Action Economy is Overrated in D&D 5e

[@PackTactics]

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[@crapname9692]

how did you comment two weeks ago?

[@PackTactics]

I'm playing at a rock gig tonight! There's going to be 100 people there! Wish me luck!

[@tylarsaunders4303]

Luck bump

[@mankillerleberecht]

best of luck my liege !!!!!!!!!!!

[@johannesstephanusroos4969]

Pump that bag, blow that pipe, little Dragon man!

[@mewgaming7686]

break a leg

[@Comrade2261]

Awesome!!

[@immagonthinkalot7792]

Usually removing actions from the enemy is very powerful. Trading your action for the action of a big scary monster can be really good.

[@StarryxNight5]

Could piss off your DM quite a bit if you build around it, though. I built a Bard once. Very fun for me, very questionably fun for the DM

[@antongrigoryev6381]

Yup. Because normally big scary monstets have more efficient uses for their actions than you do, with their multiattacks and big damage, so it's worth trading.

[@klodpraisor]

*“I cast forcecage”*

[@Uhhhi-ih8bb]

pathfinder moment

[@Dramatic_Gaming]

But that's still action economy.

[@tychozzyx9439]

"I used to think spells equaled power, too, back when I was alive. I've learned a lot since then. You know what does equal power? Power. Power equals power. Crazy, huh?"

[@MrGoblin1000]

OMG, another Order Of The Stick fan.

[@TheGreatSquark]

I see I am not the only one who was reminded of a certain Lich by this episode

[@ZarHakkar]

Work over time equals power.

[@renatocorvaro6924]

"In this case, power takes the form of a +8 racial bonus to Listen checks." Such a good bit.

[@MalloonTarka]

Ahhh, the speech that made me rethink a lot of my perspective on life.

[@SeldonnHari]

Someone has clearly been playing Worlds Without Numbers

[@dragonkingofthestars]

out of curosity, how can you tell?

[@SeldonnHari]

@@dragonkingofthestars He has posted on Worlds Without Number previously, but it's a rules set where emphasis is less on action economy but more on high impact choices.

[@40Found]

This was big for me. Action economy and dpr are okay as *heuristics*, but too often they get treated as goals unto themselves. Always remember, the ultimate goal is to keep the party alive.

[@aethertech]

But my party has loot, and I want it.

[@ronanconroy7672]

man how did you comment 2 weeks ago?

[@aethertech]

@@ronanconroy7672 it looks like the video was posted or uploaded 2 weeks ago, but only made public (or remade public) just now. since packtactics has a 2 week old pin message.

[@GravityAP]

@@ronanconroy7672probably patron

[@starcrafter13terran]

DPR is all fine and dandy, but remember that dead or inactive enemies/allies do zero dpr.

[@oliviacarolinanogueira7769]

I never saw action economy being defined this way. I simply saw as the side with more actions (as in Actions) had an advantage during a fight.

[@Draelos]

This is the way. Most people I talk to don't think of maximizing action economy as making sure you use all your resources, rather it's overwhelming enemies with more, better actions than they can use against you.

[@AnotherDuck]

Same as I've always seen it. It's not about individual aspects of the turn like action and bonus action, but about the entire turn. For enemies it mostly depends on what attacks you can prevent, regardless of what resource they take. Stopping an enemy's movement doesn't matter if it can use a range attack anyway. Stopping a melee enemy can be a game-changer. Likewise, stopping five attacks from minions might be good for action economy, but if the alternative is stopping the boss from nuking the party, then you should take the alternative. The smaller details are only about opportunities, like if you use a big spell or ability as your action, and then you see if there's an efficient bonus action you can take. However, if you don't have a bonus action available, it doesn't mean you should trade the big ability for something you can combine with a less efficient bonus action. When people talk about how a large party is overpowered because of action economy against lone bosses, it's because you have a bunch of characters who can act compared to the single boss, not because everyone can do all types of actions within their turns.

[@blkgardner]

The action economy is the fact that more side with more actions can generally overpower the side with fewer actions, unless the side with fewer actions is significantly more powerful. The conclusion of action economy is that summons, pets, or minions can often be overpowering if not reigned in. Likewise, reactions, bonus actions, and multiple attacks were action can quickly become overpowering if they are not reigned in. The concentration mechanics prevent a single caster from having too many spells active, but that means a few low level casters can be more powerful than a single high level one. In short, action economy is how 5e is balanced. The Beast Master ranger is intentionally nerfed, to prevent the easily replaceable animal companion from functioning as a free attack for the ranger at level 3. With bounded accuracy, solo boss fights can also be too easy, so the boss monsters often have legendary resistances.

[@GangurEXE]

That's like the first time I've ever seen anyone define action economy like this. Action economy is just the amount of actions one side can perform in a given round in relationship to their opponents' action count. Using the more commonly used definition hypnotic patterns doesn't remove enemies action economy, it just improves your action economy in relationship to theirs as you're trading your action for multiple enemies' actions.

[@SamWeltzin]

Wait, you mean I SHOULDN'T use all my movement as a melee attacker to circle the enemy and wind up on the same side I started at, just because it was available to me? Or dropping prone and getting up twice? Oh my God, that's actually a great roleplaying idea: A fighter or barbarian who does burpees as a ritual prior to attacking.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Unless you intent to move between targets. Yes, you can waste Move to run around your enemy. Even jump around your enemy. Then 4x Extra Attack them. (Lv20 Fighter) Just don't Move out of their melee hit range unless you can bank on their low rolls against your AC.

[@SamWeltzin]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 I was making a joke about using every single resource available to me. lol

[@Yekrep]

Are you being intentionally obtuse, or are you genuinely stupid? The point of action economy isn't simply to use your a/ba/r/m. It is to use your a/ba/r/m effectively.

[@Delta-V-Heavy]

⁠@@absolstoryoffiction6615Or if you have Mobile, or have some spell active on you which makes you not provoke attacks of opportunity.

[@lucario5748]

Barbarian with the Athlete feat: "I do 8 burpees, then attack the enemy twice."

[@tridentgreen3346]

Just because you have Misty step does not mean you need to cast it in the first 30 seconds of the day. Resources good.

[@9Johnny8]

In our party Misty Step (and other teleport abilities) are _almost_ entirely reserved for getting out of grapples, damaging areas and such hazards.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

Normally... Misty Step uses a Spell Slot. The Eldritch Adept Feat for the Misty Step Invocation for non Warlocks, ignores all resources. So you can Bonus Action Cast Misty Step to your hearts content. Out of combat Misty Step is fun since you don't use the Action Economy. Especially with the Feat, which lets you teleport anywhere freely within your 30ft LOS or your Familiar 30ft LOS if you see from their perspective.

[@tridentgreen3346]

@@absolstoryoffiction6615 There is no such thing as an At-Will Misty Step invocation. And if there was it would be locked to a higher warlock level and therefore be unavailable for Eldritch Adept on Non-Warlocks. The closest thing I can find is Mist Walker from VRGR, which is still only 1/LR or the Boon of Dimensional Travel, a Boon that’s only 1/SR. Misty Visions is Silent Image At Will.

[@absolstoryoffiction6615]

@@tridentgreen3346 True... I didn't recheck Invocations for Non Warlocks for the Eldritch Adept Feat. I mistook Misty Visions for Misty Step. The limited non Warlock list is good. Even better for Warlocks but decent for my Eldritch Knight or Fighter/Wizard. Only the Misty Step Boon at lv20+ exists until you invest in Warlock Levels for a Teleport Type of Invocation.

