Fyorl
commented
5 months ago From @JPMeehan
Increasingly in official and 3rd party supplements there are abilities that have a line like "When you take the Attack action on your turn, you can replace one of your attacks..." that are meant to work alongside Extra Attack. Having an activation cost of "Attack" would be a good way to label these.
At the moment, the Activation Cost of attacks are represented as "Action" in the system, such as on weapons in the SRD item compendium.
However, attacks are not always Actions. There are many characters with features that allow them to perform attacks other than as a full Action, whether as only part of their Attack action (Extra Attack, Multiattack) or as their Bonus Action (two-weapon fighting). Likewise, there are combat maneuvers, such as Grappling and Shoving, that can be used in place of one of the character's attacks. In cases where maneuvers like that are represented as active features, having to label them as requiring an Action is not only inaccurate, it can be actively deceptive.
I think the option of specifying "Attack" as the Activation Cost for weapons and attack-replacing features would do wonders for clarity, especially for newer players. It's a small detail, but it's a core mechanic of D&D that feels like the kind of thing people shouldn't have to make compromises about when setting up character sheets.