The action economy of D&D Next
Another post in the D&D Next developer's blog is about the action economy, that is the rules that govern how much stuff you can do in a turn. In 4th edition you can do one standard action, one movement action, and one minor action during your turn, as well as an unlimited number of immediate interrupts and immediate reactions. In D&D Next you can do one action and one movement during your turn, and one reaction between turns. I really like the latter part; I might use it as a house rule for my 4E campaign to keep combat flowing smoothly.
While you might think the rules for actions are clear in 4E and leave little room for interpretation, you would be wrong there. That's why I love watching YouTube live sessions of D&D, because seeing how other DMs handle situations can be very interesting. For example the 4E rules state that taking a healing potion is a minor action. So in my campaign I let players quaff a potion as a minor action, in a turn where they already did a standard and a movement action. But in one of the D&D videos the DM ruled it as: Put away your weapon as a minor action (unless you want to drop it as a free action), search your backback for the potion as a minor action, quaff the potion as a minor action, and re-equip your weapon as a minor action. The player managed to negotiate that down from 4 minor actions to 3, by claiming to have his potions ready on his belt. But that still took him all the actions of his round, as he had to transform his standard and movement action into minor actions to get 3 minor actions that turn.
Having only one action per turn ends up with two possibilities if a player tries something minor, like drinking a potion: The minor action can be "free", or it can consume the action for the turn. D&D Next leans towards the former solution, but then has to rely on the DM's judgment to decide how many of these minor actions a player can do during his turn. But of course if doing something minor would require a player to basically skip his turn and not attack, he would be unlikely to want to do it. Imagine the same DM ruling that drinking a potion takes 4 actions in D&D Next, and you effectively eliminated the use of potions from the game. On the other hand you probably don't want a player to define his action for the turn to be "I put away my weapons, take a running leap to jump over the table, grab the chandelier, swing on the chandelier over to the other side of the room while quaffing a healing potion, drop behind the enemy, pull out my weapon, and backstab him". Different DMs will most likely require different amounts of actions to pull this stunt off. That is the disadvantage of having rules with phrases like "a DM could reasonably expect you to use an action". Interpretations of what is "reasonable" tend to vary widely, especially in a fantasy game.
While you might think the rules for actions are clear in 4E and leave little room for interpretation, you would be wrong there. That's why I love watching YouTube live sessions of D&D, because seeing how other DMs handle situations can be very interesting. For example the 4E rules state that taking a healing potion is a minor action. So in my campaign I let players quaff a potion as a minor action, in a turn where they already did a standard and a movement action. But in one of the D&D videos the DM ruled it as: Put away your weapon as a minor action (unless you want to drop it as a free action), search your backback for the potion as a minor action, quaff the potion as a minor action, and re-equip your weapon as a minor action. The player managed to negotiate that down from 4 minor actions to 3, by claiming to have his potions ready on his belt. But that still took him all the actions of his round, as he had to transform his standard and movement action into minor actions to get 3 minor actions that turn.
Having only one action per turn ends up with two possibilities if a player tries something minor, like drinking a potion: The minor action can be "free", or it can consume the action for the turn. D&D Next leans towards the former solution, but then has to rely on the DM's judgment to decide how many of these minor actions a player can do during his turn. But of course if doing something minor would require a player to basically skip his turn and not attack, he would be unlikely to want to do it. Imagine the same DM ruling that drinking a potion takes 4 actions in D&D Next, and you effectively eliminated the use of potions from the game. On the other hand you probably don't want a player to define his action for the turn to be "I put away my weapons, take a running leap to jump over the table, grab the chandelier, swing on the chandelier over to the other side of the room while quaffing a healing potion, drop behind the enemy, pull out my weapon, and backstab him". Different DMs will most likely require different amounts of actions to pull this stunt off. That is the disadvantage of having rules with phrases like "a DM could reasonably expect you to use an action". Interpretations of what is "reasonable" tend to vary widely, especially in a fantasy game.
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