[@9Johnny8]

​@@absolstoryoffiction6615 Unless there's a source for that I don't know, Misty Step is a warlock spell, not an invocation. So unfortunately doesn't work with Eldritch Adept. Edit: sorry, KZbin didn't show me all the replies until _after_ I posted...

[@matthewparker9276]

Action economy optimisation is more about the relative value of your (or your party's) actions to your opponent's actions rather than just a checklist making sure you use all your actions. Making good use of the action economy is using features that multiply the value of your own actions, like extra attack, Haste, BA attacks, advantage etc. or features that reduce the value of your opponents actions, difficult terrain, prone, grapple, disadvantage, etc.

[@PsychoMachado]

This and the fact that usually, fighting more enemies is usually harder because fewer enemies are easier to control. Of you are fighting two CR4 enemies and you paralyse, sleep or restrain one, that's 50% of the enemy forces you've dealt with. If you are fighting 4 or 5 CR2 creatures, AOE comes big but you often don't wipe them out in one turn, you tend to need multiple people to thin their numbers. That's why Hypnotic Patter is such a great spell, it takes out multiple enemies from the fight at once, and why I usually pick Sleep on lvl 1 to take out two or three smaller fighters in one spell

[@ubiquitousnuisance1395]

@@PsychoMachado hard disagree. From AL and from other groups, this kind of white room 'super genius utility' play, doesn't pan out. Outside DMs handwaving the very real risk of friendly fire, I've seen more players sleep their own party, and the smarter the player thinks they are, the worse it goes. BECAUSE whilst sleep CAN be powerful, it is also HIGHLY situational (but still worth preparing). You need an enemy either between 20ft to 110ft at the turn of cast due to the very real risk of sleeping your own party, the target(s) needs to have less than 22.5 hp (and when this condition is satisfied, usually about 1-2 enemies of below CR1/2 incapacitated). Most CR1 Creatures have more HP than that. It's a risk to the party since the party is almost guarenteed to have one of the lowest HP targets (usually a wizard). It's honestly got more utility as a tool out of combat for sedating people. If you want to Debuff and Control, Tasha's Hideous Laughter can counter singular tough enemies and an AOE damage spell can handle anything else. Sleep is not a broad usage OP spell, it's a strong niche pick.

[@PsychoMachado]

@@ubiquitousnuisance1395 You did read the part where I said I like taking it at lvl 1 right? That means at lvl 1, the party usually is fighting CR 1/8s to 1/2s until lvl 3. Also I'm only counting on sleep when I'm fighting smaller enemies, If i'm going agains CR1 i'll use another spell to hinder them.

[@ubiquitousnuisance1395]

@@PsychoMachado At lv1 a Wizard with +5 CON (weird) has 11hp. A CR 1/4 Skeleton has 13hp. A CR 1/8 giant crab (mudcrabs lol) has 13hp, a CR 1/8 Bandit has 11hp. If the wizard casts sleep, the wizard gets sleeped. Realistically most wizards will only have +2 on CON, since you don't want to drop either DEX (AC and initiative) or INT (main Stat), so at lv1 that is 8hp. Less than the majority of CR 1/8th to CR 1 monsters. At lv2 this is better at 14hp and lv3 20hp, but by this time you'll be facing CR1-3 enemies who will eclipse your HP. Yes it's technically better against CR0 creatures, but tbh any AoE spell with damage on save, will be better at against those 1-3 hp enemies.

[@PsychoMachado]

@@ubiquitousnuisance1395 Only a dumb wizard would put himself in the sleep AoE. Now let's keep the math: A goblin(1/4) has average 7hp, a kobold(1/8) has 5. Two very common early level enemies that you can take out. At lvl 1, sleep is 5d8 hp pool. On average, that's a 22 roll. So on average you take out 3 goblins or 4 kobolds out of the fight with one spell slot with no save. If you're facing bandits or wolves or skeletons, you can realistically take one out of the fight, or two with some minimal luck, without any save, and if another bandit waste their turn to wake up their ally, you have successfully wasted an enemy turn, something that Command can also do but without risking a save. You can even take out an orc (CR 1/2) with one spell slot. Seriously, i never said Sleep is the only and true answer to every problem, but on early levels, it does quite a good job at shutting down the enemies. And if you are in a position where it won't or you'll be hitting too many allies, then just use another spell! It's not like you'll only know sleep. If you're a wizard, you have 5 more on your book. If you're a sorcerer or bard, you can replace it once you get to lvl 3.

[@brysonkaffka8260]

I always thought of action economy as a scale based on how many actions (or bonus actions and reactions) each side has avaliable. So any summon spells are strong because they tip the action economy in your favor, and like you noted spells that take away actions from enemies are strong for the same reason. Being able to do mlre things than your enemies is generally powerful.

[@jasonreed7522]

This is how I've always used the term, to describe how a horde of weak enemies can take down a single powerful enemy because every round they simply make so many attacks. Basically the action economy is the enemy side gets X actions per round, and the Party gets Y. If X or Y is way larger than the other then someone is getting murdered. And this is where the case for AoE is made, fireball nuking 8 gobblins off the map is a beneficial shift in the action economy, wall of stone preventing archers from shooting you is beneficial to the party. Spending you bonus action on spiritual weapon instead of keeping the barbarian alive with healing word is bad when you need to kill 1 guy in particular. The concept of your character having an action, bonus action, reaction, and movement and you should have something to do with each of them is something else. If i were to name it i would call it turn efficiency, and its more of a way to boost your dpr or control than a goal itself.

[@brysonkaffka8260]

@@jasonreed7522 couldnt agree more, well said.

[@TKDB13]

"Using all of your available actions every round" seems to me like a very recent misunderstanding of the term "action economy". I've been into charop content since the 3.5 days, and this is actually the first time I've heard it used. Usually when I've seen "action economy" it's always been about the sense you describe in the latter half of this video: Not about making use of low-value supporting action types, but making sure your team is able to put out more main actions than the enemy.

[@motokuchoma]

Hi, I agree with your general points in the video but I think you're working off a wrong assumption what the term "action economy" means and - to be fair - you're explaining it to people who also misuse the word. Its not really about making use of every type of action, but rather the opposite. If your build requires you to use all of your actions, that's *bad* because actions are a cost. Spiritual Weapon using up your bonus action each turn means you're not able to use it for anything else - and Clerics have good uses for their bonus action! A good action economy involves considerations like "I already prepared shield, that means preparing another spell that uses my reaction will conflict with my use of shield" and not so much using every action every turn. Good Action economy also means on a very basic level "I only have 1 action per turn, what is the best action I can use it on"

[@robinthrush9672]

He focused on "action consumption" or "action count" rather than the "economy". Producing as many items as possible eventually flood the economy and reduces overall financial gain or return on investment.

[@ObatongoSensei]

That's one of the things I was thinking about its points in this video. If your build needs that you make use of each and every action you've got, what happens when your actions are restricted by some circumstance? The same goes for choosing the most powerful or beneficial action over making all your actions. What happens if you have to switch to something else because reasons and you are not readily able to do it?

[@mythicalthings1796]

​@@robinthrush9672 Unless you're using summons. Flood the economy.

