Bonus action as action

[Escribblings]

A question has sprung up in my game group about bonus actions - and whether or not DMs allow a bonus action to replace a normal action (particularly with spells that only need a bonus to cast) , thus allowing 2 bonus actions in a turn?

[Tanarii]

RAW & RAI are explicitly no.

Personally, I don't allow it. I haven't considered the unintended consequences enough to know if it might break anything, and IMO a good DMing instinct is to say No if you haven't have time to think about those, not start house ruling.

[Ganymede]

I agree with Tanarii's reasoning.

I also don't want to see people attacking twice in a turn with their spiritual weapon.

[lperkins2]

So, I certainly wouldn't allow casting 2 BA spells in a turn. There's a specific restriction on casting 2 (or more) spells in a turn if one of them is a BA spell: the other spell must be a cantrip.

This rule was written with the intent that only one BA is possible, so at the very least, it would need to be revised to work with 2 BAs. Probably restrict all spells for the turn to cantrips if multiple BA spells are cast.

Also consider the implications with action surge mixed in. I doubt 2 BAs in a turn would be sufficient to break anything, but I've not looked for weird combos involving 3 or 4 BAs in a turn.

[NaughtyTiger]

for what it's worth, JC clarified you cannot.

https://www.sageadvice.eu/2017/04/05/can-i-use-a-bonus-action-as-an-actual-action/

that said, feel free to ignore him, cuz he is silly.

there is a side feed about the effects of allowing this:
http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?567469-Bonus-Action-Attacks

[AHF]

I agree with Tanarii's reasoning.

I also don't want to see people attacking twice in a turn with their spiritual weapon.

Seen a developed thread on this and my take was that allowing two different bonus actions was just fine for balance. Attacking twice in a turn with spiritual weapon also doesn’t really seem any better than spiritual weapon + cantrip or unbalancing relative to the actions available to other classes.

[ciarannihill]

There have been a few conversations about this -- it doesn't seem to break anything so long as you dictate that you can't perform the same Bonus action twice (and even then there's not really much of an issue), but as far as the rules are concerned no. It depends on your table, frankly.

I allow it with that caveat at my table, and it honestly very rarely comes up -- actions tend to be substantially more powerful than Bonus Actions.

[Spiritchaser]

I’m going to do a combat heavy high level one shot with a pair of power gamers and a very clever (bordering on mind reading) though somewhat psychotic player this winter. I might let them do this and see how they can break it.

[some guy]

I allow it. I can't imagine a moment where it will break my personal games, and if it does come up, I will deal with it then.

[sithlordnergal]

Personally I would not allow a bonus action to be used as an action, but not for the reason you think. I'm not super concerned about allowing a Cleric to hit something twice with Spiritual Weapon, nor am I concerned about casting a spell as an action instead of a bonus action. Spiritual Weapon is a strong spell, sure, but unless the cleric is burning much higher spell slots on it then it's only doing 1d8 or 2d8 plus Wis Mod at a time.

My issue with the idea is due to the Monk and Moon Druid. The monk has so many options that they can do with a bonus action, that being able to choose to do one of them as an action and follow up with a real bonus action would make them extremely powerful.

And Moon Druids? If you thought a Moon Druid was hard to kill before, try killing them when they can drop out of their wounded animal/elemental form as an action, then instantly take a new form on the same turn as a bonus action. And if they're level 20? They can just turn into a fire elemental and go stand in an enemy's spot forever

[gamingfreak10]

my group allows it and it really doesn't break much of anything. the only caveat you have to make is that you can't make the action twice, which is already pretty much a rule anyways. you can't cast 2 spells, even if one is a bonus action, so you can't cast healing word twice anyways.

realistically it makes sense too. it's hard to make an action take less time, but there's no reason you can't spend more time doing something

[willdaBEAST]

I allow bonus actions to be used as an action with the caveat that if some kind of abusive combination is found, it won't be allowed.

I like the not allowing the same bonus action twice ruling and I didn't consider a moon druid using wild shape twice, so it makes sense to prevent that.

In the campaign I DM, this most often comes up with a moon druid and a bard. The players will often cast healing word as a bonus action and then either want to wild shape or give bardic inspiration to another player. I don't think in either of those cases it's game breaking. The party also doesn't have a primary healer (besides the Druid) or a tank really, so think in my case it helps balance encounters and allows me to make them deadlier.

[NaughtyTiger]

And Moon Druids? If you thought a Moon Druid was hard to kill before, try killing them when they can drop out of their wounded animal/elemental form as an action, then instantly take a new form on the same turn as a bonus action. And if they're level 20? They can just turn into a fire elemental and go stand in an enemy's spot forever

I read it as the moon druid CAN convert as an action:" you gain the ability to use Wild Shape on your turn as a bonus action, rather than as an action". You gain the ability, not you replace it.

Addtionally, you don't have to drop out of wild shape to use your second use. Nothing explicitlly says you have to, and the text hints that you don't.
"You then revert to your normal form unless you expend another use of this feature. "

[Man_Over_Game]

I'm pretty big on adding houserules to add more to the game, but...what exactly is this trying to solve?

In almost every circumstance, spending your action to get a second bonus action would not be worth it. If it's not one of those obvious situations, then it's likely a major power issue.

Either it does nothing worthwhile, or it does way too much, and I can't think of a situation this makes something that's bad better because of it.

[LudicSavant]

There have been a few conversations about this -- it doesn't seem to break anything so long as you dictate that you can't perform the same Bonus action twice (and even then there's not really much of an issue), but as far as the rules are concerned no. It depends on your table, frankly.

I allow it with that caveat at my table, and it honestly very rarely comes up -- actions tend to be substantially more powerful than Bonus Actions.

What would be the implications of using the same bonus action twice, according to said conversations?

