{"id":2986,"date":"2022-09-10T18:46:36","date_gmt":"2022-09-11T01:46:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/?p=2986"},"modified":"2025-05-18T23:18:29","modified_gmt":"2025-05-19T06:18:29","slug":"dd-5e-rules-action-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/2022\/09\/dd-5e-rules-action-economy.html","title":{"rendered":"D&#038;D 5e\/5.5e Rules &#8211; Action Economy!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-2984\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules-300x196.webp\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules-300x196.webp 300w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules-650x425.webp 650w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules-768x502.webp 768w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules-1200x784.webp 1200w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/Know-the-rules.webp 1300w\" alt=\"Know the Rules\" width=\"300\" height=\"196\" \/><em><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/2022\/09\/dd-5e-rules-a-prologue.html\">Part of an ongoing series of <strong>5e (2014)<\/strong> Rules notes.<\/a>\u00a0 <span style=\"color: #800000;\">This also covers <strong>5.5e (2024)<\/strong> rules.<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n<p>You will sometimes read about D&amp;D and encounters and danger levels and rules imbalance and things like that, and you&#8217;ll hear the term &#8220;Action Economy.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What&#8217;s that?<\/p>\n<p>Essentially,<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><b>the <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">larger<\/span> your Action Economy \u21d2<br \/>\nthe <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">more things<\/span> you can do in a turn \u21d2<br \/>\nthe <span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\">more powerful<\/span> you are<\/b><\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s true for individuals, as well as for groups.<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>A big part of character advances are <strong>adding more<\/strong> attacks, more Bonus Action options, etc. Similarly, more powerful monsters have more attacks and actions in a turn (including legendary and lair powers).<\/li>\n<li>All things being equal,\u00a0<b>the side that has the greater numbers of combatants has an advantage in combat<\/b>, because their cumulative Action Economy, the opportunities they have for success in combat, is greater.<\/li>\n<li><strong><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/2022\/09\/dd-5e-rules-bounded-accuracy.html\">Bounded Accuracy<\/a><\/strong> , <a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/DnDBehindTheScreen\/comments\/7d97i5\/dd_5e_action_economy_solutions\/\">as one person put it<\/a>, &#8220;makes everybody dangerous no matter how weak but does so at the cost of making everyone vulnerable no matter how strong.&#8221; Which means, by implication,\u00a0<b>over time a bunch of weak (but dangerous) characters can overwhelm a strong (but vulnerable) one<\/b>.<\/li>\n<li>PCs often have advantage in combat because designed encounters often have more PCs vs fewer (but individually more powerful) enemies. Sure, that big monster there can do three physical attacks, or maybe a big spell effect. But the PCs together often get more Attacks, Spells, Bonus Action abilities, etc., than enemies, individually or (and this is important) in aggregate. They often also get specialized Reactions others than Opportunity Attack. This only starts to partially equalize when you get up to epic creatures that have legendary and lair actions, but even there, <em>numbers tell.<\/em><\/li>\n<li><b>Everything you can do is part of\u00a0<i>your\u00a0<\/i>Action Economy<\/b>: Actions, Bonus Actions, Reactions, and Moves. The more you can set yourself up (tactically, in a battle, or strategically, in your character design) to do something effective with all of those options in a turn, the more effective (and deadly) your character will be.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<figure id=\"attachment_2987\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-2987\" style=\"width: 650px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/5e-action-economy.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-large wp-image-2987\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/5e-action-economy-650x648.png\" alt=\"5e Player Action Economy\" width=\"650\" height=\"648\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/5e-action-economy-650x648.png 650w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/5e-action-economy-300x300.png 300w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/5e-action-economy-150x150.png 150w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/5e-action-economy-768x765.png 768w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/5e-action-economy-1536x1531.png 1536w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/5e-action-economy-1200x1196.png 1200w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/5e-action-economy-100x100.png 100w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/09\/5e-action-economy.png 1687w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><\/a><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-2987\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">All the things you can do as a player. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.dungeonsolvers.com\/2018\/06\/01\/understanding-the-action-economy-in-dd-5e\/#:~:text=Player%20Character%20Action%20Economy\">Source<\/a><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In short, the Action Economy is <strong>your range and quantity of actions<\/strong> in a round (see above), and implies the need, by extension, to maximize your effectiveness by using as much of that economy as possible.<\/p>\n<h1>How do GMs cope?