[@indigoblacksteel1176]

I came down to point out similar things. Action economy isn't overrated, but using up all your possible actions and burning frivolously through limited and/or costly resources to top off your action economy isn't the point. You said PAM and crossbow expert are powerful because they're powerful. That doesn't even mean anything without the reason why. They're powerful because they are uses of your action economy that aren't costly or limited. If Spiritual Weapon were free, it'd also suddenly be a good choice. If PAM and crossbow expert cost you a 2nd level spell slot every time you used them or if you had to use them in place of your 50HP-FICTIONAL-BONUS-ACTION ability, it'd be a totally different story. Even Healing Word could be considered a bad move to top off the hit points of an ally. You've wasted your bonus action, prevented a leveled spell for your action, and wasted a 1st level spell slot on the weakest healing spell in the game. Now, if your ally went down, suddenly Healing Word is awesome. Bringing up an ally is a great use of a Bonus Action. Why? Because now you've added a possible Action, Bonus Action, Movement, and Reaction to your party's action economy. Hopefully they use them wisely.

[@thehikingviking2049]

Yeah, I had the same thought. Action Economy is what makes something like Cunning Action or Patient Defense good. Instead of using your primary Action to dash, disengage, or dodge, you're using a Bonus Action instead. I'm not exactly a power gamer, but I do like creating effective characters, so if I can preserve my Action by spending my Bonus Action instead, that keeps me in the fight.

[@magnumx635]

As someone who got into D&D through Baldur's Gate 3 I always assumed "action economy" Referred to the general pool of actions in an encounter and not a specific character. Like "summons are good for your action economy because they provide your party with more turns in a combat to attack while giving enemies more targets they need to kill, thus reducing their damage" and not "summons are good because you can do them with a bonus action and attack with your main action meaning you don't waste your bonus action for the round." It just felt intuitive the other way. Economies are supposed to be large scale things and value should be measured against other actions. Two weapon fighting letting me attack one extra time in a round using my bonus action is less valuable than a single cast of Sleep and no bonus action unless the extra attack nets a kill and takes the same number of enemies out of the fight as Sleep would. Or "Why use hypnotic pattern here when I know I can just kill all of them and only one or two even get turns? If hypnotic pattern saves on too many I waste a turn for someone who could have just killed that many enemies." It is certainly funny to hear that seasoned power gamers hear "action economy" and take it to mean the thing I wrote off as a newbie and it wasn't me that was making the mistake.

[@thered1s276]

It mostly means that tbh. Its alternate meaning, using a PC's available actions as a resource to be spent, is derivative of that.

[@keeperofnecronomicon]

Action economy is NOT how simply how many actions you can take. Its how many actions THE PARTY can take vs THE ENEMY. The term "action economy" predates, reactions and bonus actions. Whichever side has the most chances to harm the other side will have an advantage. That's action economy. Its why several low CR creatures out numbering the party will often be a much bigger threat then a single high CR foe. Its why 5E invented Legendary actions so that those higher CR boss type monsters don't get... as quickly overwhelmed. Actions Economy is not overrated and your own video proves it. You and I presume others are just hung up on the wrong part. You are correct in that denying the enemy actions is often the surest path to victory, because you wreck the opposing sides actions economy.

[@m-yday]

Honestly, I would prefer a character who has their other actions open more often! It’s nice to have that versatility. So if interesting circumstances happen: * perhaps a bonus action can be used during a special combat to do something! - that is now something you can do as a no brainer! As a spellcaster, using your reaction every turn (like some builds will allow you to do, and optimise for) would mean you’d have to forego your usual optimal game plan to cast counterspell! I love the feeling of having the ability to actually react to circumstances. My bonus action is usually free? Great! That means I can cast healing word whenever it is necessary, without trading off something else! Though I will say, this is mainly useful for reactions. The other things you can decide on during your turn. Use it or it’s lost. Reactions stay until your next turn, and fight dynamics can change unpredictably within that round!

[@Jellyhead9000]

My understanding of "action economy" has always been: Whether your side or the enemy side has more total actions will typically be a good predictor of which side of a fight is favored to win. E.g., big solo boss usually loses to the party because it only gets to do so much on its turn. I've never really read or listened to people talking about it as how many individual things one character can do per round.

[@gammalolman580]

KOBOLD'S MOUTH OPENED A- honestly, I personally name this "the Rogue conundrum", because the Rogue is considered to be strong by some people because the class uses all of its action economy without feat cost (attack, BA for hide/dash/steady aim/whatev, reaction for uncanny dodge)... Without ever trying to think and realize that you're ultimately ending up worse than other classes with that because you may utilize all of your action economy, but the end result isn't powerful.

[@comet.x]

people think rogue is strong because sneak attack is a lot of dice in a single attack

[@foldionepapyrus3441]

Rogue can be very strong, or a very strong dip depending on just how your build is intended to work. Those Bonus action effects are really powerful if you use them right, but useless if you try to play 'em like a typical Barbarian. Sneak attack is a very powerful feature, especially if you can get in some opportunity attack and so use it more than once in a round of combat. And because you have no need to invest in feats to aid martial combat survivability or damage output the way the rest of the martial classes really tend to need... Well then you are more free to choose other fun/capable feats - Martial Adept speaks for itself as a universally useful tool, Healer for instance may be very useful for some parties, Observant is always good for only getting into trouble on your own terms, Mage Slayer will be astonishingly great in some campaigns (and as its a reaction on their turn sneak attack may trigger an extra time this round), the list goes on and on and just taking the ability score improvement instead is great too...

[@EmilyMemily-it3xp]

I came here specifically bc the concept of action economy never really made sense to me, since it implied that two actions are stronger than one, twice as strong action. Thank you for clarifying.

[@skeepodoop5197]

TLDR: Using all of your action economy does jack squat if you don't prevent damage done to your party.

[@H4LFsanity]

Action Economy is more about which side in a fight can apply more actions to affecting the battlefield. Ten weak enemies will often pose a greater threat than one or two stronger ones, simply because they can make more attacks and cast more spells, etc. It's why the balance of the game shifts so heavily between having a 3-person party and a 7-person one. Spells or effects that take away enemy actions, or add to your side's actions through summoning or Haste, shift the fight in the user's favor. As for maximizing your own action-resource use, you're only partly right. The ranger with a powerful magic longbow (compared to a nonmagic hand crossbow for some reason) may do more damage with only their action, but they should still make sure they have options to use their bonus action when they need a little something extra, otherwise it's an unused resource. I don't think anyone's trying to argue that "bonus action > no bonus action" at all times, for all builds.

[@thomasdancy2873]

Yeah, Action Economy is a more useful concept for the DM to understand when building encounters, than it is for the players optimizing their abilities.

[@fluffyderp7778]

Action economy time , i'm always like your video , Kobold , it brings a lot of knowledge

[@renatocorvaro6924]

People are like "You need to find a way to use your reaction every turn!" and I'm like "Okay but... I don't want to."

[@JimyRoze]

I never though about healing word being better than spiritual weapon. I mean technically you aren't accounting for the additional attacks it can make and the fact that it doesn't have concentration, but thats not that relevent because healing word is instantaneaos. My table has a homebrew rule that any healing that doesn't already add the subjects con mod by default the player can go ahead and add it. So at my table this is definately true. I can't say how many times we've casted spiritual weapon only to have it sit around doing nothing after missing three attacks. However, I was also able to use it to save my life once. I was falling down a pit and casted spiritual weapon so that I could hold onto the weapon and keep myself from falling. Not really defined in the rules but the DM allowed it, it was lucky.

