[ammulder]

There are a number of places where when you do something that normally takes a minor action, some equipment or advantage says "gain a bonus minor action" when you do it.  For instance, ejecting a clip with a wireless smartgun link: use a minor action, gain a bonus minor action.

I'm not quite clear on why there's this "gain a bonus minor action" mechanic instead of making the thing free to do.

Is it just because there's no more free actions, so they don't want to say things are free?

Or is the unstated concept that you might not gain the bonus minor action if you're already at your limit of 5 minor actions for the turn?  The wording there is not completely clear to me: "Characters may never start a player turn with more than 5 Minor Actions. If they would have earned more through any circumstances, that number is reduced to 5."  One of these "gain a bonus minor action" actions wouldn't result in you starting a player turn with more than 5 minor actions, but it would count as you "earned more though any circumstances".

So if you have 4 initiative dice (action allotment: 1 major + 5 minor) and eject a clip via your wireless smartgun link, potentially giving you a 6th minor action that turn, do you get the bonus minor action or not?

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

It's because there are supposed to be no "free actions" in 6e.  Spend a minor to gain a minor is the 6e equivalent to 5e's Free Actions.  The overall benefit is in 5e you had a finite number of Free Actions (despite the name) whereas in 6e you can spend a minor to gain a minor pretty much indefinitely, so long as you keep having appropriate gear that grants it!

It's not meant to establish a ceiling on how many minors you can take in total... the "you can't start your player turn with more than X minor actions" clearly only places the restriction on the start of your turn.   Why does it exist?  I believe it's meant to be a bit of future-proofing to preemptively wall off any loopholes that might have allowed for a ridiculous stack of minor actions.  I also think the cap of 5 vs 6 was chosen to make it a painful choice to spend 4 minors in place of a 2nd major.. if you do that, you only have 1 more minor at maximum to share between self defense, movement, taking cover, etc.  spending 4 minors and THEN still having 2 more minors left over?  That's pretty viable, and therefore makes it kind of a no brainer to go for 2 majors rather than being a choice with real pros and cons.

[Xenon]

Note that mechanically you also need to actually have a spare minor action to use in order to use the action.

[Michael Chandra]

Honestly, given how some writers were actually surprised it now was 1+Dice in Minors, I strongly suspect the limit of 5 was a mistake myself from a previous version of the rules, and that it exists to go 'the max you can get, is the max you can get, even if we later introduce ways of getting extra Minors (iirc there's already at least 1 thing doing so), you're still facing a cap so you can't toss out 3+ attacks'.

Anyway yeah, the limit applies at turn start. The 'spend a minor, get a minor' is meant to give basic Free Actions while it still restrict you because eventually you run out of Minors and can't do extra stuff anymore, and many of these things are once-per-turn so no infinite use.

[Xenon]

Honestly, given how some writers were actually surprised it now was 1+Dice in Minors, I strongly suspect the limit of 5 was a mistake myself from a previous version of the rules

Agreed.

From the sticky house rule thread:

Max number of actions
Characters may never start a player turn with more than 6 Minor Actions. If they would have earned more through any circumstances, that number is reduced to 6

[MercilessMing]

"Spend a minor, get a minor" is the type of awkward needless complexity SR needs to be shedding.  If there's something meaningfully smaller than a Minor action, then there needs to be another action category.  IE  Free Actions, or DNI actions, or whatever.

[Michael Chandra]

But they're not Free Actions. You must have a Minor left to do them, and some only apply once a turn. If I got 4 Minors, I can't go 'I'm doing a second attack, THEN do minor-for-minor stuff'.

[ammulder]

It wouldn't matter if you want to switch your wireless smartgun firing mode until the cows come home.  I can see the cybered-up Street Sam endlessly changing firing modes as a nervous tic.    Even so, if these things were just made free, there could be a rule that you can't perform the same free action more than once per turn, so at most you could eject a clip, put a new one in, and change the firing mode for your wireless smartgun all on the same round.  Doesn't seem like a big deal.

I guess the question is whether there are any of these bonus minor action things that would actually be offensive to perform after the rest of your actions for a turn.

I don't see any -- ejecting clips, folding bipods, changing the color of your clothes or gun, stuff like that.  The most questionable one I see in the core book is the Steel Lynx combat drone "Take Cover" action... and I could live if that one model of drone got a free "Take Cover" action at the end of its turn in exchange for removing this odd mechanic.

