Druid, Circle of Stars "Archer Starry Form" and Lvl 10 Twinkling Constellations form change: How many Luminous Arrow attacks can you make in one turn?

Question

Starry Form At 2nd level, you gain the ability to harness constellations' power to alter your form. As a bonus action, you can expend a use of your Wild Shape feature to take on a starry form, rather than transforming into a beast.

Whenever you assume your starry form, choose which of the following constellations glimmers on your body; your choice gives you certain benefits while in the form:

Archer. A constellation of an archer appears on you. When you activate this form, and as a bonus action on your subsequent turns while it lasts, you can make a ranged spell attack, hurling a luminous arrow that targets one creature within 60 feet of you. On a hit, the attack deals radiant damage equal to 1d8 + your Wisdom modifier.

Twinkling Constellations At 10th level, the constellations of your Starry Form improve. The 1d8 of the Archer and the Chalice becomes 2d8, and while the Dragon is active, you have a flying speed of 20 feet and can hover.

Moreover, at the start of each of your turns while in your Starry Form, you can change which constellation glimmers on your body.

A) If you are in either of the other two Starry Forms (Chalice or Dragon) and change into Archer form at the start of your turn using the Twinkling Constellations feature, can you make a ranged spell attack as part of the form change without expending a bonus action?

B) Can you make a ranged spell attack with a bonus action on the same turn after you change into Archer form at the start of your turn using the Twinkling Constellations feature?

The language specifies "as a bonus action on your subsequent turns" which would prevent using a bonus action to attack on the same turn as the form change aka B). However, without the Twinkling Constellations feature, the form change itself uses a bonus action and makes an attack as part of it. This creates an ambiguous interaction when used together where either 0-2 luminous arrow attacks could be made on the same turn depending on the rulings of A) and B):

• If A=Yes and B=Yes: 2 Ranged Spell Attacks
• If A=Yes and B=No: 1 Ranged Spell Attack (as a free action)
• If A=No and B=Yes: 1 Ranged Spell Attack (as a bonus action)
• If A=No and B=No: 0 Ranged Spell Attack

Answer 1

You can make one attack as a bonus action each turn

To change into your starry form normally requires a bonus action to expend one use of your Wild Shape feature. When Starry Form says

When you activate this form, and as a bonus action on your subsequent turns while it lasts, you can make a ranged spell attack,

"Activate" refers to your use of Wild Shape to take on a Starry Form. "Subsequent turns" refers to when you already are in a Starry Form. Because activating starry form consumes your bonus action, you would not be able to attack that turn as only have one bonus action in a turn, so you get to do it as part of the activation.

If you change between constallation forms later on, you are not Activating the feature to pick a form, you are just changing. All those turns are subsequent to the original activation. So:

A: No, you do not get a free attack for changing form. B: Yes, subsequent turns you are in Archer Form allow you to make an attack.

You get to make one attack with your bonus action each turn.

Now, it would have been entirely unambigous if the text of the strarry form feature would have used the word "activate" instead of "take on". Because it did not, there remains a bit of ambiguity, and your DM might decide to read this feature in a different way, and come to different solutions. But there are already explicit power boosts to each individual form in the Twinking Constellation feature. I think it is is unlikely that the intended function of changing is to supercharge the Archer Form or to make it entirely useless.