Can you still swap your equipped items freely while in combat? If so, having a plethora of equipment pieces with situation-dependent effects is yet another reason why it should cost some type of resources to swap equipment in combat (preferably 1 weapon swap per turn and you can't change your armor/accessories).
Else the issue shown with shields - where ranged characters can freely swap weaponsets to get the benefit of both their bow and shield every turn for free - is vastly expanded via all the possible weapon+armor+accessory effects. This encourages tedious gameplay where you constantly change your equipped inventory possibly multiple times per turn.
Yes, you can still do it for free.
No currently swapping your gear out in battle costs either an action or a bonus action I don't recall which, you CAN how ever move an item from one person's inventory (such as a health potion) to another freely, but yeah I swapped out my weapon mid battle at one point realized I made a mistake and had to wait till that character's turn came around to switch it back
Oh yes ! you're right I just re-checked ! it cost a full action.
I was sure I tried but I've probably got confused between my multiple playthrough.
Full action required to change/equip a weapon in combats. Good news.