[Odsh]

But they're not Free Actions. You must have a Minor left to do them

Is that constraint really useful or needed? Or is it just a consequence of the awkward mechanisms imagined to avoid "free" actions?

[MercilessMing]

But they're not Free Actions. You must have a Minor left to do them

Is that constraint really useful or needed? Or is it just a consequence of the awkward mechanisms imagined to avoid "free" actions?

In my real world experience this mechanic has not led to choices with interesting or meaningful consequences, nor has it led to preventing infinite action exploits.  It has however led to people tripping on this rule and then going back to do things in a slightly different order, which is a level of micromanagement of actions that roleplayers don't find fun because we're not playing a tactical board game.

[Xenon]

Introducing a 3rd type of action (limited number of Free Actions per combat turn) as we had back in 5th edition is not the solution.

Instead either keep it as is (if you have at least one minor action left then this action can be taken for free).
Or simply make them free actions (if you have the prerequisite then it cost 0 minor actions).



I think the intent from the beginning was that some actions cost a major action (for example fully replacing a drum magazine) or perhaps multiple minor actions (for example one minor action to eject a clip magazine and another minor action for inserting a new clip magazine) but if you have the correct prerequisite (for example
a  properly linked smartgun) then you would get one minor action back (eject the drum magazine or the clip magazine for "free" since this is just a mental command instead of actually pressing the eject magazine button) which mean an action that previously costed a major action (replacing a drum magazine) would still cost a major action but you would get a spare minor action that you can spend on something else and an action that previously costed two minor actions (eject clip and insert new clip) would now just cost one minor action.

[ammulder]

Saying XYZ "is free" or "requires 0 Minor Actions" is pretty clear.

Saying XYZ "costs a minor action then grants you a bonus minor action", as you can tell from the fact that I started this thread, is not as clear.  It makes me wonder why that cumbersome process exists instead of just making the thing free, then thinking there must be some underlying reason I'm not seeing that involves some other rules because otherwise it would have just said "is free".  And that started me thinking about the minor action limit, and it spiraled down from there.

So meaning "free" but saying "costs a minor action then grants you a bonus minor action"... I don't think that was a great decision.

I notice Firing Squad has some additional uses of this language, but I still haven't found any usage where it's meaningfully better to have the thing in question limited in any way instead of just being "free" or "cost 0 minor actions".

Thinking further about the one drone Take Cover case I mentioned, it's especially useless because taking cover very well might BE the last thing you'd want to do on your turn... so saying you can do it as a bonus but you're forced to have at least one minor action in reserve both before and after the Take Cover action kind of negates the point of the bonus to begin with.  If it was free it would actually be useful because you could do everything you wanted and THEN take cover.

Not that I really expect any kind of official change at this point post-publication, but hey. 

[Xenon]

If it was free it would actually be useful because you could do everything you wanted and THEN take cover.

Which mean it isn't 100% 'free'. There is still a 'cost' associated with it. You can't 'always' take advantage of it. Getting a minor action back is not the same thing as 'free' ;-)

If you have 4 minor actions and take 2 attacks then you are out of actions. If you had 5 minor actions then you would be able to take 2 attacks, a "free" action and then still have a minor action to use retroactively if needed.


But yes, since there are no major actions where you can get a free minor action or actions that cost more than one minor action where you can get a minor action they complicated it a bit by giving you a minor action back.....

[Typhus]

Seems like the simpler route to go would have been to just limit people to one free action per turn, and let a minor convert to a free with cyber.  Or call it a non-action or something and keep it out of the economy if multiple nons- are allowed in a turn.  Or like D&D bonus actions, you don't get one unless an ability gives you one.  Feels like there's better options other than spend-and-refund. 

[Michael Chandra]

Costs and grants is better imo. No 3 types of actions to balance out, easier to go 'you only get it back once per turn for this action' than 'you only get discounted to free once per turn', and it means that if you spend it all, it's actually gone. Furthermore, if something suddenly becomes 'Free', you get people arguing they can do so outside initiative because hey, it's free no? So honestly, I don't see the problem with this system, I find it better than Free-Simple-Complex.