How Broken Would Multiple Swift Actions Be?

[Aotrs Commander]

How game-splinteringly broken would it be to allow characters to swap out Move and Standard actions down to Swift actions a la 4E's minors? It's always bothered me a bit that you can only do one really quick thing (like go into a stance or something) per round, even if the rest of the round you stand around like a wet lettuce.

The most obvious problem would be spells, so you'd enforce the original limit of only one Quickened Spell per round (as in "spell which has been MM Quickened" as opposed to "Casting Time: Swift Action"). You might have to put in a hard cap of max two spells/powers per round, but on the other hand, I can't think of many pre-exisiting Swift Action spells so abusable that you'd break the game by allowing more than one of.

Are there are glaring abuses that would break the game, were I to apply this? The intention is allow a few more of the non-spell Swifts that it doesn't really make sense not to allow if the character is not doing anything else (with an eye to non-caster classes primarily.)

[sonofzeal]

Swapping a Move down to a Swift would be nice without being hugely broken. It's still an upgrade though, especially for casters who tend to have the most Swift options and for whom Move actions generally aren't that necessary. For this reason, I'm a bit hesitant. I think one swift a round is usually enough.

[Ashtagon]

I always understood the definitions as follows:


Standard: Takes a long time (in the context of a single round) and a fair amount of attention.
Move: Takes a long time (in the context of a single round) but is relatively brain-free.
Swift: Takes a short time (in the context of a single round) and a fair amount of attention.


With those assumptions, it seems reasonable to use a standard action to do a swift action task, but not so reasonable to use your move action to do a swift action task. Likewise, it is reasonable to use a standard action to do a move action task (which is RAW anyway).

Regarding "free actions", my house limit is three per round, with a special limit that no free action done in a specific round can be a reverse or repeat of another free action done in the same round.

[Glimbur]

The first concern I can think of is ToB boosts and counters. The limit of one swift action a turn is important to their balance. With your change it makes it more appealing to stand in one place and fight, which is part of what ToB normally helps reduce.

[sonofzeal]

The first concern I can think of is ToB boosts and counters. The limit of one swift action a turn is important to their balance. With your change it makes it more appealing to stand in one place and fight, which is part of what ToB normally helps reduce.
Counterpoint - ToB is also the only source I know of for multiple Swifts in a turn, via RKV. This implies that the Martial Adepts shouldn't bust the game too far open when that happens. It's still good though, no denying.

[Ravens_cry]

Three Words: Multiple. Quickened. Spells.
Yeah, that would be fairly expensive in terms of resources, either gold via Quicken Metamagic Rods, or spells through the default way, but there is probably not a wizard alive who wouldn't love, love, love it.

[Acanous]

Huh. I always thought that you COULD trade a standard for a move or a swift.
must just be a widely used house rule.

[Ernir]

It's a step up for everyone, more for those with good uses for swift actions, like casters. Even with only one quickened spell per round, you can now quicken a spell, activate a swift magic item (or cast a swift action spell), and cast a standard action spell.
Also, now the chance of next round's swift+standard spell combo being ruined if you use an immediate action is even lower.

ToB characters could do boost + boost + strike combos.

Buffing up gets a lot easier in general.

But most importantly, I can't really see the good coming out of it. I mean, why would you want to throw another wildcard into the game's already fragile action economy?

[Jeff the Green]

Three Words: Multiple. Quickened. Spells.
Yeah, that would be fairly expensive in terms of resources, either gold via Quicken Metamagic Rods, or spells through the default way, but there is probably not a wizard alive who wouldn't love, love, love it.

Even with multiple swift actions, you can't cast more than one quickened spell per round:

Benefit
Casting a quickened spell is an swift action. You can perform another action, even casting another spell, in the same round as you cast a quickened spell. You may cast only one quickened spell per round. A spell whose casting time is more than 1 full round action cannot be quickened. A quickened spell uses up a spell slot four levels higher than the spell’s actual level. Casting a quickened spell doesn’t provoke an attack of opportunity.