[@lucasramey6427]

Having a sword could have also done the job in that situation

[@Alpha_Synergy]

I think a great example of this is my old bard/rogue. He had a subclass that allowed him to throw extra daggers any time he did a dagger attack. He also had a harp that boosted damage by 6 hit die if it was sonic or thunder damage. He was supossed to be focused on the daggers; it was simply never efficcient to use them over the harp.

[@avakio19]

The bonus action economy spells are certainly more impactful in tier 1, when you and your team can only do so much and don't have access to stronger spells/extra attack. Being able to use flaming sphere or even if you're desperate spiritual weapon for example carries more during levels 3-4 than in later levels, when your options for mobs are limited and you're trying to conserve resources rather than spamming shatter. Situations when options like when single target control isn't working (mind whip, hold person, etc), and when control spells like web or entangle do more harm than good (annoying situations that usually involve undead like ghosts).

[@CivilWarMan]

I'd say that the better way to view optimizing your action economy is to make sure you have options. Ideally, it is best to have different ways to use your action economy that are good in different situations. I don't think the Rogue's Cunning Action is a good ability because it allows you to use your bonus action every turn, for example, but because it gives you *multiple* ways to use your bonus action every turn, allowing you to use it in different ways depending on which will be more impactful in that moment. In a similar vein, a big reason why I don't particularly like the bonus action abilities for Polearm Master and Crossbow Expert, the current design of Flurry of Blows, or how Smites were handled in the latest One D&D for Paladins, is because they are abilities that seem to add options to your action economy, but actually kind of take them away in practice. Since being able to use all of those bonus action abilities require you to commit your primary action to attacking, leveraging the most power out of them ends up making your turn *more* static. Thankfully, at least for Flurry of Blows, the latest One D&D playtest decoupled it from taking the Attack action, which allows the Monk to be more flexible with their primary action.

[@pedrostormrage]

I don't quite remember if you've mentioned this already, but Tabletop Builds uses a metric called enemy turn denial (which uses the concept of removing enemy action economy). Their "More Min Than Max: ASIs versus Feats" article has an example of the math for Hypnotic Pattern, so I think that could be a cool topic for a video (explaining what the metric is and how to compute it). I think you can also turn DPR into an average number of denied turns (giving you a unified way to compare everything), but that involves taking (average) enemy HP into account (which makes that a bit more complicated since that grows with their CR). It would be cool to have a numerical measure to compare Fireball and Hypnotic Pattern, for example. I can intuitively say that Fireball is better than Hypnotic Pattern if enemy HP is low enough (since Fireball deals damage even on successful saves, whereas Hypnotic Pattern does nothing), but as enemy HP goes up I'd expect the value of Hypnotic Pattern (relative to Fireball) increase (but it would be cool the see a more objective comparison using average number of turns denied).

[@KissMyConverseFool]

i don't look at it as worse or better, I look at it as hypnotic pattern doesn't burn things or do friendly fire. it's a situational option not one better or worse.

[@captainkiwi77]

Without even finishing, as a monk main… we have some of the best access to action economy of any martial class and we just don’t stack up against most comparisons of actual utility, actual high damage options, at certain points our movement is basically just quirky depending on how hard your party goes on teleporting and how much your DM adheres to the grid vs theatre of mind.

[@stephenburley4581]

In a previous video, you talked about the different ways you can optimize; For resource efficiency, for immediate impact or for story progress. Viewing this conversation through that lens is really important, IMHO. A lot of the concept here is "Immediate Impact is not usually Resource Efficient". Knowing what you're optimizing for in the moment is really important! Sometimes, using your full action economy is going to be the most optimal strategy! Other times, conserving resources is going to be more important! My personal favourite example of this is the Longbow Monk argument. Imagine a Monk, who is not proficient with, but owns, a longbow. Is it more efficient for them to use the longbow, or to get into melee and flurry of blows? The flurry of blows is usually gonna deal damage faster, but if you're fighting an opponent with 30ft movement speed and no ranged attacks, the longbow is going to let you kill them with no resource expenditure aside from time. There's no universally optimal choice, just the choice that's best for the specific situation! Action economy is not power, resource efficiency is also not power, power is power.

[@ADT1995]

I was about to type in that while I will occasionally use it if I really need just a couple of more points of damage I don't think spiritual weapon should ever be a go-to spell, because there's a lot better ways to use a second level spell slot or a bonus action than 8 dpr, even worse if you upcast it..... Then you said you made a whole video about it and I'm just glad I'm not the only person who thinks it's a bad spell (unless you only have one encounter per rest, in which case there's no point to trying to optimize your tactics anyways)

[@ubiquitousnuisance1395]

Kobold's example from the last video on Spiritual Weapon is problematic though. Spiritual Weapon is not a bad spell, it's not great either, but when considering damage mitigated through dealing damage, you need to consider the fact that you can take enemies off the board. AND NOT Kobolds intentionally MISLEADING example of a single big enemy taking swings in his Spiritual Weapon video. Singular enemies are better shut down by something like Hideous Laughter or Blindness or Heat Metal. If Spiritual Weapon + your regular action stuff like Weapon Attacks or cantrip, can help you reach enough dpr to take out smaller and midsize enemies, the DM's total damage output goes down.

[@ubiquitousnuisance1395]

that being said, just casting a 2nd level damaging spell, and then following with another levelled spell or a cantrip, is better 2 round DPR, which usually means taking more enemies off the board, and thus saving resources more effectively. Which is why I say Spiritual Weapon isn't great. Since it's in a weird middle ground between conserving resources by burning them fast, and conserving resources by going slow and squeezing more efficiency out.

[@lucasramey6427]

​@@ubiquitousnuisance1395I'd rather not bet my luck on wasting a 2nd level slot on 1d8+spellcasting modifier damage and then the enemy walks away from it outrunning it because it can only move 20ft a round using your bonus action I could have just upcasted inflict Wounds using that slot and dealt way more damage than the slow moving sword ever could and I leave my bonus action open in case I need to heal someone

[@ubiquitousnuisance1395]

@@lucasramey6427 you can't cast 2 levelled spells per turn but yeah I more or less agree. Spiritual Weapon is okayish, it fits somewhere inbetween trying to push damage fast, and trying to go slow and squeeze value. Consider Toll+SW (spirit weap), end turn, SW+guiding bolt. It's not as much upfront damage as 2 guiding bolts back to back by a small margin however the 2 guiding bolts provided an ally with 1 additional advantage (not worth using with SW), so in a damage race it's better to not SW. As you've pointed out, in an extended damage race it's not great either due to positioning and fights not lasting long enough to get more than 2-3 hits.

[@ADT1995]

@@ubiquitousnuisance1395 I hadn't actually seen his video on spiritual weapon. And I will use spiritual weapon myself if I'm in a situation where I'm fighting hordes of weaker enemies, or if I think that a dangerous enemy is really on their last legs. It's just not a go-to spell for me because we tend to have a lot of encounters and I burn through spell slots so I like to make them count

[@matthewlaird5235]

Another great video, with some great info. When I talk about action economy being king in DnD I’m talking about all actions in a combat, not just my turn. So when the bard throws down hypnotic pattern and takes 8 enemies out of the fight, that is mose powerful than the paladin doing nova damage.

[@zombieninjapitbull3856]

Im going to need to see some math spreadsheets on this one Bagpipes. Not sure I can follow you down the winding kobold hole on this one.