<\/h1>\n<p>GMs bitch a lot about this: the boss fight that&#8217;s got the arch-critter-demon you&#8217;ve had the players trembling about for months &#8230; ending with the boss going down in two rounds as the 15 attacks the party can generate per turn (action economy!) overwhelms the 4-5 the boss can. Yeah, the boss is hitting for 80 damage, but four players hitting for 20 damage each (which is kind of low at higher levels) do just as much, and six players hitting for that do even more.<\/p>\n<p>What (just to offer notes) do GMs\/module writers do in the face of this?<\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><b>They add Minions!<\/b> They&#8217;re not just color text &#8212; they help balance the &#8220;overwhelming numbers vs very powerful foe&#8221; equation by mitigating the former so that the latter can get some licks in.\u00a0 In general, the easiest way to make an encounter more difficult and dangers is not to make the BBEG more powerful, but add the number of minions and lieuts the players have to grind through (and defend against) to get to the boss.<\/li>\n<li>As mentioned, epic-level legendary creatures &#8212; dragons, liches, beholders, etc. &#8212; can <strong>get\u00a0<\/strong><b>legendary and\/or lair powers<\/b>, which basically add to their Action Economy (and hurt like the dickens). GMs often add these non-canonically to other bosses, too.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Do other things to<\/strong> <b>add to a boss&#8217;s Action Economy<\/b>. One suggestion I&#8217;ve seen that seems to have legs is making bosses, in a sense, multiple creatures (with different capabilities and HP pools and initiatives) presenting as a single creature.<\/li>\n<li><strong>Split the Party<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u00a0If the party can&#8217;t bring all of its power to bear &#8212; because it&#8217;s split up (by its own choosing or through an external force), or maybe because the attack vectors are limited (a narrow hallway, perhaps), its Action Economy is restrained.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>The converse to all of these can be used (usually by the GM) to weaken a boss that seems too big to tackle.<\/p>\n<h1><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Does this change in 5.5e?<\/span><\/h1>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/dnd-55-2024-logo.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-4197\" src=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/dnd-55-2024-logo.png\" alt=\"dnd 5.5\/2024\" width=\"215\" height=\"310\" srcset=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/dnd-55-2024-logo.png 215w, https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/dnd-55-2024-logo-208x300.png 208w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 215px) 85vw, 215px\" \/><\/a>As a game design element, it doesn&#8217;t. The 5.5e (2024) rules lean on the Action Economy as much as 5e (2014) did.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">That said, evaluating changes in 5.5e rules needs to be first and foremost done as considering <strong>how they impact the Action Economy<\/strong>. Letting people do more actions (or forcing people to do fewer actions) has a significant effect.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">For example, 5e rules about <a style=\"color: #800000;\" href=\"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/2025\/04\/dd-5e-rules-surprise.html\">Surprise<\/a> meant that the surprising party got one to two attacks on the surprised party before the surprised party could attack.<\/span><\/p>\n<ol>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Everyone rolls Initiative.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">When a Surpriser comes up in the Init order, they get to do their attack(s).<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Until a Surprised comes up in the Init order, they cannot take an Action or a Reaction.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">When a Surprised first comes up in the Init order, they can take no Actions (or Bonus Actions), but can after that point take a Reaction.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Surprised cannot take an Action (or Move) until they come up in the Init order a second time.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">That&#8217;s a <em>massive<\/em> advantage in the Action Economy &#8212; it&#8217;s very easy for a Surprised party to be, if not wiped out before they can do anything, be crippled before they can do anything.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">In 5.5e, this is (intentionally) changed to just give Surprised individuals Disadvantage in their Init roll. That means that, <em>on average,<\/em> the Surprisers will get to act first &#8212; but everyone will still act in that first round. At\u00a0<em>most<\/em> the Surprisers will get one extra attack in, but if any of the Surprised have a high basic Init bonus and\/or roll well, they might still wake up \/ become alert and attack the Surprisers even before they are themselves attacked. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">The net impact on the Action Economy is that Surprise is not quite the disaster it was in 5e, though it still means that the Surprisers will <em>usually<\/em> get at least <em>some<\/em> of their licks in first.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">There are a variety of other 5.5e changes that change that Action Economy, as an attempt to correct for perceived problems in 5e.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Tangential to this is further refinement in what is encompassed by an &#8220;Action&#8221; in 5.5e.