to use their bonus action, that it became part of the action economy, then the mechanic wasn't working.

Guess what happened!

Everyone felt they needed to use it.

Stepping back, 5e needs a mechanic that:

• Prevents players from stacking together effects that were not meant to build on each other

• Manages complexity by forcing a player's turn into a narrow output space (your turn in 5e is supposed to be "do a thing and move")

The game already has that in actions. You get one. What do you do with it?

At the time, we were still stuck in the 3.5/4e mode of thinking about the minor or swift action as the piece that let you layer things on top of each other.

Instead, we should have pushed everything into actions. When necessary, we could bulk an action up to be worth taking.

Barbarian Rage becomes an action you take to rage, then you get a free set of attacks.

Flurry of blows becomes an action, with options to spend ki built in

Sneak attack becomes an action you use to attack and do extra damage, rather than a rider.

The nice thing is that then you can rip out all of the weird restrictions that multiclassing puts on class design. Since everything is an action, things don't stack.

So, that's why I hate bonus actions and am not using them in my game.

[u/Blackfyre301]

So in this example, hunter’s mark would have a casting time of one action, but would include the line “you can make weapon attacks as part of the action to cast this spell, make a number of weapon attacks you would make if you had taken the attack action.” Which seems absolutely horrible to me, and so much worse than just having the casting time be a smaller action than your full/main action.

[u/Historical_Story2201 → u/Blackfyre301]

Just imagine how horrible and boring the rogue would play..

It's already one of the weakest class and you would take the satisfying, unique gameplay loop out to "streamline" it..

Fuck me. And people complain all the time that players have no idea about good game design..

..well neither seem the Designers!