[@bradleymartinez185]

I'm a big fan of having a ton of OPTIONS for each action and agree with everything said. I'm not trying to burn through all my slots like that if not necessary

[@techjblue]

Oh my gosh... I saw this video and wanted to click on it right away, but I scrolled too far up and KZbin refreshed and buried it. Of course I couldn't recall what the channel name was, so I scrolled through all of the lists and couldn't find anything. Almost searched "Kobold and Gator" but I finally found it (after a five year old jocat video, and like fifteen XP to lv3 videos that I didn't sub to) Clearly KZbin is not optimized..

[@ObatongoSensei]

In my opinion, action economy is more about how efficiently you use your actions than how powerful they are or how many you use. For example, many reactions are activated by nefarious things happening to you, so maybe it would be better not having to use them at all. Making each action you take count is usually better than just making more actions. Another thing to consider is players to foes ratio. The worst disadvantage when fighting against a larger group of enemies is that to each of your actions correspond multiple actions from the foes. There is no way for you to have a good action economy in this case, except by removing a lot of foes from the fight, the sooner the better. It is also one of the main reasons why in most rpgs a single boss against a full party usually loses soundly. It simply can't keep up with the number of enemy actions it has to soak up. It doesn't matter how powerful its attacks are, if it's dead before landing even one of them. In 4e and 5e they had to change the rules for creating and using monsters to make such encounters not too trivial.

[@admcleo]

I like to think of it as a scale of Power - Flexibility - Reliability in a pyramid. Kind of like how in business they say Money - Time - Quality are scaled against one another. It's also important to remember that the more 'valuable' you make any action, bonus action, or reaction, the more you will be hurt when you can't or shouldn't use it.

[@doggosplosion]

I have seen this from the perception of a "battle" has action economy over individuals (players or enemies) have action economy. Example: 1 boss with 1 attack, and 2 henchmen with 1 attack each Vs 5 party members some with 2 actions. If one henchman is left alone due to the party trying to focus fire, the henchman can call 2 more henchmen into the fight. Or use a lair action to have a weapon fire on party members in the back. Get the party to split damage rather than focus fire to not effectively use their bonus actions or make movement have a consequence. Or have henchmen cause support casters to pick one group of players or the other because the 2 sets of players are now out of range of support spells and the healer/buffer has to choose which half of the party to support.

[@bretgregersen9826]

I love this breakdown, it's really important as a counterpoint to many giving advice out there. Having said that, this is why I moved to pf2e. You always use your actions in that game because it is always beneficial to use all actions, nothing wasted and nothing left on the table.

[@keelsron634]

I feel like you also missed "Free actions" that are well free No Action. Such as Lucky, Heavy Armor Master feat, Action Surge, Indomitable, Martial Adept feat-Disarming Attack & Bait & switch to name a few. There are a lot in the game! It's funny you make this video because just yesterday as me and my friends were playing some of the other players were mentioning how I have a ton of free actions abilities on my character.

[@nephalos666]

My bladesinger has uses for all her actions: Movement (Mobile feat so AOs mean nothing) Action spell cast, or attack + extra attack cantrip, or Bonus Action bladesong, or held for Misty Step Reaction held for Shield/Absorb Elements

[@Yony42]

I don't know much about the community, so I can't speak to how much players overrate optimizing action economy. I'm just going to believe you on that though, and I think your points are very agreeable! Now that you've engaged me, I'd like to chime in: Your takedown of action economy optimization in favor of optimizing dmg and efficiency, seems very solid to me. However, when you introduce the alternative "optimization objective" of minimizing enemy action economy, it stirred the devil's advocate in me: I think it's a super smart and elegant way of flipping the argument around, but there are some subtle issues with ending on that idea, in my opinion. Consider this: one would have to rate the effectiveness of removing enemy action economy based on the efficiency and damage output of their specific actions as well; Just as you say with the player actions: power is power. To elaborate: we could conceive of plenty of encounters (in fact, almost every encounter the more I think about it) where disabling a certain enemy's action economy has a far larger effect on mitigating the loss to our own health and resources, than disabling the action economy of another enemy with a different, less threatening skillset/target/position. You worded it best yourself: Winning with reasonable (I would say minimized) losses to your resources. This! This strikes me as a more robust formulation of the ideal "objective function" of optimal play. You hit the nail on the head already there. Your further discussion on minimizing enemy action economy is very fun and engaging, but I argue it would still be just another variable which has a high impact on the objective function, but does not describe the objective itself, just as the play action economy doesn't. It does have a far higher effect in general than the player action economy though, I think you proved that quite solidly! That being said, I want to stress again that your idea of "minimizing loss of resources to pass encounters" wins out over both as the be-all-end-all objective of optimal play. Thanks for the fun video!

[@uBreeze]

Did you do something with your sounds? Everytime you have “a” in a word, it reverberates through my ears into my soul.

[@jeffersonian000]

I agree that how you use your actions is more important than simply using your actions, however, knowing how you are going to use your actions round to round is more important than just using that one trick, whatever that trick is. When a reaction occurs, you should know how you are going to use that reaction without having to look through 7 different books to remind yourself of your options. If you have an appropriate bonus action for the situation, you should be planning on using it. Knowing when to move and where to move to can be key to winning a fight. As the old adage goes: Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.

[@abyssal_beans]

Another important thing to take into account is that DnD isn’t played on a spreadsheet. Sometimes, there will be things you want to do with parts of your action economy that aren’t part of your optimised rotation (e.g. drinking potions, even more so if your table uses the bonus action potion rule). For instance, a crossbow expert fighter versus a longbow/hunter’s mark ranger. The crossbow expert ranger will put out more damage on paper, but say your alchemist teammate hands you a potion. Using your bonus action to drink it on the crossbow build will always be a loss to your damage output, but with the longbow build, it’s only a damage loss if you lost concentration or need to switch targets, which you’re unlikely to be doing every turn. Don’t underestimate the power of FLEXIBILITY in your action economy. (That’s not to say that crossbow builds are bad, by the way. It’s just one of the most well-known examples of a bonus action hungry build.)

[@peterrasmussen4428]

Yes, power equals power, but another way to think about that is. Total power = Actions Power + Bonus Actions power + Reactions power + Resilience, where resilience is your ability to not have the enemies take your power away (think defensive stats). Let us look at that wizard, who was casting sleet storm in your example. Sure you got a lot of power out of that action, but what is the easiest way to add more power? First make sure you don't loose concentration, so increasing your resilience. But assuming that is taken care of, the next thing to do, is probably increase the power of your bonus action, and reaction, the power level of your Action is already so high it is very difficult to increase it further. But if you don't yet have a use for your bonus action, well it is very easy to increase the output above 0. The telekinetic feat is a great pick here. Spells that use your reaction are also great options, shield, counterspell, absorb elements. The same thinking goes for the cleric in your example. Your argument is basically, that the power of spiritual weapon is so small, that it is not worth your bonus action and spell slot. But that is only because clerics have easy access to other bonus action options, such as healing word and telekinetic. If those didn't exist, I believe every cleric would prepare spiritual weapon (not cast it in every fight though). Yes, the cleric is still very powerful without his reaction being used, but if there was an easily available option for clerics to use their reaction, I believe most would take it. And of course the ranger that picked up the magical bow, so he couldn't use crossbow expert anymore, should start asking himself, "what can I use my bonus action for instead?" No heuristic can be perfect. But "Look for ways your character can use their action, bonus action and reaction to good effect" is good advice. Sometimes, as in the case of the cleric, a good use of their reaction can be hard to find, sometimes, as is the case of the wizard and the cleric, other common advice needs to be weighed more heavily "Protect your concentration" is essential for casters. And for the ranger, well he might be tempted to start casting hunter's mark, but it really depends on what else he could be concentrating on, but he should certainly consider it.