[That_guy_there]

The other problem I've encountered is activating magic items. Certain triggers require a swift mental action to preform (details elude me at the moment) and this has been an issue in a handful of campaigns I've played in.

Imagine triggering a swift activation item to give a luck boost to AC, a swift activation to trigger an item that increases your CON, and a swift action to activate swift rage. For example... someone in a pc group I was in argued something like this when the dm house ruled the ability to trade ki for additional swift actions

[Novawurmson]

I agree that being able to trade down a Standard action for a swift would be fine, with a Move action to swift being an iffy area.

[Aotrs Commander]

First, thanks for all the input, folks!


The first concern I can think of is ToB boosts and counters. The limit of one swift action a turn is important to their balance. With your change it makes it more appealing to stand in one place and fight, which is part of what ToB normally helps reduce.

I don't see that as a problem. ToB isn't overpowered anyway (and indeed ToB boost and counters was one of the things I was thinking about). And given our play style tends to result in fighters and such getting their iterative attacks anyway, I don't see Adepts choosing to stand still more a problem, either.


Three Words: Multiple. Quickened. Spells.
Yeah, that would be fairly expensive in terms of resources, either gold via Quicken Metamagic Rods, or spells through the default way, but there is probably not a wizard alive who wouldn't love, love, love it.

Obviously, which is why in the second paragraph of the OP I said I'd be keeping them strictly to only one MM Quickened Spell per round (regardless of source).

If there are enough abusable spells that already have a Swift-action casting time, I'd simply have to enforce a maximum two spells/powers per round, but off the top of my head, I can't think of many swift spells that are that open to abuse.


It's a step up for everyone, more for those with good uses for swift actions, like casters. Even with only one quickened spell per round, you can now quicken a spell, activate a swift magic item (or cast a swift action spell), and cast a standard action spell.

Now here's the crux of the point above. Are there enough swift action spells that would make that completely broken, and if so, which ones?

I don't see a problem with, say, Quickened Divine Power, standard Righteous Might and, say, Blade of Blood... So what are the spells that are most abusable in that sort of circumstance?

And several people have said casters get better non-spell swift actions. Can you give me the examples?

Magic item abuse is less of an issue, since I have just dealt with two campaigns converted from AD&D to 3.5, during which wealth-by-level was irrelevant and they were grossly over-kitted. (One of these of which went to Epic (about L22), and the players were told unilaterally that they were not allowed to buy Epic kit, because they had enough stuff to be going on with without opening that can of worms!)

So the days of the PCs being able to buy magic items willy-nilly is numbered (especially since for my homebrew world, magic items are extraordinarily rare, and instead everyone gets a numbers progression for basic stuff (like weapons/armour/AC/stat boosts) instead. However, I say "less of", not "non-issue", so again, it would be useful to know what to watch out for.

(The Belt of Battle is already on the not allowed list, for example. One of players once told me what it did and said "if I ask if I can have of these, you're just going to laugh aren't you?" He was right.)


Buffing up gets a lot easier in general.

Yes, but for everyone. Including the NPCs, which in my games comprise 90% of the opposition. And I run on the basis that anything the PC use and abuse, the NPCs will use and abuse it right back at them. (Hell, about half of the NPC clerics they run into these days are already pre-CoDzilla-buffed up to the gills anyway!)

Anything as DM I can't use on the PCs as it would result in an automatic win, the PCs don't get to use on the NPCs either - or vice versa; hense why, for example, I have unilaterially banned karma prayer beads, never allowed nightsticks and revised Holy Word (et al) to Save: Will negates.


ToB characters could do boost + boost + strike combos.


Imagine triggering a swift activation item to give a luck boost to AC, a swift activation to trigger an item that increases your CON, and a swift action to activate swift rage.

That was kinda the entire point of the exercise, though.

(You could, in fact, do that anyway if you had an item that was a standard (or move) action to activate, and rage is a free action in any case.)



