How D&D 2024 (5.5e) Makes Better Use of Your Action Economy

Doing more with your turn in D&D 5.5e.

More fluidity in features

This is one that has been altered in lots of small ways to accomplish something big. Every class has been reworked and part of that design philosophy has been to ensure that different features easily weave within your action economy.

There are loads of ways this has been woven into the new classes, but below are a few examples of this:

• Druid wild shape: Previously required an action, now requires a bonus action
• Bard’s countercharm: Previously required an action to anticipate being frightened or charmed, now uses a reaction when one of these saving throws is failed
• College of glamour bard’s enthralling performance: This required a minute but has been replaced by mantle of inspiration which requires a bonus action
• Eldritch knight fighter’s war magic: Previously required spending an action to cast a cantrip and then make an attack with your bonus action. Now allows you to replace an attack with a cantrip leaving your bonus action free

I could go on here, but I just wanted to showcase some of the many little tweaks that D&D 2024 makes to allow your turns to be more fluid and do more.

In 5e, it required a full action for a druid to wild shape leaving you with a setup turn (which personally, I hate). The bard’s countercharm was practically useless as anticipating a condition is problematic enough, spending an action to prevent it for one round is rough on your action economy and enemies would probably change tactics if you activated it anyway.

Eldritch knights can now dual wield or cast bonus action spells (like misty step) while using cantrips and attacks. War magic also scales better as they gain additional attacks making their spellcasting more frequent and less of a utility option.

I find all these changes lead to classes and subclasses that just synergise better together and allow you to do more on your turn.

Flexible features

It’s not just the flexibility of what features can be used within your action economy, many features are just more flexible in their application.

Let’s take a rogue for example. Rogues should be slippery fellows with plenty of tricks up their sleeves, and while they have a bit of this with their cunning action, their attacks in 5e 2014 have been all about landing as much sneak attack damage as possible. But in D&D 2024, they’ve been given some more flexibility here through their cunning strike feature. This allows you to trade some sneak attack damage for an effect like knocking prone or causing the poisoned condition.

Barbarians can maintain rage more flexibly too. Before you had to make an attack or take damage or it would end (frustrating if the enemy escaped your range). The 2024 barbarian now lets you maintain rage if you cause an enemy to make a saving throw as well as if you make an attack. Even then, if you can’t do either of these, you can still use your bonus action to maintain your rage (potentially allowing you to dash with your action to reach your enemies more quickly).

Weaker options now accomplish more

One other issue in 5e 2014 was that some options for your actions were comparatively weaker than other options. For example, healing was always comparatively less impactful than dealing damage which could lead to it just being used to recover allies on 0HP. A lot of healing spells have now had their healing scaled up. For example, cure wounds now heals 2d8 + modifier (was 2d8 + modifier) and healing word is now 2d4 + modifier (was 1d4 + modifier). All of this makes using healing more worthwhile in D&D 2024.

There’s also been a well documented disparity between the power levels of martials and casters. Weapon mastery means most weapon attacks for martials with this feature now have extra effects layered on top going some way to addressing this disparity and making martials more tactical.

Even something like dual wielding can be more worthwhile as if you layer the nick weapon mastery onto this, you can keep your bonus action free for something else or even (if you take the dual wielder feat) make another attack.

Some features have become just more powerful too. For example, an artificer’s spell storing item can now be stored with level 3 spells rather than being limited to level 2 spells as it was before (which is a massive buff)!

Monks also get buffed by having a higher martial arts die at each level and their flurry of blows gets an upgrade at level 10 allowing them to make even more attacks.

Potions are quicker to use

This gets it’s own section because I didn’t have anywhere else to put it, but it’s also an important one. So important in fact, that it’s often been homebrewed into games anyway. Now it’s official though, potions only need a bonus action to use instead of the action they needed before.

But some options are weaker for the sake of balance

Not everything has been buffed though. A few options that were actually a bit unbalancing have been toned down a little. For example, paladins must use divine smite as a bonus action and a spell so it can’t be paired with another casting of a smite spell. Paladins have typically been one of the more powerful classes and this prevents them having quite as nova damage turns as they had.

Similarly, druids have had their boosted HP from wild shape limited by a fair bit. This generally makes them a bit more interesting than just being a big sack of hit points.

Is it worth upgrading for D&D 2024?

I definitely think so! This isn’t the only improvement that’s been made in D&D 2024, but it is one of the big ones that’s come from a multitude of small of changes. D&D 2024 is just more fluid, flexible and satisfying for PCs with a lot more synergy between features and actions.

Spotlight on D&D 2024