\u00a0 The changes here look bigger than they actually are, mostly rendering more clearly what can be done as an Action and how that Action is structured (usually by calling out things a character could do and clarifying that they are a full Action):<\/span><\/p>\n<table class=\"table table-bordered\">\n<thead>\n<tr>\n<th><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #800000; text-decoration: underline;\">Action\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/th>\n<th><span style=\"text-decoration: underline;\"><span style=\"color: #800000; text-decoration: underline;\">Summary<\/span><\/span><\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n<tbody>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Attack<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Attack with a weapon or an Unarmed Strike.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Dash<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">For the rest of the turn, give yourself extra movement equal to your Speed.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Disengage<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Your movement doesn\u2019t provoke Opportunity Attacks for the rest of the turn.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Dodge<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Until the start of your next turn, attack rolls against you have DISADvantage, and you make DEXterity saves with ADVantage. You lose this benefit if you have the Incapacitated condition or if your Speed is 0.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Help<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Help another creature\u2019s ability check or attack roll, or administer first aid.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Hide<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Make a <em>Dexterity (Stealth)<\/em> check.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Influence<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Make a <em>Charisma (Deception, Intimidation, Performance, or Persuasion)<\/em> or <em>Wisdom (Animal Handling)<\/em> check to alter a creature\u2019s attitude.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Magic<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Cast a spell, use a magic item, or use a magical feature.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Ready<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Prepare to take an action in response to a trigger you define.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Search<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Make a <em>Wisdom (Insight, Medicine, Perception, or Survival)<\/em> check.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Study<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Make an <em>Intelligence (Arcana, History, Investigation, Nature, or Religion)<\/em> check.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<tr>\n<td><strong><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Utilize<\/span><\/strong><\/td>\n<td><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Use a nonmagical object.<\/span><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Note that other Actions are possible, and NPCs may have defined Actions (like &#8220;Multi-Attack&#8221;) that aren&#8217;t listed above.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"color: #800000;\">Again, this doesn&#8217;t affect the Action Economy, but does clarify that, yes, trying to Intimidate a creature takes a full Action, as does Searching for something. (This only applies while Actions are being tracked, i.e., after an Initiative roll for some sort of die-rolling conflict.)<\/span><\/p>\n<h1>Some good articles to check out:<\/h1>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.dungeonsolvers.com\/2018\/06\/01\/understanding-the-action-economy-in-dd-5e\/\">https:\/\/www.dungeonsolvers.com\/2018\/06\/01\/understanding-the-action-economy-in-dd-5e\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/tabletopjoab.com\/action-economy-in-dd-5e-explained\/\">https:\/\/tabletopjoab.com\/action-economy-in-dd-5e-explained\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbr.com\/dungeons-dragons-action-economy\/\">https:\/\/www.cbr.com\/dungeons-dragons-action-economy\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>GM counter-tactics (as, ahem, thought experiments):<\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/DnDBehindTheScreen\/comments\/7bafqr\/dd_5e_action_economy_identifying_the_problem\/\">https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/DnDBehindTheScreen\/comments\/7bafqr\/dd_5e_action_economy_identifying_the_problem\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/DnDBehindTheScreen\/comments\/7d97i5\/dd_5e_action_economy_solutions\/\">https:\/\/www.reddit.com\/r\/DnDBehindTheScreen\/comments\/7d97i5\/dd_5e_action_economy_solutions\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/theangrygm.com\/return-of-the-son-of-the-dd-boss-fight-now-in-5e\/\">https:\/\/theangrygm.com\/return-of-the-son-of-the-dd-boss-fight-now-in-5e\/<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/theangrygm.com\/elemental-boogaloo\/\">https:\/\/theangrygm.com\/elemental-boogaloo\/<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s a bit Inside Baseball, but understanding it can be the difference between PC Life or Death<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2987,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"none","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"both","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":301,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[48,44,78],"tags":[96,67,47,50],"class_list":["post-2986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-onedd","category-dd","category-dd-5e-rules","tag-action-economy","tag-dnd24","tag-dnd5e","tag-rules"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2986"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4253,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2986\/revisions\/4253"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2987"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2986"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2986"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/heroes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2986"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}