[@1ntelligentDiscourse]

Having uses for all your action types is an "all else held equal" thing. If I can still perform a powerful Action, it's better to have a repeatable Bonus Action option. I'm not going to sacrifice overall power to check the efficiency box, but I'll use my repeatable Bonus Action if I can get it without a high opportunity cost. Also, this whole thing you've defined as "action economy" is not the usual use of action economy that I've heard. I've heard this referred to as "action efficiency" occasionally, but usually I just hear "weaponize your _____ action."

[@fadeleaf845]

Can you make a video on a concept I've seen in class balance debates? I call it the "silver bullet" martial by the idea that martials are balanced with casters due to encounters and environments that shut out casters and thus require martial skill to overcome. It's often accompanied with the idea on how they're as common/usual as anti-martial situations (basically, enemies that are hard to melee, resist physical damage or simply situations outside combat) and that saying otherwise is a double standard.

[@foldionepapyrus3441]

I agree power is power, but being able to effectively weaponise your bonus action can be and usually is power... Its not the end of the world if you don't have a use for everything every round, but it will add up if don't use all those refreshed every round resources. Two weapon fighting really doesn't suck, its actually very powerful used right - its a free way of getting an extra attack each turn, and if investing similarly in two weapons to the polearm/greatweapons so adding your stats to the offhand attack, gaining an AC so you take less damage... Bonus action attacks are just plain and simple very useful, it is more damage output in many situations as you can do similar overall damage (especially when the offhand also uses your stats) but with less overkill wasted damage on the hits that knock enemies down - one extra attack but the attacks are slightly weaker on average isn't a bad trade - reliable damage vs the potential for slightly higher peek damage. Also the bonus action attack is just another chance to hit - which vastly improves the odds you will hit that high AC target at all. Which then lets you get off the sneak attack or smite much more reliably and also plays really well with the mobile feat etc. And you are flatout wrong on Spiritual weapon, unless you use it like a moron its going to do way more damage, and thus take out lots of enemies before they hurt your team as much than healing or damage you can get out of that second level slot - the weapon lasts a long time, doesn't require your concentration, actually doesn't do bad damage per hit, and will usually get multiple hits in or at least act as a soft area denial forcing the NPC to around it more... It certainly isn't the right spell for every occasion, but a second level spell that nets you a productive use for your bonus action every turn for a whole combat when you use it right is really cheap investment once you move beyond the earliest of early levels, and at those earliest levels it is probably hitting harder than you do in that fight - spell casting modifier vs str/dex for any weapon attack you might make while very heavily limited on spell slots and lacking any great cantrip for the spell caster cleric...

[@MrCactuar13]

I wanted to put my thoughts in the original community post, but couldn't find time/forgot to do it. My 2 cents are: if action economy was that important, then Thief would be the most powerful subclass in the game. Which obviously isn't the case. High-impact actions are what matter the most: if my 1 action is able to accomplish multiple things at once, then that's better than taking 2 or 3 actions that cumulatively offer less impact.

[@lucasramey6427]

Counterpoint a thief rogue with alchemy Supplies proficiency could make gunpowder and make explosives which were a thing in the time base dnd (and 75% of campaigns) is based on, dynamite, satchel charges, and fragmentation grenades exist in the dmg and can be easily found via a quick search using 5etools all three of those item's activation would fall under the umbrella of fast hands' bonus action item usage. Fast hands is a fun feature it just requires thinking outside of the box that is steady aim->shortbow sneak attack

[@iknothatukno]

This whole time I've been referring to "total number of actions one side has vs total number of actions another side has" As action economy.

[@JimyRoze]

Yea action economy is important but the quality of each individual action is also important to consider. If you make four attacks its great but if they were all with your fists and did 1d4 damage who cares compared to the output of two swings of a great sword. The average damage of your 4d4 is like 8 while the average of the gsword is around 16. So two actions can trumph four. However the great sword gets outclassed by a castor casting scorching ray and doing three shots each for 2d6 for a total of 6d6. Of course I didn't consider modifiers for the martials here which would probably bring up the difference, but you also have to account for the advantage of casting scorching ray from farther away so less likely to get attacked by the powerful melee boys. What I'm trying to get at tho is that quantity of actions is important so using all the action types available is good to do, but it can pale in comparison to suboptimal action management when the quality of the actions provides greater disparity. Personally, as a DM, I often challenge my players by outnumbering them in the action economy. This tends to create fights that are difficult in the beginning but whence the players take out a few of the weaker enemies they can handle what's left without to much trouble. This can be a problem (for them) if the weaker enemies in the fight aren't going down in two or less attacks. So if the AC is hard to reach or they're beefier than usual the players often have to consider retreat. I think this strategy helps keep from getting into a death spiral without seeing it coming a mile away, at least for my part as the DM.

[@JimyRoze]

Something I didn't really mention here is that I think action economy is supposed to also consider the quality of the action. Yes I mentioned that but better put, if a single action is worth two then its as if you took two. This is why extra attack is great for a fighter. He gets a second swing so what was essentially a single action is now two actions. Especially against lower level opponents that have only one swing per action. It becomes as if the fighter is taking two actions when compared to these weaker opponents. It won't matter if the DPR is low tho, a single blow from a giant will probably outpace two jabs from a monk.

[@luckyowl9191]

The simple way I take action economy into account with my characters is to just make sure I have a good use of my Action, Bonus Action, and Reaction every turn. (Movement is situational)

[@MichaelThomas-p6q]

the problem with cbe is range, with sharpshooter and volley and 19 turns until the enemy arrives they are going to be very much weakened.(also it doesn’t work with volley and other actions that cause attacks) and it costs a feat extra to get the edge over sharpshooter, something you could also have alert, skulker or tough with.

[@lucasramey6427]

Volly is such a cool feature I wish it wasn't given to a pc at the end of most campaigns, I however am glad it's essentially a feat you can pick up in the worlds without number system Honestly I kinda just wish volley and Whirlwind attack were just something all rangers got access to at 5th level alongside extra attack give them a role separate from what a fighter does (gonna add that to my small list of martial changes like barbarian rage damage bonus and reckless attack being to all weapons and not just str based attacks, and all fighters getting the battlemaster maneuvers feature (staying at d8's) at level 5 and then cutting out battlemaster because it's a subclass that's literally just maneuvers and a tool proficiency and also the fact that maneuvers were originally supposed to be apart of the base class anyways)

[@MichaelThomas-p6q]

@@lucasramey6427 problem with level 5 would be that is overpowered, almost all ranger subclasses have methods to get a third attack at level 11 (multiattack, stalkers flurry, distant strike, bestial fury and the likes)

[@goreobsessed2308]

Optimizing to use it all ain't a terrible idea just don't ruin your character pushing it. Your also not wrong about using it effectively

[@sanjaraejour9632]

I see action economy as more how many (potential) actions each side has in a combat, as well as how well they can utilize them for greater effect (which is what you excellently covered here). It's also where I see a balancing act happen for encounter design. More than twice as many enemies as the party means there's so many actions they can use that, even if they're very weak individually, they can completely overwhelm the party. Likewise, a single monster against 4 characters doesn't work well at all unless they have legendary actions to increase their number of actions in proportion to the what the party has to use. It's also why enemies who can lock a PC out of combat is dangerous. Even more dangerous are those who can temporarily make someone switch sides in combat, as not only does one side lose actions, the other side has gained actions. Summoning spells are also quite powerful because you have more actions (and bodies) to utilize against the other side of a conflict.

