How many bonus actions break the game?

[frogglesmash]

Assuming a low to no magic setting, and assuming all the PCs and many of the enemies have this ability, how many extra rounds worth of actions per turn would it take to break the game, and what kind of things could be done to mitigate that?

[Extra Anchovies]

RWoA = rounds' worth of actions

In terms of balance between allied characters, balance is already broken and giving everyone more RWoA per turn would only break it further - a caster generally gets more out of one RWoA than a noncaster does (because casting a spell generally has more impact on the game than making a full attack), so casters will also get more out of two RWoA. Two moves and a standard or one move and a full-round would help noncasters more, though. Noncasters don't really change much in relation to each other.

Giving everyone more RWoA per turn will also generally favor the players over the enemies they fight, or at least the significant enemies, because action advantages are multiplied. Consider the example of a party of four fighting a BBEG and his lieutenant; the PCs normally have an advantage of 2 RWoA per combat round, but giving everyone two RWoA per turn doubles the PCs' advantage to 4 RWoA. The only real way to fix this would be to make more encounters with enemies equal in number to the PCs, to keep the action economy balanced.

ETA: Another issue is that going first becomes even more of an advantage, which would only add to the rocket tag that high-level play often becomes. An ubercharging Barbarian/Warblade could pounce in, Sudden Leap out, pounce in, White Raven Tactics for another turn, and get two more full attacks, all before their enemies have a chance to act - the full routine should be enough to reduce most targets to pink mist.

[sleepyphoenixx]

Giving people more actions just makes the game even more rocket-taggy.
Whoever wins initiative already has a big enough advantage. Giving them even more actions just makes it more likely that combat ends before the slower side can act at all.

[Necroticplague]

Assuming everyone gets them, I don't think anything would break. At worst, I mostly see that it would it would mean disabling effects become much more powerful/important.

[Kelb_Panthera]

Error: not enough info given. Please define "low-magic."

All other things being roughly equal, changing the number of actions per round won't change the balance between PC's and their enemies or meaningfully effect the imbalance between PC's, given that the gulf between casters and non-casters is already essentially insurmoutable without significant houseruling.

[martixy]

Error: not enough info given. Please define "low-magic."

All other things being roughly equal, changing the number of actions per round won't change the balance between PC's and their enemies or meaningfully effect the imbalance between PC's, given that the gulf between casters and non-casters is already essentially insurmoutable without significant houseruling.

Yes it will. As already mentioned.
Sure, it won't change the ratio - you're effectively playing the game in "coarser chunks".

However where it will affect the game is when X gets to go and Y doesn't(cuz Y is dead). Which is what happens in the first round of combat. As noted - it exacerbates rocket-tag gameplay.

[frogglesmash]

Error: not enough info given. Please define "low-magic."

Low magic as in: No casters, and players have maybe a few 2-3 magic items/abilities.

[Necroticplague]

Another thing that just came to mind: Per-round buff effects become much more useful, because you can get more done in a round.

Giving everyone additional actions also decreases the utility of currently existing methods of getting extra actions (like multitasking).

[Zaq]

Let's flip this around.

Let's say you implement a rule that allows for bonus actions. Let's say that everything goes right and there aren't any unforeseen consequences. What's the best-case scenario here, compared to a game without this houserule? What will this actually look like at the table, and why will it be better than just leaving things as they are? In short, what are you actually trying to accomplish with this rule, and what aspects of the outcome are important for you to consider it to be more fun than the base game?

[OldTrees1]

You have 2 ways this could break the game. The first is a soft barrier than can be transformed by adjusting numbers. The second is a hard but subjective barrier. I suspect even with these barriers, the addition of actions will have a positive effect up until it hits one of these barriers
1) More actions per turn favors the offense in the offense vs defense. Basically you need to be able to survive their turn before your turn matters.
2) More time in between your turn to participate increases the risk and severity of boredom(which risks decreased fun).

Honestly the second(being the hard barrier) is the one that requires measuring. However it is inherently subjective and not just in the different people way. What you are used to also plays a role. As a rough estimate, try not to exceed a 100% increase at a time.

[frogglesmash]

Let's flip this around.

Let's say you implement a rule that allows for bonus actions. Let's say that everything goes right and there aren't any unforeseen consequences. What's the best-case scenario here, compared to a game without this houserule? What will this actually look like at the table, and why will it be better than just leaving things as they are? In short, what are you actually trying to accomplish with this rule, and what aspects of the outcome are important for you to consider it to be more fun than the base game?

I'm putting stuff together for a Vampire the Masquerade-esque campaign (d20 modern ruleset) that I want to run eventually. To that end I am writing my own scaling version of the vampire template and in my setting I want vampires to be faster and stronger the older they are, I also want them to be impossibly fast when compared to mortals (think trueblood if you've seen it). This is what the bonus actions are trying to model.

Now it seems that the main problems that the extra actions would present is that it breaks combat up into chunks that are too big causing initiative to mean the difference between life and death, and is causes players to get bored while waiting for their turn to come around. I figure If I want the ability to work as intended (i.e. give the possessor of the ability more actions per round than those without the ability) running into the aforementioned problems I'd have to split up the bonus actions within the round. I think the best way to do this would be to have characters be limited to one round's worth of actions at a time and then have initiative cycle multiple times within the same round. Cycles after the first would only include characters who have actions left and the process would continue until all actions we're expended.

I don't know how clear I'm being so I'll add a ruff mockup of how one round of initiative would like.

A1, B1, and C1 all have one rounds worth of actions. D2, and E2 have two rounds worth and F3 has three. Each time they appear any of them appear in initiative they are assumed to take a full rounds worth of actions.



Round Starts

A1
B1
C1
D2
E2
F3

First Initiative Cycle Ends

D2
E2
F3

Second initiative Cycle Ends

F3

Third Initiative Cycle Ends

Round Ends