I cannot get pass (zypper install pass) to function properly. According to another thread about this the “solution” is to run pkcon remove busybox-symlinks-bash. Not sure I want to do that though, so could there be another way to solve this?
There is a GUI called passilic, but I don’t know if it’s possible to use it in your terminal.
If you decide to install, as is isn’t maintened anymore you have to disable sailjail.
The solution you talk about will have for effect to install bash proper and that will indeed let you use pass.
But if you do that, I advise you to revert back to busybox-symlink-bash before any system update because it might cause issues.
Passilic is a pass frontend so I still need pass to work.
Yes that is why I will not do that and looking for an alternative solution. 
If pass is a shellscript, you have no options if that is what you want to use.
I have seen the same misunderstanding on this forum but no, passilic is not a frontend to pass, it uses gnupg directly to decode the passwords.
You could indeed install bash and remove busybox-symlink-bash. Sailfish uses Busybox as “bash”, but it’s not fully compatible, so scripts/apps that use so-called bashims just won’t work. I installed bash on an earlier device, went fine then. Nowadays I’m using fish (which is also not bash compatible, like, at all).