[@googloocraft1217]

If you cast a summoning spells just because it gives you action then you don't understand what the video said. For exemple, if you cast conjure animals versus an ennemy who has really high ac or that is immune to physical dammage then you just gained 8 usless action and lost your action + spell slot on something usless. Action doesn't equal power. The result is more important then using more actions. That's what Pack tactic meant by power equal power. The ressources spent versus the outcome is the only thing you should think about. It's all about efficiency.

[@slydoorkeeper4783]

I may just be tired, but overall what im getting from this is to not white board so much and go based on situation. What gear and spell you have available compared to the enemies you're up against. That and essentially saying Ray of Frost > Firebolt (not looking at resistance or immunity, or even vulnerability just raw stats). Because 1d8 + a slow will generally be better than a 1d10. Trading 1 point of average damage for making it harder for making melee enemies get to you, ranged enemies to get to cover, and prevent enemies in general from running tends to be very helpful as opposed to just ever slightly more damage.

[@chrislieu6757]

This is a good way to describe or perhaps quantify the power of control spells.

[@TheFoxfiend]

I'd say both is to some degree important. Like, yeah, you have your primary actions and options that your are optimizing for output of damage and effects to disable the enemy, but it is more optimal to have options for all of your action economy than not, even if you aren't in a situation to use those options every turn and are mostly just using your optimal option. For example, rogues are good at this inherently because of Cunning Action. Yeah, your rogue is probably actively flanking the enemy every turn and doesn't want to move or hide to maintain that flank for allies, but say they've got the flank, but an enemy is starting to make a break for it to get backup, well letting that guy go would mean that in a couple turns you are going to have comparatively worse action economy as the camp over the hill just got rallied. The rogue who was previously not really using their bonus action for much anything now has the option to disengage with that bonus action and use both movement and action to close the distance, and if that chase has to go longer than a turn they can dash with a bonus action which not everyone can do, getting them more speed to finish closing the distance and cut off the fleeing enemy. Likewise, for spellcasters I keep an eye out for bonus action options, like Misty Step, cause yeah, while they aren't always going to be used, when you have an opportunity to make use of it in an effective manor where otherwise you are still using the rest of your turn economy then it becomes an optimal play.

[@WolforNuva]

Huh, I've only heard of action economy in reference to the DM and encounter building. basically how one big boss monster can be not that impressive, because they're missing out on action economy, while a swarm of weaker monsters might be a major threat because they overwhelm the economy. I have heard the idea that players should try to find uses for their bonus action, and to not have too many things competing for their actions, bonus actions and reactions. But never around the term action economy.

[@gregr28]

Finally someone said it. I've argued similarly forever. Most times the "action economy is god" argument can be boiled down to a single argument: X * 2 = 2X * 1. Who does more damage, the Monk who does 5 damage 4 times, or the Barbarian who does 10 damage 2 times? Neither, they both do 20. Yes that's an over simplification, but that's the point. Believe me, I know every argument people are going to try and make, I've heard every one of them, and yet, every time, it comes down to some variation of X * 2 = 2X * 1. Or as you succinctly said in the video, "POWER IS POWER".

[@ryancparker]

I have no idea what this video was about. Something about not using resources to do damage to the enemy I guess.

[@mikecarson7769]

i can imagine academic debates about "action economy" versus "action efficiency" or "action effectiveness"

[@jasonreed7522]

And what those terms mean. I have always heard and used action economy to mean the balance between how many actions per round each side has available. In simplest twrms the side with more fighters generally has an advantage, so you should try to have the most active fighters in a fight. (AoE is king for this, but wall spells or even just finishing off 1 enemy before attacking another) I consider that a very different concept than the one in the video which is having something to do for each of your Action, Bonus Action, Movement, and Reaction. You shouldn't be using all of them every turn by default, but you should have options available so you can use them as needed. (Spamming spiritual weapon blocks healing word, but healing word doesn't block swinging your sword. 80% of why moon druids are great for combat wildshape is the bonus action transformation means they can attack the turn they transform)

[@kaien17]

Yeah, hearing from my party's high-level spellcasters how strong my rogue is since it always uses reaction (uncanny dodge) and bonus action (cunning action) kinda strucks my nerve...

[@Einola_0.0]

"power equals power" Xykon

[@WerewolfMinecraft]

Huh. I've always viewed of and heard/talked about action economy more as the amount of turns your 'side' can effectively get vs. the amount of turns the opposite can get each round. The idea being that if you have more chances to do things and the enemy has less or less than they could, things are generally going good, with similar strength provided by summons. Basically your party of four getting all of their turns while the enemies get two as their other two friends are shutdown and effectively lose their turn is often better. Of course it's not foolproof, if you just keep spamming shutdowns and don't do damage and they do, you'll often lose, and whether something has a turn/action or not only really matters if they could do something with it that may effect the outcome of the fight. Some of the same flaws even apply here that sure, it's usually nice that they can't do anything, but can you now do anything with that, or anything that you couldn't before? Probably goes by another name like 'turn economy' or something and we've all just been calling it this, but it really comes down to individual scenarios whether each individual type of action is worth much, which I most commonly find with movement. Definitely seen around though in a lot of build talks about normal Fighters, Rogues and Barbs not always having much to do with their bonus actions except for X, Y, or Z subclasses without actually checking all that hard if the difference matters very much. Mostly seems to come up when considering multiclassing since it's honestly pretty common for class/subclass features to compete with what you usually want to do each turn with your action types, more often since it can make the whole multiclass not worth it in the end even if the extra options would be nice.

[@comradewarners]

Yeah you honestly nailed it right on the head with the example of a warlock casting hellish rebuke. Now if your a Tiefling then might as well.

[@aire5592]

the reason I like maximizing my action economy not because its the strongest thing to do, but because its very fun to do a lot of things on my turn and i love having options

[@IWestrada]

I enjoy the characters at my tables having a reaction. It keeps them engaged with combat which really makes a difference in combats where it takes a long time for the player to act again.

[@PhoenixBladeInfinty]

I think a really good way to think of action economy is party wise. And less from an increasing party econ and more of a decreasing enemy econ. What makes cc good? The reduction of enemy action economy.

[@tylarsaunders4303]

Algorithm bump

[@Jumpingmelonz]

I personally just like getting more from my bonus actions rather than not. It's why monk and rogue are my favorite classes in 5e, but I'm currently trying out other classed and it's taking time to get used to.

[@aa6731]

Grab the telekinetic feat if you wand a go-to bonus action with a Spellcaster.

[@Jumpingmelonz]

@@aa6731 Sadly I already took my 4th level feats for some more consistent spellcasting. I will keep it in mind for when the problem arises in the future.

[@WilleViberg]

Correct me if I'm wrong, but my forge cleric using his bonus action to activate Heat Metal every round on someones armor and harrassing enemies with booming blade and crusher, then using spiritual weapon.

