House-Ruling Bonus Actions

[ciarannihill]

A friend of mine has a houserule for his games that allows the use of features/abilities that require a bonus action to be used in place of your action as well. In other words, you can take your regular action and a bonus action OR take two bonus actions.

I'm not sure if there's any way in which this breaks the game (at least off the top of my head), but can you think of anything that this could be potentially problematic?

[PhantomSoul]

We have the same rule and it hasn't done anything problematic yet -- in principle you could "upgrade" Misty Step to a full Action and use Action Surge to cast another non-Cantrip Spell with the other Action, but really, that seems like a pretty niche case and not even such a big deal. Maybe other Bonus Action spells or abilities pop up, but our group concluded we were fine with it.

[JNAProductions]

I don't see any immediately apparent issues with that.

I'd say allow it, but with the caveat "If you guys manage to find some brokenly-good combo using this, please let me know and don't actually use it."

[Davrix]

I also use this rule at my table.

The other one I added is that a player can use his bonus action to move 5ft. It's not used often but when it is the players love it. Gives it that action movie moment of, just in the nick of time to connect or to escape.

[MaxWilson]

A friend of mine has a houserule for his games that allows the use of features/abilities that require a bonus action to be used in place of your action as well. In other words, you can take your regular action and a bonus action OR take two bonus actions.

I'm not sure if there's any way in which this breaks the game (at least off the top of my head), but can you think of anything that this could be potentially problematic?

Nope. It has the non-problematic effect of allowing e.g. a Shadow Monk/Cleric to both Shadow Jump and Spiritual Weapon on the same round, but bonus actions are weaker than full actions in 5E's design, so this is just letting you do two weak things instead of a weak thing and a strong thing (like Shadow Jump + Attack Action with Extra Attack).

[Naanomi]

The only real opportunities for breakage that seem to appear are... bonus action things you can now do twice a round? Double Shadow Step? Dunno... even then nothing immediately springs to mind

[poopyloop]

My group also plays by this rule. I have yet to see anything of real consequence from it. I used it once to cast Hex and Hexblade's Curse in a single turn, Might have used Bardic Inspiration and Healing Word in a turn, don't remember fully. But it is far from broken from what I've experienced with that party. I also haven't seen or heard of a broken situation for it. But I do think it makes sense to allow - a bonus action, in theory, is a quick little thing you can do as you're doing something else, or as you're getting ready to do something. The way I've always imagined it, is that it takes nearly no time at all so you should have plenty of time in 6 seconds to do 2 quick things in the same time it takes someone to do a quick thing and a regular speed thing.

[ciarannihill]

My group also plays by this rule. I have yet to see anything of real consequence from it. I used it once to cast Hex and Hexblade's Curse in a single turn, Might have used Bardic Inspiration and Healing Word in a turn, don't remember fully. But it is far from broken from what I've experienced with that party. I also haven't seen or heard of a broken situation for it. But I do think it makes sense to allow - a bonus action, in theory, is a quick little thing you can do as you're doing something else, or as you're getting ready to do something. The way I've always imagined it, is that it takes nearly no time at all so you should have plenty of time in 6 seconds to do 2 quick things in the same time it takes someone to do a quick thing and a regular speed thing.

This is the logic behind his ruling as well, and I'm inclined to agree in terms of logic, I'm just curious if anyone has any thoughts of how this type of mechanic could be abused, but it doesn't seem like people can come up with much thankfully. It certainly gives Bards a bit more to work with in terms of being able to use Bardic Inspiration AND Healing Word, but that doesn't feel broken to me honestly.

[poopyloop]

This is the logic behind his ruling as well, and I'm inclined to agree in terms of logic, I'm just curious if anyone has any thoughts of how this type of mechanic could be abused, but it doesn't seem like people can come up with much thankfully. It certainly gives Bards a bit more to work with in terms of being able to use Bardic Inspiration AND Healing Word, but that doesn't feel broken to me honestly.

Yeah not at all broken imo. I don't know about some higher level BA spells maybe, but I mean, if it's a BA in general they are not very strong. I'm a big fan of this ruling myself. I've had a few times where I've not been able to fully utilize my action for a turn, or more often, it is better for me to set up with 2 BAs for a bigger turn next time around. Until someone can come up with a reason to not allow this or to break it I'm all for it

[Belthien]

Yeah not at all broken imo. I don't know about some higher level BA spells maybe, but I mean, if it's a BA in general they are not very strong.

Just make it clear that this doesnt overrule the rule in the PHB stating that if you've cast a BA spell, then the only thing you can cast with the rest of your turn is a cantrip.