So, the general consensus seems to be it's possibly too powerful. Alternatives would include a flat cap on the number of spells/powers cast per round to two (mirroring standard/swift/quickened, with exceptions for spells/powers that can be cast as Move actions (e.g. some of the psionic Dimension Door/Slide which I think can) or only allowing a standard action to be traded for a swift.

Before I finally make up my mind, some specific (abusive) examples would be useful, if anyone would be gracious enough to provide them.



(Bearing in mind that as you can have gathered, I have taken a hatchet to a fair number of the most abusable things, so if it's a fairly small number of things, I am quite prepared to errata, modify or otherwise bring into line with the intent if necessary. I am the sort of person who cheerfully chucked the monster manual and cosmology out of the window and rebuilt the bestiary from scratch on my homebrew world, as well as replacing Vancian casting with something closer not not quite mana points (which I still playing with), and worries about things like luna cycles and how it affects tides and such; so there's no really a limit of how far I'll go!)

[Flickerdart]

Anyone determined enough at high levels can snap the action economy in half anyway. I don't see this being that much of a change past, say, level 10, but low level gishes would see this as a godsend - there are a ton of 1-round duration swift action spells at levels 1 and 2, and being able to double up on them (before you need to take a full round action to full attack, anyway) would be really useful.

[Tyndmyr]

How would this work with immediate actions?

See also, wand of wings of cover.

[Ashtagon]

How would this work with immediate actions?


It uses up your swift for the next round as usual. I'm happy for a player to do two immediates in one round by burning his next swift and his next standard.


See also, wand of wings of cover.

Wings of cover is basically a "bleep you" to a single attack. Burning an immediate action is the only way the spell even makes sense.

Personally, if you wanted to use your next swift and your next standard action to cast that spell twice in one round as immediate actions, I'm cool with that. It means you aren't doing much next round anyway.

Wings of cover doesn't make sense as a wand though. Using a wand is always at least a standard action regardless the spell in it, and that spell only makes sense as a reaction to an attack.

Similarly, you can't use a wand of feather fall when you are already falling.

[Aotrs Commander]

How would this work with immediate actions?

See also, wand of wings of cover.

I'd still only let characters have one Immediate action.

Wings of Cover specifically will not be a problem, as it's in a book we don't have or use.

(And, given as it's one of those fairly frequently cited as being too good, there's a fair chance I probably wouldn't have allowed it even if we did.)

I'm sort of hoping, that some of the potential combos that are abusable come partly from sources I don't use anyway; but please don't take it amiss if you bring something up and I say, "don't use it" because it's still well worth me knowing about anyway!

(There would be little point in me listing what I do use, though, since I don't allow or disallow on a by-book-basis, but on a more individual level (at great time expense, we have lists of spells and feats from what books we do use, plus some homebrew... and they are, say they say, slightly to expansive to post on the forum!). And some things I do use I errata, as well.)

[Draz74]

I agree that being able to trade down a Standard action for a swift would be fine, with a Move action to swift being an iffy area.

This. When I DM, I allow swapping a Standard to gain an additional Swift. It just makes sense. But move actions are their own thing.

[eggs]

Even with multiple swift actions, you can't cast more than one quickened spell per round:
That's a relic from before Swift actions were implemented.

Swift actions were designed as "Free actions that share Quicken's 1/round limit," so only partially reverting to the initial limit would be all sorts of bizarre (would other quickened X powers get the same individual 1/round limit, for something like 1 Quickened Spell, 1 Quickened Power, 1 Quickened SLA, 1 Quickened Mystery and 1 Quickened Utterance each round?).

[Optimator]

Huh. I always thought that you COULD trade a standard for a move or a swift.
must just be a widely used house rule.

My group the trading up actions house rule a la Star Wars Saga Edition. But we house rule that there can only be one quickened spell (so the max would be two total, one quickened and one as a standard action). It's been fine so far.