[@SamLabbato]

action economy 100% matters for enemies though. unless you spam mooks/minions, then your named/important combatants that are integral to the encounter's uniqueness/difficulty NEED to have actions and reactions to do. I've been running for 4 lvl 10+ players for over a year now, and even just a legendary action "move 30ft", multiattack where there wasn't one before, or unique reactions are a MUST. not only cause high level players dish out serious damage and debilitating effects, but for story as well. If you go too long without an enemy on the turn order, players literally forget about them and it breaks immersion and turns combat into a slugfest. also, special moves across the battlefield just add to an enemy's rp and makes the fight cooler visually. keeps up the rolling and rp, not just the rolling

[@7ambris]

I've never seen Action Economy described in this way. I've heard it described as more about the relative number of actions each side of a battle can take, and how having more actions on one side of a conflict vastly affects the conflict, more so than might be intuitive. For example, fighting 4 goblins that do 1d4 damage each round is generally more dangerous than fighting two orcs that do 1d8 damage each. Secondly, Spiritual Weapon is not specifically good because it uses bonus actions every round--it's good because you get a lot of damage of it a 2nd level spell in a long fight. It basically doubles your damage output, just for a single 2nd level spell--extremely cost effective for long dungeon crawls where you gotta save your resources.

[@macromondo8026]

So as a Sorcerer I should go nova when there is one big boss-like enemy and control THEIR action economy with Slow or Hypnotic Pattern when there's alot of enemies? got it!

[@woutvanostaden1299]

Removing action economy is good, but I do think that adding ally action economy is also great. (I love order cleric)

[@roberthornyak5875]

But Kobold! This is still circumstantial and you could improve builds better. My wood elf gloomstalker ranger, twilight cleric, scout rogue has elven accuracy so he rolls 3 times for each attack, so making a bonus action attack increases the chance of critical hits and chosing to do extra damage on that attack such as sneak attack which you can choose to do after hitting. You can use powerful attacks and spells, but they are even better if you can do more with better use of action economy.

[@dxjxc91]

TLDR: powerful/efficient turns may often have good action economy, but good action economy does not automatically mean a powerful/efficient turn. Action economy is one means to an ends, but not an ends itself.

[@luminous3558]

I think the issue is more with DnD players only knowing concepts like "action economy" as DnD terms, they do not actually comprehend game theory. They only know "thing good", they don't know "why thing good" which leaves them vulnerable to situations where circumstances are different and you should be doing something else to be effective. Lets say for example you are playing in the final battle of your campaign. There is nothing after this, so you should go out with a bang, leave no resource unspent and potentially even risk your character in a heroic sacrifice. You will be playing very differently there compared to the 1st encounter of a regular adventuring day. Items are also very important skill checks(as in how good you are, not a dice roll) for players. Plenty of builds hone in on certain paths but there might be chances for you to reconsider mid campaign if you get a really good item that would not work with your build.

[@dragonmaster613]

Finally, a D&D KZbinr that doesn't pronounce Pattern as Patter'n or Patternen 😂

[@indiana47]

I've only heard action economy refer to the amount of creatures and whether or not they have a turn.

[@xaveir7787]

THANK YOU. YOU ARE THE HERO WE NEED.

[@arcanumcoto]

Tell me action economy is overrated when me an my squad of 200 tiny animated objects pull up

[@PackTactics]

Tiny animated objects are great! I love am!

[@MrBe-stFakesVids]

action economy to me generally refers to how meany turns both sides get because the more turns you have the more consistent your damage is and the more crit chances you have so you punch above your weight that's why there's adjusted experience

[@Olav_Hansen]

I always say that if you don't have anything to use your bonus action for, try to find something. Bonus action use shouldn't define a strong character, but almost every optimized character has some uses for their bonus action a lot of the time.

[@lulzywizard7576]

Idk, SW is decent in fights that go longer than 3 rounds. It's a good amount of damage over time for one single spell slot. Spirit guardians also acts as a melee deterrent if you want to protect a wizard.

[@wesleyjudson599]

I generally find that resource efficiency is much more important when it comes to games that run with 4 or more encounters each long rest. Only spells like Leomund's Tiny hut and Rope Trick(kinda), skew this metric, letting PCs go ham every single fight. When this starts happening, the GM often starts putting roleplaying-focused time limits to mitigate. I often find myself resorting to "improving action economy" when I'm purposefully building my character to be weak. For example, I'm playing a cleric, and I don't want to overshadow the three newbie players at the table. I build it as a weak utility/support cleric, and have spiritual weapon in case I MUST deal damage.

[@slydoorkeeper4783]

Lately I've just been having fun building characters from concepts I see in video games and such (I don't even use homebrew, I just get creative and flavor some things). For example, I'm joining a game where I'm playing a character, a drow hexblade, based off the warden from warcraft 3. Pure warlock, I'm not even taking Eldritch Blast, just instead using the invocations and spells to try and mimic the play style of that hero as much as possible. So blade burst for "fan of knives" and Ray of Frost with the Hex spell and the Hexblade Curse (plus Maddening Hex) to mimic "Shadow Stike". The level 6 hexblade feature kinda fits the wardens ultimate and there are various forms of "Blink" like abilities. This character isn't really gonna be optimized, but it more than likely won't be useless either.

[@wesleyjudson599]

@@slydoorkeeper4783 And that's one of the cool things about D&D 5e. If the GM is running the expected number of encounters per long rest, and following the CR system, the game is easy. My last 4 characters I have made by randomly assigning ability scores, then randomly assigning a class. And in most cases, randomly assigning spells and feats too. I have had no issues playing these characters with the rest of the party, even the 10 CHA & 17 DEX paladin. The only times my characters have struggled are in combat scenarios where the rest of the party struggled.(and usually for environmental/roleplay reasons)

[@ivanlagayacrus1891]

this is a really weird way to define action economy. action economy as ive understood it is just that the more turns your side gets relative to the enemy tends to skew the outcome in 5e, as damage doesnt change dramatically between levels, and so 7 oh i dont know, giant badgers, can and will just decimate a boss monster before it can even act, reliably, without some sort of gimmicky nuker setup from a single character hoping their rube goldberg machine of a gameplan works out

[@alexinfinite7142]

The shifting needs of the battlefield has left so many plans for an efficient action economy in the gutter

[@Sulferlines]

I think there was a slight misunderstanding with this video, or at least you saw the wrong arguments. Whenever I think about action economy or hear arguments about it, it's less about damage output and more about being able to spread different abilities across different action types, as in being able to perform a movement that gets you out of melee without getting attacked as a bonus action instead of an action for example. Action economy is about being able to use any of your actions for any of the abilities you might need to adapt to any situation with little to no punishment. Having a Reaction and a Bonus action abilities to reduce damage doesn't help me that much but if something disables my reactions I can use a bonus action instead and basically ignore a punish.

[@dodge7246]

"You know what does equal power? Power. Power equals power. Crazy, huh? But the type of power? Doesn't matter as much as you'd think. It turns out, everything is oddly balanced. Weird, but true" -Xykon the Lich, Order of the Stick, going from very right to *very* wrong in two panels

[@007ohboy]

I think this is all pretty common sense. Haste is still a GREAT spell for specialized builds that have high AC and great Concentration saves.

[@KnotSavage]

this title feels out of left field coming from the conjure animal guy

[@PackTactics]

Conjure animals is powerful.

[@christopherg2347]

There is the Action economy of the Character. And there is the action economy of the Side. The later is way more important.

[@kuality1416]

I dont see why Spiritual Guardian is that great. Spiritual Guardian effects any hostiles next to and requires a concentration check. That means any enemy close enough to take damage is close enough to attack the cleric and any hit is a chance to lose concentration and have to cast the spell again. I would use Spiritual Weapon because it doesnt require a concentration check and any attack on the enemy is a chance to down it before it downs someone else but only for that reason.

[@TheHatwolf]

That is a good take. However, I am more interested in what gator just protected us from!

[@richardboyd1790]

Good content, Kobold.