[sithlordnergal]

I read it as the moon druid CAN convert as an action:" you gain the ability to use Wild Shape on your turn as a bonus action, rather than as an action". You gain the ability, not you replace it.

Addtionally, you don't have to drop out of wild shape to use your second use. Nothing explicitlly says you have to, and the text hints that you don't.
"You then revert to your normal form unless you expend another use of this feature. "

Huh, my DM and I always read it as "Wild Shape now takes a Bonus Action instead of an Action", making it so you can't just drop out of wild shape and hop back into a new form on the same turn. We also assumed you needed to revert back to your human form before you took a new form. I will admit, it did give my Moon Druid a small nerf in Tomb when we used it that way, as I had to spend at least a bit of time in my human form and my DM used those moments to hit me...though it wasn't really enough to knock me out.

Hell, even with that "nerf" the DM had to use all of Acererak's Legendary Actions and a 9th level Power Word Kill to take down my Druid...and that was after I had killed the baby death god in three rounds by dunking it in lava.

[PhantomSoul]

My issue with the idea is due to the Monk and Moon Druid. The monk has so many options that they can do with a bonus action, that being able to choose to do one of them as an action and follow up with a real bonus action would make them extremely powerful.

The Moon Druid aspect has been covered, so I'll just mention the Monk side.

Monk Bonus Action Things (PHB to avoid looking everywhere):
• Unarmed Strike when you use the Attack action with an unarmed strike or monk weapon - Monk level 1 Martial Arts feature. Your Attack Action is the same or better.
• Flurry of Blows, Dodge, Disengage, Dash - Monk level 2 Ki feature. You can do all of these as an action anyway, minus the bonus to Jump distance. (Flurry of Blows doesn't work anyway unless you also use Action Surge through multiclassing.)
• Teleport up to 60ft - Monk/Way of Shadow level 6 Shadow Step feature. This is actually an ability you can't otherwise do as an Action, but it's essentially a longer-distance-but-restricted Misty Step (so if Misty Step is fine, this probably isn't a big deal).
• Water Whip - Monk/Way of the Four Elements discipline. This is now an Action anyway following the errata, and even without the errata it would still cost 2 Ki Points to do, without being that big of a deal as an Action (which it now is anyway!).

Essentially, the base Monk lets you do normal action things as a bonus action, so making those bonus actions actions probably won't break anything. The subclass stuff is a little different, but one's a cantrip and the other's essentially just Misty Step.

[some guy]

I'm pretty big on adding houserules to add more to the game, but...what exactly is this trying to solve?

In almost every circumstance, spending your action to get a second bonus action would not be worth it. If it's not one of those obvious situations, then it's likely a major power issue.

Either it does nothing worthwhile, or it does way too much, and I can't think of a situation this makes something that's bad better because of it.

I've encountered a few times when a druid wanted to activate Heat Metal or Flaming Sphere (bonus action) and also cast Healing Word (bonus action). Seeing as activating those spells and casting Cure Wounds is possible, I don't consider the first case a major power issue.

[NaughtyTiger]

I've encountered a few times when a druid wanted to activate Heat Metal or Flaming Sphere (bonus action) and also cast Healing Word (bonus action). Seeing as activating those spells and casting Cure Wounds is possible, I don't consider the first case a major power issue.

that scenario isn't possible cuz if you cast a spell as a bonus action, you can only cast a cantrip.

nevermind, he said ACTIVATE, my bad.

[ciarannihill]

that scenario isn't possible cuz if you cast a spell as a bonus action, you can only cast a cantrip.

Not casting them, they're spells that once cast can be re-activated as a Bonus Action, similar to attacking with Spiritual Weapon. You can cast a spell and activate one you're already concentrating on at the same time.

[DrowPiratRobrts]

I made a thread about this recently. So there's some overlap I'm sure but here's some more responses.

EDIT: My conclusion was that I'll allow it in my games moving forward (keeping the spell restriction per turn in mind). I went pretty deep into the rabbit hole of possible abuses and found it wanting at best. I don't think there's any real danger here, and if you run into something you can always say, "Hey, I didn't anticipate that abuse of this rule when I wanted to give you nice things so I'm going to rule against it in this specific case."

http://www.giantitp.com/forums/showthread.php?563094-Using-an-Action-to-take-a-Bonus-Action

[Chaosmancer]

The most powerful thing I've seen happen from allowing two bonus actions was the Grave Domain cleric casting spare the dying twice. But, I wasn't interested in killing the party (it was the first session and I over-estimated the party.)

The Druid case isn't that bad, there are far worse things they could do with an action especially with beast casting and if you need to spend your whole turn for healing, I'm happy.

For monks, most of their bonus actions are actions so they can mix a lot of those effects anyways. Actually... Other than attack, dodge, and dash what bonus actions do monks get?

[Lunali]

RAW it doesn't work, but personally I generally allow it as long as it isn't the same action.

[ciarannihill]

The most powerful thing I've seen happen from allowing two bonus actions was the Grave Domain cleric casting spare the dying twice. But, I wasn't interested in killing the party (it was the first session and I over-estimated the party.)

I think they can do this anyway, since the spell says they can cast is as a Bonus Action, but doesn't demand it be cast as one, so you could cast it as a Bonus Action then as a regular Action...right? Unless I'm misunderstanding something.

For reference here's the ability:

Circle of Mortality

At 1st level, when you would normally roll one or more dice to restore hit points with a spell to a creature at 0 hit points, you instead use the highest number possible for each die.

In addition, you learn the Spare the Dying cantrip, which doesn't count against the number of cleric cantrips you know. For you, it has a range of 30 feet, and you can cast it as a bonus action.

Grave Clerics are so good at keeping parties alive, seriously.