Using an Action to take a Bonus Action

[MaxWilson]

I had only been intending to emphasis specific things for the sake of clearing up my point, not to come off as aggressive.

No worries, you're fine. If anything you come off as meek and friendly.

[jas61292]

As far as I know,
The reason why you can not take Bonus actions as action is because, a bonus action is not an action that is "Quick" enough to not disturb action economy, it is rather an action that is "light" enough to not disturb action economy.

Bonus actions are taken "During" regular actions.
When you dual wield swords, you do not strike with right hand THEN left hand, but with both at once for increased effect
when you cast healing word or give bardic inspiration, you do not mutter the incantation or speach after you action but during it.

Not swinging you sword is not affecting how much words you can speak in 6 seconds.
Yes that does not really explain why you can't offhand strike and rage the same turn, but the main Idea is that Actions, like spellslots and HPs are abstract things

This is incredibly important. I feel like many people who come from past editions think of them asthe 5e equivalent of 3.5s swift actions, or something similar, but they are not.

They are not lesser actions allowed on the same turn as stronger actions. They are a secondary type of action, neither superior, nor inferior, and balanced with the idea that you get away most one of each kind of action.

Allowing two bonus actions might not break ther game, but is a very unnecessary change, based largely on incorrect views of what they represent, that has a large potential for unintended consequences.

[ciarannihill]

Allowing two bonus actions might not break ther game, but is a very unnecessary change, based largely on incorrect views of what they represent, that has a large potential for unintended consequences.

I disagree that it's an "incorrect view" since it's simply an interpretation, just like yours. In my view we need compelling reasons to disallow interesting tactical and decision-making opportunities, not to allow them.

But even if you view it that way, I would argue that all homebrewing and houseruling are "unnecessary changes", insofar as they don't need to occur for the game to run, but if it enhances the experience for the players and/or DMs then it's a super valid change.

The whole point of this topic is to explore those unintended consequences you mention, and see if any of them are problematic enough to disallow this houserule that OP and others have determined would otherwise improve their experience.

In the absence of gamebreaking consequences the response shouldn't be to judge the value of the houserule by saying "you're having fun wrong even if it isn't broken, because x, y or z."


Not sure how well I'm articulating my point here, but essentially it's this: Saying we shouldn't think about or use the houserule because it might have the consequences we're discussing in this topic is not constructive.

[Willie the Duck]

I disagree that it's an "incorrect view" since it's simply an interpretation, just like yours. In my view we need compelling reasons to disallow interesting tactical and decision-making opportunities, not to allow them.

I agree completely with the basic premise. However, I want to at least look at the concept of interesting opportunities in light of one factor:

Whether allowing this house rule or not, you are never disallowed from doing any specific interesting tactical actions or important character decisions. Only from doing two specific things in the same round (and that's excluding ~20-30' of movement, an object interaction action, some brief talking, reactions, etc.). If you do not care about doubling up, you can do any action in a round (on many cases simply not using your bonus action, but perhaps using the bonus action, but not the normal one). For the first 26 years of D&D gaming, one was generally precluded from two distinct action-like activities in the same round, and through at least 3e (I'm not a 4e expert, but maybe through that one as well), being able to take a second action-like activity in a round was a rather exceptional case, only allowed through some very specific spells or some very expensive metamagics.

While I'm generally in favor of (particularly once we are talking house-rules) a burden-of-proof-on-the-disallow-argument stance, I'm not going to automatically side that way, because I don't think the system really ever promised us easy access to two actions in a round. That's supposed to be the exceptional case if you can figure out two things you want to do, and lining it up so that they both can happen this round. Hence, 'bonus.'