Baldur's Gate 3 by Larian Games

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j00t

j00t

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Tuco said:
In BG3, an ideal party takes their turns early
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that's one of the important aspects of action economy, because if you can take your turn before the enemies, you can reduce their effectiveness, or remove them alltogether. obviously maximizing how much damage you do on that action is important, but combat in dnd is, in many ways, a war of attrition. if the enemy can hit you for maybe only 2-4 hp, but can hit you multiple times (just because of sheer number of attacks) then it forces you to use resources to do something about it. this is SIGNIFICANTLY less of an issue in bg3 because you can rest whenever you want, but normally the dm will throw multiple encounters at a party to eat up their resources so that when they get to the "boss" they've used up most of their spell slots and daily abilities, they are down on health and ways to heal.

anyway, we're getting slightly off track. action economy specifically refers to what things you can do and how you can maneuver those things to impact what things the enemies can do.
 
Phazael

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Tuco said:
seinfeld-no-thanks.gif


Action Economy is a dumb phrase, so I don't blame the community for having homebrew definitions.
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Its a fairly well established concept in gaming, especially board gaming. I am not sure what the disconnect here is, unless you are pulling an Aryasar or something.
 
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Tuco

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Phazael said:
Its a fairly well established concept in gaming, especially board gaming. I am not sure what the disconnect here is, unless you are pulling an Aryasar or something.
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The disconnect is literally everyone in this conversation has proposed a different definition of Action Economy.

Game on brothers, I'll stop shitting this thread up. Anytime someone proposes what good action economy is, I'll just ask them what their definition of Action Economy is before reading what they said about it.
 
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Burns

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Tuco said:
seinfeld-no-thanks.gif


Action Economy is a dumb phrase, so I don't blame the community for having homebrew definitions.
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Wat? Economy is the acquiring and use of resources. In the case of 5e, those resources are actions.

Party lethality does not always mean the spending and acquiring of resources. OP items and spells can boost a classes/parties lethality but not change the action economy. They are different discussions about the minutia of the game's rules.

Why talking about an action economy, as a concept, is popular is because it lays the baseline for how powerful a class/party is, regardless of items or situations.
 
Burns

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Tuco said:
The disconnect is literally everyone in this conversation has proposed a different definition of Action Economy.

Game on brothers, I'll stop shitting this thread up. Anytime someone proposes what good action economy is, I'll just ask them what their definition of Action Economy is before reading what they said about it.
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Neither of the people you quoted contradicted each other, within the confines of 5e. As Phazael said, it is about the quantity of acquiring more actions per round and it's also as Sean said, in that it maters how a class chooses to spend those actions; hence, an action economy.
 
Tuco

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Burns said:
Wat? Economy is the acquiring and use of resources. In the case of 5e, those resources are actions.
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ok, I'm with you so far
Burns said:
OP items and spells can boost a classes/parties lethality but not change the action economy.
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If I get a wand of sleep and use it to make a mob unable to use their actions, does that change the action economy?
 
Phazael

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Naw its a good topic of discussion, actually. I think its just getting muddied in the translation a bit. Lets start over a second here, going with the monk example and comparing them to another basic character the fighter.

At level one, the Monk is already out in front of the Fighter in terms of action economy, mainly due to having the option to burn the bonus action for Flurry of Blows a couple of times. This is an additional attack (limited by their Ki points) that pretty much no other character has unless they dual wield. The Monk also has the option of doing a standard unarmed strike with a bonus action (conditional on making some sort of melee attack with a "monk weapon") that does not cost any long term resources. A Fighter, conversely, has no such option unless they are dual wielding in a dex build, which gives them a somewhat weak offhand attack for a bonus action. Fairly even and very efficient for both, if you are diligent on using the bonus action attacks as a finisher on low health targets. The Monk wins out a little here because Flurry of Blows is an option when you need more damage. A STR based fighter using a beatstick weapon falls behind here because they have to generally relegate their bonus action to pushes or item actions that the monk also has access to. But it is fair to say that Push on a strong fighter knocking derps off of cliffs is really good for action economy because you are essentially trading a bonus action (which Fighters tend to have less use for, aside from movement related mechanics) for putting an enemy in a bad position (where he will have to expend actions to return to a decent fighting position) or killing them outright, thus swinging the overall action economy of the fight in your favor.

Ok so level two hits and the Monk really does not get much to bump him up in actions, but the fighter gets Action Surge. This lets the Fighter get a leg up in specific situations (amplified much more when you get Extra Attack) once per short rest. Lots of builds out there take F2 in them just to get action Surge, with the full armor option being a nice bonus. But a level later the Monk gets the option to use their bonus action to perform dashes, which means (especially early) the monk can apply direct offense while covering a great distance to key targets (like enemy casters who are using control mechanics to screw over your actions), while the fighter is still stuck using dash to get to the enemy in a lot of cases, forgoing offense. At least until you start getting items or abilities that let you Mist Step as a bonus action, which opens the game up for everyone.

Hopefully that was helpful.
 
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Burns

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Tuco said:
If I get a wand of sleep and use it to make a mob unable to use their actions, does that change the action economy?
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This is like asking if giving you a horse to ride at 150% move speed changes the fetch quest. Yes, it changes the fetch quest, but it's still a fetch quest and fits in the definition of fetch quests.

Action economy is the concept of acquiring and spending actions, which 5e generally balanced around. Nothing "changes" it's definition. People are using "change the action economy," as short hand for "use the rules of the action economy in order win in a more favorable way."

In your example, strictly speaking, a 1 round sleep would remove, at a minimum, an action and a bonus action, while only spending 1 action. So the player would be ahead in the action economy. Then one must evaluate what the npc could do with that bonus action, to be a threat. Then some monsters also have multiple actions/bonus actions.
 
Phazael

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Tuco said:
If I get a wand of sleep and use it to make a mob unable to use their actions, does that change the action economy?
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Yes. You are denying the enemy one of its potential actions per turn, changing it in your favor.
 
Seananigans

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Burns said:
This is like asking if giving you a horse to ride at 150% move speed changes the fetch quest. Yes, it changes the fetch quest, but it's still a fetch quest and fits in the definition of fetch quests.

Action economy is the concept of acquiring and spending actions, which 5e generally balanced around. Nothing "changes" it's definition. People are using "change the action economy," as short hand for "use the rules of the action economy in order win in a more favorable way."

In your example, strictly speaking, a 1 round sleep would remove, at a minimum, an action and a bonus action, while only spending 1 action. So the player would be ahead in the action economy. Then one must evaluate what the npc could do with that bonus action, to be a threat. Then some monsters also have multiple actions/bonus actions.
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Next he's going to learn when MTG players were talking about card economy they weren't talking about how much their collections were worth. Mind blown!
 
Phazael

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Hey he came in with an honest question on a deceptively complex topic. There are lots of reasons to bust Tuco's balls, but this was a legitimate inquiry.
 
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Pasteton

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Action economy is a gay term and sounds like some phrase a fag gay journalist would say. I think that’s what Rico was getting at
 
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K

k^M

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It is a dumb term, having more moves than the other guy is just gaming 101. If something you do causes their move count to get cut 50%, while avoiding the same shit to you, you are already leagues ahead of the normal mouth breathers.

Trying to define that with a catchy name is silly.
 
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j00t

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it's not a buzz term. it's literally exactly what it says. it is the economy of actions. some actions are worth more in a given situation, some are worth less. it's also not a new term, it's been around for a LOOOONG time. it's only relevant to the conversation because 5e overly relies on action economy as an avenue for balance.
 
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